Genesis of Shannara: Book Two

The Elves of Cintra

by Terry Brooks

Published in 2007

THIS IS A SPOILER FILLED REVIEW.

This book starts right where the last one ended, which is great since the last book ended in a cliffhanger and I would hate to have to wait to have the story deviate from the events of the last book.

Logan Tom and the Ghosts

Owl and the Ghosts have escaped and are headed to Logan Tom’s vehicle, when they are stopped by a gang of kids who try to take their stuff. The Ghosts resist, but Squirrel is shot with a taser gun by the leader of the gang and dies as a result. The Ghosts capture this boy and take him along with them as prisoner. Panther and Sparrow and Logan Tom show up shortly thereafter and try to revive Squirrel but it is too late. They escape Seattle before they are discovered by the invading army. They head south to escape. During their trip south, Logan Tom has a vision from The Lady who tells him to meet up with Hawk and Tessa at the Columbia River. Their progress is slow and Logan Tom often thinks he should leave the Ghosts behind as he wasn’t tasked to protect them, only the Gypsy Morph who he must now meet hundreds of miles away. But he can’t bring himself to leave them behind.

Two of the Ghosts, River and Fixit, get sick and need medicine to be healed. As they approach what was once known as Tacoma, Logan Tom decides to enter the city and find some medication for them. Owl tells him which medicine to look for. Logan enters the city and after a while is approached by a woman named Cat who has a pet cat named Rabbit. Cat agrees to help Logan find the medication if he agrees to take her with him, he eventually agrees. After a stop at the Senator’s house, the guy who runs that section of the town and who owns Cat, they go find the medication, slip away from the Senator’s soldiers who were “escorting” them and they head back to the Ghosts. Cat is a mutant and has started to transform into a Lizard but for some reason the transformation stopped halfway.

While Logan Tom was away, the Ghosts had an eventful night. They were attacked by Croaks (zombies) and Bear was able to distract them away from the group but was injured before Panther showed up to help. In the confusion, Candle was abducted by the mutant boy they had taken prisoner earlier. During the night, as the boy is leading her away, Candle hides while a monster attacks and kills this boy and Candle returns to the Ghosts. Cat joins the group, while some accept her, some don’t. Panther doesn’t like it and calls her a freak and is rude to her.

Logan Tom and the Ghosts keep moving south. The medication is administered and the two Ghosts start to recover. They journey for a few days more with no incidents.

However, the group is stopped by an armed group of men who take Logan Tom captive and take him to their boss, Krilka Koos, who is also a Knight of the Word. However, Koos has long since turned from the Word and is a rogue Knight. He has given up hope and is resorting to fighting all those he can capture in a gladiator style duel to the death. Koos has defeated many others, including three other Knights. Logan refuses to fight Koos but is told that if he doesn’t his men will kill the Ghosts.

Logan and Koos duel and while Koos is strong, Logan is able to perceive a pattern in his attack to use to his advantage and gains the upper hand and is able to best Koos. While he doesn’t want to kill Koos, Koos forces his hand and Logan kills him, but not before Koos sticks him with a poison dart.

Cat and Panther had left the Ghosts and were able to sneak into Koos’s compound and watch the end of the duel and grabbed Logan and took him back to the Ghosts. Owl was able to help heal Logan, but Logan is still unresponsive as he had locked himself away from the pain and he needs to find a way to overcome it on his own.

As the group continues their journey south, they meet up with Hawk, Tessa, and Cheney! More on them later.

Angel Perez and Kirisin

Angel Perez and the tatterdemalion, Ailie, are still being chased by the demon, Delloreen, who is quickly turning from somewhat human to full demon and she is becoming more feral. They have another confrontation and Angel and Ailie barely escape alive again. They head further into the wilderness and eventually meet up with the Elves. They are brought to the King and Angel tells them why she is there, to help the Elves find the Elfstones and the Loden. With the help of Ailie who reveals things no one but the King knows, such as that Kirisin knows that he must find the Elfstones too, leads the King to accept her story and to reside longer in Arborlon while they determine if the Elfstones can be located.

Earlier Kirisin and his cousin, Erisha, had been discovered by the King’s Assistant, Culph, in the library as they researched on their own to find clues about the Elfstones. Culph agreed to help them. After Angel and Ailie are dismissed from the King, Kirisin and Erisha go to meet with Angel Perez and Ailie who are with Kirisin’s sister, Simralin, an Elven tracker. Ailie has revealed that she sensed a demon in the room while they were meeting with the King but was unable to determine who it was as the demon was a changeling and had taken an Elven disguise. Culph later comes to meet with Kirisin and tells him that he found a clue of where the Elfstones might be.

