Oh Dear - Rated 
Terry Brooks has wriiten some excellent books - Shannara, The Word & Void being the pinnacle. This new series is very disappointing - it's as though the author was given a premise to write a trilogy around and he came up with this vapid and uninspiring script. Given this was supposedly linked to the Word & Void (which is superb) it is just plain dull. I was really looking forward to reading this trilogy, but after reading the first half, I'd completely lost interest in completing it
Fantastic - Rated 
I'd never read a Terry Brooks novel before, despite his line of books being the type of thing I'm into. I took this out of the library recently, and when I started reading it I couldn't put it down.
It follows three main characters- Hawk, a child who is somehow special, in the way he leads a band of children in the ruins of the city. He 'haunts the ruins of his parent's world'.
Logan- A Knight of the Word, the mystic force that represents 'good'
Angel- Another Knight of the Word, helping compounds escape from the once-men and demons.
The story is set after an apocalypse, the country ravaged by chemicals, war and poisons. Most people live in compounds- barricaded buildings or complexes which protects them from reality. No real people live outside- the street children don't count, and neither do the many Freaks and once men that roam the US and probably the world. And neither do the demons.
Its a great book. Read it.
My god, he has written other books? - Rated
I was willing to forgive this book as I though it was an earnest attempt by a first-time novelist. Now I see he has been around for years there is no excuse. How can he get away with lazy descriptions such as describing a character literally, as "having the look of Gandalf". Shocking. He just as he is building a plausible, almost interesting, post apocalyptic world, he ruins the immersion by dropping in a totally pointless and distracting sub-plot involving Elves. Seriously, how did the editors allow that?
Intriguing but flawed - Rated 
With Terry Brooks' latest series, we find ourselves back in the post-apocalyptic world of the 'Word and the Void' novels, where Once-men and Demons are hunting down the human race to extinction.
Except this time, there is a twist. This world also contains the Elves and Faerie creatures unique to Brooks' Shannara series, and it soon becomes clear that the two seemingly separate worlds are simply the same place, at different ends of the evolutionary chain.
It's a bold move. Does it work? Well, yes and no. While it neatly explains why magic exists in such a seemingly modern and realistic world, the juxtaposition of the Elves and the humans feels forced at times. And the idea that the entire Elven race has been hiding, undiscovered, in a forest somewhere in America for thousands of years is a little hard to stomach. And what about the Druids and the Dwarves and even the Rock Trolls? Did they just vanish into thin air?
I'm willing to give Brooks the benefit of the doubt and hope the next book in the series will develop the concept further and answer my questions. As, problems aside, I really enjoyed Armageddon's Children. It's one of Brooks' better offerings over the last few years, with interesting characterisation and strong writing that is reminiscent of his earlier novels. So why haven't I given it five stars? Because ultimately there's little about the novel that I haven't read, watched, or seen, somewhere before. Evil verses good, a young boy/girl who possesses a secret magical power and has to save the world; it's the oldest fantasy cliché and one that Brooks has been flogging since he published The Sword of Shannara over thirty years ago. It seems to have served him well in his career, but it does mean there's a certain predictability to his novels. While characters might fall by the wayside and personal sacrifices will inevitably be required, at the end of it all, good will prevail.
Of course, that's not going to stop me from wanting to find what happens next.
Conceptually Flawed - Rated
(Spolier alert)
Having something of a penchant for post-apocalyptic fiction and having read the Shannara books in my youth this book seemed like the perfect combination of both, and for the most part it was. I agree with a lot of the comments already made about both this book and the Elves of Cintra (sequel just released) in that it is fast-paced and punchy but doesn't give us enough characterisation.
But the juxtaposition of Elves and a gritty post-apocalypse Earth (well, America anyway) jarred. It didn't seem to fit. To go from a world of survival and poison to suddenly Elves and the Ellcrys didn't fit for me. And it continues to not fit in the 2nd book also. It seems like Terry is trying to crow-bar in a series where really none is needed. The Word/Void trilogy stands alone as a superb story in its own right and we do not *need* to have it linked tenuously at best to the Shannara world.
This might seem harsh as the books so far in the series are enjoyable and eminently readable. It's the concept I don't like.
Cheers, GH
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