[dalamb]Terry Brooks FAQ
Imran
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Last-modified: 19 Aug 1998
URL: http:://members.xoom.com/ImranG/
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alt.books.terry-brooks FAQ
Version 1.1
Originally by Mark Dunne, mdu...@iol.ie
Current maintainer Imran Ghory, imr...@btinternet.com
FAQ Last updated: 19 Aug 1998
Please reply if you have any suggestions
or comments on this FAQ.
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CONTENTS(followed by last update date)
1.0] About this FAQ
1.1] Recent updates
1.2] Acknowledgements
1.3] Copyrights
2.0] Who is Terry Brooks?
2.1] Terry Brooks himself.
2.2] Terry Brooks' Books
3.0] What other Brooks stuff is out there ?
3.1] Have any of his books been made in to films/movies.
3.2] Have any of his books been made in to computer games.
4.0] Other internet Terry Brooks resources.
4.1] IRC
4.2] Mailing Lists
4.3] ICQ
4.4] Web pages
5.0] Coping with spoilers.
6.0] Latest Brooks news.
6.1] What are his plans for the future ?
6.2] When will his books be released ?
---
1.0] About this FAQ
First of all, if you're a newcomer to alt.books.terry-brooks, welcome!
Secondly, this is the alt.books.terry-brooks FAQ, which it would be
nice to read :-)
A HTML version is available form my website
http:://members.xoom.com/ImranG/ but its slightly out of date.
1.1] Recent updates
7 AUG 1998: This section has been updated, some more Terry Brooks news
has been added, and this FAQ has been sent to news.answers for
approval.
1.2] Acknowledgements
First and foremost to Terry Brooks(inevitably), and DelRey and also
to,
Celia Malm
Mark Dunne
The Book Report (www.thebookreport.com)
And everyone who commented on the first draft FAQ(I would credit you
but I've lost the original thread) :(
1.3] Copyrights
The names and the content of the books are copyright to Terry Brooks.
This FAQ is copyrighted by me(Imr...@btinternet.com) and everyone else
who contributes to it, Non-commercial distribution is permitted(but it
would be nice if you asked me first). Commercial distribution is not
permitted without express permission.
---
2] Who is Terry Brooks?
If you have to ask this question, perhaps your in the wrong group :}
2.1] Terry Brooks himself.
Terry Brooks is the author of two series of bestselling fantasy
novels, the Shannara series and the Magic Kingdom of Landover series.
He was born in Sterling, Illinois in 1944, and spent the first 40
years of his life there. Brooks received an undergraduate degree in
English Literature from Hamilton College in New York State, and a law
degree from Washington & Lee University in Virginia. He practiced law
for many years, working during the day and writing at night. He wrote
his first four books on that schedule, leaving law to write full time
in 1986.
Suits us :-) The more he writes, the happier we get.
His first novel, the Sword of Shannara was published in 1977, and
subsequently appeared on the New York Times best-seller list - the
first work of fiction to do so.<I'm not sure about this, but that's
what he said in an interview >
As to favour towards him on the internet among fantasy fans there
seems to be a split opinion as in the,
Recommended Fantasy Authors List
(http://www.sff.net/people/Amy.Sheldon/listcont.htm)
Terry Brooks is sixth.
But in the,
THE INTERNET TOP 100 SF/FANTASY LIST
(http://www.clark.net/pub/iz/Books/Top100/top100.html)
he's not even in the top 100 <gasp>
2.2] Terry Brooks' Books
The books are, of course, wonderful (well, what did you expect from a
newsgroup which discusses them :-). Perhaps the more widely discussed
on this newsgroup are the Shannara books, which are as follows:
---Prequel---
First King of Shannara
---First Three---
Sword of Shannara
Elfstones of Shannara
Wishsong of Shannara
---Heritage of Shannara---
Scions of Shannara
Druid of Shannara
Elfqueen of Shannara
Talismans of Shannara
This list orders them in the order in which the events in them happen
-
e.g., the events in First King of Shannara happen before the events in
Sword of Shannara. However, First King of Shannara is in fact the most
recently written of the novels. While they are best read in the order
as above, First King is a bit dubious. There are good reasons for
reading it both before or after the other books - it obviously is
written to take advantage of the previously published works, but it
also is a good prequel(although this is arguable).
