Genesis of Shannara: The Elves of Cintra

by Terry Brooks

Del Rey hardback $26.95

The Elves of Cintra is the second book of the Genesis of Shannara trilogy that began with Armageddon's Children. With this book, the connections to Shannara and the Word and Void series are much more prominent where they had been downplayed with the release of the first book. Being the second book in a trilogy you know going in that everything isn't going to be resolved by the end of the book but you expect to see some sort of ending of the latest chapter and Brooks delivers, for the most part. In this series, Brooks is revealing that the world of Shannara is really our future and that the end of the world foreseen in The Word and Void novels is the end of our way of life and the beginning of the return of magic. Before that can happen, the Elves and enough humans need to survive the rise of the demons so that the world seen in the Shannara novels can come to pass.

We pick up where we left off in Armageddon's Children with two Knights of the Word dealing with different problems. Logan Tom is trying to get a group of kids named The Ghosts out of Seattle as it is being invaded by a horde of demons. On of them is Hawk, who is really the Gypsy Morph that was birthed by Nest Freemark years before and has been in hiding. Angel Perez has escaped a doomed Los Angeles and has taken on a quest to join up with the Elven boy Kirisin Belloruus that has been tasked by the Ellcryss to move it to a safe location where it can survive and lead the Elves into a new age. She's also being stalked by a demon that nearly killed her in Los Angeles and may be her undoing. After a deadly attack following the discovery of the legendary Blue Elfstones, Angel, Kirisin and his sister Simralin head on a journey to find the Loden that can provide a safe means of transport for the Ellcrys and also help the Elves to regain their magic.

The book focuses primarily on Logan Tom and Kirisin but also devotes time to the supporting characters and their involvement with the goings on. We also get more background on several of the kids traveling with Logan Tom, finding out how and why they ended up alone at a young age. Through Hawk we run into a significant and long-lived character from the Shannara novels and during Logan Tom and The Ghosts journey we encounter a robotic facility that was first introduced in the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy. By the end of this chapter, we've had some characters suffer unfortunate fates and others have been really put through the wringer and left in a bad state while others are reunited to help set things up for the next chapter where we will presumably find out how the Elves and remaining humans were saved to make the world we know from the Shanarra novels. If you've been a regular reader of Brook's Shannara novels, you should enjoy the latest chapter. If you are new to them, you can jump in with Armageddon's Children and start off with the beginnings of the world of Shannara before delving into the rest of the series. - Lee Whiteside