| Rating: | ★★★★ |
| Category: | Books |
| Genre: | Teens |
| Author: | Terry Brooks |
Finally, after one and half decade, Terry Brooks consented to publish another Landover novel.
I always found Shannara an enigma. Great story telling, but rather dark and depressing, like a never-ending cycle of dreams.
But Magic Kingdom, now that's a joy to read, with a hint of Christopher Stasheff in it.
In this novel, Brooks made things simple for himself by skipping the growing years of Mistaya from a child to a teenager, and present to the readers fait accompli of a rebellious/misunderstood teen - and a parents-child relationship that just cannot have proper communication.
That is not very encouraging to me who is a parent to a daughter who just started Primary 1. Actually, I do realise that time do seem to slip by when I can no longer watch my daughter grow day by day - demands of my job, demands of the younger son, demands of life. I am too painfully aware I am missing large chunks of my daughter's growth despite living under the same roof.
Nothing much seems to have changed in Landover in the intervening years between Witches Brew and the latest novel.
Well, more inhabitants (including Ben's father-in-law the River King) are acknowledging that Ben was a good king who genuinely tries his best.
That Ben did not choose to crush the resistance of the lords could be viewed that he did not think it right to impose revolutionary ideas from his original world, but strove to improve the lot of the people gradually.
I do question a few premises used by Brooks in the story though - the suspension of disbelief and credibility factor is stretched just a little too thin.
First of course, is about Mistaya's being sent to Ben's original world to learn more about the home world his father came from. I felt Brooks glossed over it too much. As a father, and as someone familiar with his own homeworld, I thought it would have been more credible if Ben had made better preparations for his daugther, orientate her more to the world, let his friend Miles be a better mentor, and reconsider if an exclusive elite private girls' school was really the best place to send his daughter for an education.
Predictably, while Brooks took pains to mention Mistaya learned to use modern technology, there was no accounting whatsoever about the choice of school.
It reminded me a little of one of Japan's anime favourite theme - a girl (or sometimes, a boy), with a mysterious background (sometimes an alien from another planet, or from another world/dimension), got enrolled into a school, in order to either (a) learn how "normal" people live, or (b) hide from an enemy.
In the anime or manga, the girl/boy possessed secret powers - which they are supposed to keep secret but never did.
What is different from the novel though is that in anime/manga, the new girl/boy did make genuine friends with one or more ordinary Earthlings, with whom knowledge of their secret powers/background is shared, and most of the time, they learned to adapt to live on Earth.
But as the main focus of Landover is ... Landover, by the end of first chapter, Mistaya simply packed up and leave after being suspended for her 3rd offence.
Brooks did have imaginative ideas about the 3 offences, but too bad they were merely described briefly, and showed only a rather one-dimension presentation of Mistaya - making her out to be rather obstuse, which she is not supposed to be.
Next, we see Mistaya back in Landover, and her parents trying to decide what to do with her. At Questor's suggestion, she was assigned to restore the Librisis, an institution originally conceived to be a public library to spread education to the people, but for little-explanation, apparently forsaked and deteriorated.
Questor and Abernathy knew of potential dangers in the Library, but it was not explained why they still recommended it to Ben, and chose to keep certain details from him.
That after being king for so long, there are places of potential significance in his kingdom unknown to him is also uncommented.
I suppose justifying everything would break the momentum of the story, but knowingly or not, Brooks had made the second half of the novel more like a girl's romance novel (think Twilight). Well, not so many eye gazings between the girl and the boy, but to my surprise, I realised I was more than three quarters into the book when I sensed the story to only start building up.
With so few pages left, I knew Mistaya would make short work of the problems before the book concluded - unlike the Shannara series, the Landover novels are traditionally self-contained.
I won't be surprise if the libraries classify this installment as a Young People's books or even J for Junior Readers.
Not to say I didn't enjoy it, but it really is a dessert rather than a proper main course.