However, the books which are grouped together should be read in that
order, especially the Heritage series, as they form a single story.
The second series he wrote, the Magic Kingdom series is as follows:
Magic Kingdom For Sale..SOLD!
The Black Unicorn
Wizard at Large
The Tangle Box
Witches Brew
These to be read one after meals in the order above until the course
is finished. :-)
The third series he wrote, the Word and the Void series(unofficial
name), is as follows:
Running with the Demon
A Knight of the Word
---
3] What other Brooks stuff is out there ?
3.1]Have any of his books been made in to films/movies.
Not yet although he is interested in doing so, when in an interview he
was asked,
"Any movies in the works based on any of your novels?"
The reply was,
"Lots of interest, no money."
3.2]Have any of his books been made in to computer games.
There was an Shannara game CD-ROM put out by Legend. The game is set
in the time period after Sword of Shannara and is an "interactive
novel" and you get to play Shea's son Jak. The game is still
available from http://www.Legendent.com for about $20 (US).
---
5] Other internet Terry Brooks resources.
Here is a comprehensive guide to TB internet resources on the web,
5.1] IRC
The following channels can be found on DalNet,
#South_Road_Inn (FFRP/OOC)
(It's page is http://personalwebs.myriad.net/getsc/irc/SRInn.htm )
#Anne's_House
(web page is at http://pw2.netcom.com/~permalm/shannara.html)
4.2] Mailing Lists
There is a mailing list about all things Terry Brooks.
You can find details on how to join at,
http://pw2.netcom.com/~permalm/shannara.html
Or alternatively you could email permalm(at)ix(dot)netcom(dot)com
and ask her to put you on it, stating if you would prefer to receive
the digested version or the regular version. For those who don't know
the difference between the two types, In digest you get all the
messages for the day (if any) in one long post. If you are a lurker
that doesn't like to get too many pieces of e-mail, I'd suggest the
digest version. If you want to participate fairly often, and/or don't
mind a lot of e-mail on the occasions when the list gets busy, choose
regular.
4.3] ICQ
There is an ICQ Chat room for Terry Brooks, its UIN is 9601207.
4.4] Web pages
A list of all web pages is available in a separate list now, it
currently has 77 sites in 9 languages
---
5] Spoilers
Spoilers are defined as follows: Any major piece of information
regarding events, characters or items beyond naming, vague references
or indications, should be regarded a s a spoiler. E.g., It's perfectly
okay to say something like "When Allanon was at the Hadeshorn in
Shannara, was he wearing his cloak inside out or not?" as it doesn't
give anything about the story away. Also, because it's pretty
irrelevant, but you get what I'm saying :-) However, something like
"When Bremen turns Brona into a fluffy bunny rabbit, exterminates the
troll nation and makes Walker Boh become President of the USA, why
does he persist in using the Ildatch to hit Par Ohmsford?" should be
marked as a spoiler. Note that the events in this question do not
happen in any of the books...
To mark a post as containing a spoiler, write it as follows:
[<book>: SPOIL] <subject>
Where <book> is the book and <subject> the subject. No, really.
For the book name either use the important word from the title(such as
Sword or Demon)
Another system which is used is using CAPITALS for important words and
small letters of unimportant words, eg. Running with the Demon would
become RwtD and First King would become FKoS.
The post should have 25 lines of spoiler space, preferably with
printed characters, as some readers remove blank lines, eg.
.
.
.
.
---
6] Terry Brooks News
6.1]What are his plans for the future ?
Here are the new books he plans to write(in this order),
(third book in RwtD series, yet unnamed)
Shannara book about Walker (1 of 2)
Shannara book about Walker (2 of 2)
Also in an interview last year(1997) Terry Brooks stated,
"I have two more Shannara books planned, but they won't be out, or
even written, for a few years, and I have at least that many books
planned to follow Running with the Demon, with some recurring
characters, most notably Nest Freemark and John Ross."
He has also written a novelization of the first new Star Wars film.
6.2] When will his books be released ?
At this moment its unknown when any of his books will be released.
If you have anything to contribute to the FAQ please post it, or email
me at Imr...@btinternet.com
End of FAQ
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