They had earlier determined that they are buried with a past Elven Queen, Pancea Rolt Cruer, but Culph just found out that the Queen’s maiden name was Gotrin and she was likely buried under a headstone with that name. The group of Angel, Ailie, Kirisin, Erisha, and Simralin go to the graveyard to find the location and they find it and enter into an underground crypt where the dead Queen’s ghost appears and gives the Elfstones to Kirisin. As they leave the crypt, they are attacked by Delloreen and while Delloreen is wounded, Erisha and Ailie are killed. The rest of the group, Kirisin, Angel, and Simralin decide to leave and go find the Loden now that they have the Elfstones. They don’t know who the other demon is and don’t want to be ambushed again while waiting in the Elven city.

Kirisin uses the Elfstones which show him and the others which way to go to the Loden. It is located in a cave in a mountain peak which is a few days journey away. They start their journey to the mountain, Syrring Rise (current day Mount Rainier).

As the trio climbs the mountain to find the cave with the Loden. Angel senses the demons off to the side of the path, so she tells Kirisin and Simralin to go on while she takes care of something. It ends up being Delloreen who has gone full demon and is just a killing machine at this point. They battle and Angel is able to defeat Delloreen, but not before suffering many grievous injuries herself. After passing out for a time, she heads up the path to the cave to try and find Kirisin and Simralin.

Kirisin and Simralin had entered the cave and found a giant statue of a dragon with it’s mouth open. They surmise that the Loden is inside the dragon, so Kirisin enters the dragon and finds the Loden on a fiery pedestal. He quenches the fire and grabs the Loden, which is a large white Elfstone. As Kirisin leaves the dragon, he sees Culph and is bewildered until it is revealed that Culph has been the demon in hiding all along. Culph starts to put Kirisin under his spell, but before it can take effect, an incapacitated Simralin wakes up and stabs Culph with a knife, then Kirisin uses the Elfstones’ magic as a weapon to destroy the demon.

Hawk and Tessa

What happened to Hawk and Tessa?! Luckily by the time I got to reading this trilogy all of the books were already written and published, so I didn’t have to wait a year for this sequel to come out! But at the end of the last book, there was a big flash of light at the same time Hawk and Tessa were pushed off of the edge, and we all assumed it was related to them. Well, we guessed right and the light was a result of a magical intervention that saved these two from certain death.

The King of the Silver River makes his first entrance into the Shannara Series at this point. The King is the one that intervened to save Hawk and Tessa. For first time readers it may seem a little odd that this magical being intervenes to save our heroes, but The King of the Silver River has been around since the beginning. The beginning of time (in the Shannara Series), as well as the beginning of the series in 1977 when the first Shannara novel was published. The King often intervenes to save those that fight the Void and offers them shelter in his realm. Time in his realm moves differently and often moves our heroes ahead in time as well as in a different location than where they were initially.

For Hawk and Tessa it is no different. Hawk talks with The King while Tessa sleeps and The King reveals to Hawk that he is indeed The Gypsy Morph and he will be instrumental in saving the human race, and others, from the demons and the destruction of civilization as we know it. Hawk and Tessa, and his dog Cheney who somehow joined the group, are then deposited hundreds of miles away near the Columbia River and several days have since passed.

As they reorient themselves as to where they are, Hawk looks out into the Columbia River and sees four people crossing the Columbia River, one of them looks back and sees them too. Unbeknownst to Hawk, this group is Angel, Kirisin, Simralin, and an Elven Tracker, Larkin Quill.

Hawk, Tessa, and Cheney look to find a crossing point and end up meeting up with the group of refugees of adults and children that Angel Perez had been helping escape destruction. They are led by Helen Rice. Hawk convinces them to trust him and to get across a bridge being guarded by a militia. Hawk uses his newly found magical powers to subdue the militia and the refugee group crosses to the other side. Hawk, Tessa, and Cheney leave to go find Logan Tom and the Ghosts.

In Conclusion…

With all of the story setup and character introductions now established, this second book in the trilogy moves forward full throttle with lots of action and twists and turns that kept me engaged throughout the story. I was able to read this book a lot faster than the first due to me wanting to know what happens next and to see how our characters get out of one predicament after another.

While the book bounced around from the different points of view from our main characters, the story flowed really well and intertwined seamlessly as the overall story took it’s course. I enjoyed this novel a lot more than the previous one, as like I said previously, all of the setup is behind us and we can now enjoy the story. In conclusion, it’s good that this isn’t the conclusion of the story as this book is really good and and I can’t wait to read the final book in the trilogy!

I give this second book in the Genesis of Shannara trilogy a 4.5 out of 5 stars. The re-readability factor is high and it’s a fun story overall.

Next up is the concluding book in the Genesis of Shannara trilogy - The Gypsy Morph.