The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara

Terry Brooks stretches the formula of his Shannara stories in Antrax, the second volume of "The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara", travelling far further than usual into morally grey areas. Brooks' villainess, the Ilse Witch, is driven by a ruthless desire to seek revenge for the brother she wrongly believes to be dead. Her brother Bek tries to convince her of his identity but she cannot let herself listen--she has too much invested in revenge, hatred and her own past crimes. Meanwhile, the other members of Bek's party stumble into the grip of an ancient evil--Antrax, the computer guardian of lost science, which has learned to survive in this age of magic by draining those who seek it out. The Druid Walker, the cowardly Elvenprince Ahren and the flawed young seeker Ryer find themselves in serious jeopardy.

Brooks' writing is at its most suspenseful here as his characters confront their demons and find their hidden resources. The dark woods and steel corridors in which they find themselves trapped are both powerfully evoked and precise, if standard, metaphors for mental states.

Like its predecessor, Ilse Witch, this is a far darker and in some ways more interesting take on the world Brooks has assembled. --Roz Kaveney

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Wooow - Rated
I think this book is the best of the Shannara seris i read it cover to cover in less than day (well about 10 hours)

This book i very unlike any of the other Shannara books that you will read. When I finished the other i wondered if it was going to be another version of the Druid of Shannara.

But no in this one you really get the sence that they all in real trouble and the writing backs that up all the way. This book is more like a thriller/horror and more like the book you would get from Stephan King or Thomas Harris and it works exceptionaly well. In places its i quite bone chilling and will leave you on the edge of your seat and put you in a odd place where you dont want to know what happens but can't put it down.

In places i did find this book genuinely scary (and i know im going to get criticized for saying that) and stomach churning in places.

I think Terry Brooks show just how good a writter he can be I wish there were more book like this.

Same old same old - Rated
I have been a fan of Terry Brooks for years, and I dearly love the Shannara books. This new series started out with some interesting points but from the beginning it felt a little flat to me. There was a reasonable cliffhanger on the first book and I had hoped this would be a return to form and be a good juicy middle chapter of the story. This felt by the numbers, flat, predictable and it was sometimes a struggle to get through. Some of the new characters are interesting, others feel like they are there for padding, an obligatory dwarf etc. Walker Boh was a favourite character and I felt he was underused and also a shadow of his former self, given all that he has achieved in previous stories. Overall after finishing the whole series I felt let down and disappointed instead of reinvigorated. I sincerely hope the new books after this trilogy are better, but I have my doubts.

Disappointing reading! - Rated
Sadly enough I managed to plow myself through the second book in this series; as with the first book I got dissapointed with a thin plotline, lack of depth in the characters; as well as their interaction and so forth. The book is rather bland, and grey with few high points and very little in the department of excitement. Maybe it's just me who's getting old but this is definitivly not the Terry Brooks of my younger days. My core feeling when reading this book is that this is some of Brooks earlier works before he got famous, which has been patched together into a story, and immersed into the world of Shannarra. I might be wrong though; however I sincerely hope that the author will find back to his old "high fantasy" self. The score this time will be 1/5.

Enjoyable and annoying at the same time. - Rated
This is the second book in The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy (after Ilse Witch and before Morgawr).

After his visits on Flay Creech, Shatterstone and Mephitic, the Druid Walker realizes that the challenges he and his friends faced on these islands were nothing but a test, the castaway's map nothing but a lure. Whatever lives in the ruined catacombs of Castledown, the ancient, giant city from the Old World, covets their magic.

At the beginning of Antrax, picking up where Ilse Witch left off, the protagonists are scattered in little groups, exploring Castledown and its surrounding jungle in search of the legendary books of magic. It won't be long until they come across hoards of metallic monsters and fire threads, trying to block their way at all costs. And soon they'll learn that the whole city is controlled by Antrax, an intelligent computer from before the Great Wars, programmed to protect this great knowledge forever.

Meanwhile, on the Jerle Shannara, the members of her crew have been made prisoners after being attacked by the Ilse Witch's airship, Black Moclips. They are locked up in her hold and Little Red, who is dangling from a rope attached to the ship's rigging and all but exhausted, might be their sole hope of survival, as the Jerle Shannara is slowly drifting in the wind, heading towards the huge, stomping and crushing ice pillars of the Squirm.

At the same time, Bek Rowe is facing Grianne, the Ilse Witch, trying to make her see the truth about who she is, nothing but a pawn in the Morgawr's game.

Even though this book is quite suspenseful and contains some interesting character development, what I didn't expect is that in this volume, Terry Brooks blends a great deal of Science Fiction into his Sword & Sorcery. Antrax is crammed with hackneyed themes reminiscent of Brazil or The Matrix, and with all kinds of stereotypical robots that reminded me, in turns, of R2D2 or Robocop. The fate of some of the heroes is so horrible it might even have made good Thriller matter. As a whole I enjoyed this book but also found it all a tad annoying.

Building to a great climax - Rated
Terry Brooks is probably my favourite author and is judged by high standards against his other releases.
Antrax is not his best book it is fair to say, character development focuses around the key individuals of Truls Rokh and Ahren Elessedil, and the book builds slowly and a little aimlessly at first.
However, half way through it starts to move quicker and builds to a cracking finish where you really are left wondering what will happen next. The mix of technology with the fantasy is a little unsettling but at least was a new idea for the series. Definately a worthy follow up to Ilse Witch but perhaps not quite as good as his earlier series of books.