Once upon a time, there were two kids who loved reading fantasy novels. Their names were Steve and Nick, and though they lived lived in different parts of the country, they both were reading the same types of novels. In fact, they both stumbled across a novel by Terry Brooks called MAGIC KINGDOM FOR SALE--SOLD!, and they both loved it. It was a fairy-tale of sorts where a struggling man in our world sees an advertisement that will allow him to purchase a magical kingdom for the sum of one-million dollars. What followed was a fantastic adventure that allowed the imagination of those two kids wander...
OK, you get the point. Enough of the sappy. Terry Brooks' Magic Kingdom of Landover series was our first exposure to an Urban Fantasy-ish story, and like the first Shannara novels, holds a special place in our hearts. It was very much in the tradition of Narnia, but for an older crowd. The Landover novels never really got the reviews or sales that the Shannara series did, but Brooks kept writing Ben Holiday's adventures anyway.
And they got worse and worse with every novel.
A PRINCESS OF LANDOVER marks the sixth novel in the Landover series, and the first one in over a decade. We had hoped this would be a reboot of sorts, and that it would recapture our imagination and return Brooks the the ranks of goodness.
Instead it is the worst novel Brooks has ever published. This includes his novelizations of the movies HOOK and STAR WARS: EPISODE ONE.
The book is short (300 large-print pages), which is good, because we couldn't have withstood a page more. In this 300-page novel, there are 50 pages of actual plot and story. The remaining 250? Recap. That's right, we get to be reintroduced to every organism in the Landover universe. And not only once, but several times, from every PoV. Repetition is repeatedly one of the biggest repeated problems with this repetitive novel. Yes, we realize we have used this mechanism before, but we are forcing it on you like Brooks forced it on us. It's our way of dealing with the psychological damage he inflicted on us in this novel.
How many times do we have to read the same description of a creature or event? How many times do we have to be told that Mistaya Holiday (Ben Holiday's daughter) is fifteen, but with the mind and maturity of a woman in her twenties? Apparently, Brooks needed to remind us of this once a chapter (at least). Of course, Brooks' take on the mature teenager means that she whines more than any teen in history, and actually acts more like a petulant ten-year-old than the super-mature fifteen everyone says she is. Mistaya is the worst character Brooks has ever written. No joke. It's a glaring issue, and one that cannot be overlooked.
In addition, somehow the brains of every major character have been scooped out and eaten by, we can only surmise, zombies (if only zombies had actually been introduced...*sigh*). Every character is stupid in their actions and thoughts. And we swear to you, Ben Holiday spends the entire novel looking in mirrors reminiscing on the events from the prior five novels rather than looking for his daughter when she goes missing. The novel should have been titled The Magical Cliff's Notes of Landover. Seriously, the segments start, "Ben looked in the mirror and took a moment to reminisce..." These go on for pages. You know what? If we want to know about the event in those novels, we will go out and buy the re-release omnibus editions of the prior novels that were just released. Don't beat us over the head with redundancy. Does Brooks not have an editor anymore to catch these things? Someone is riding on the laurels of prior success...bad form, Terry...are you related to the other Terry? Terry Goodkind? It would explain a lot...
The villain? He is a librarian. Brooks must have read THE HISTORIAN (where Dracula's nefarious plot is to have historians catalog his library, and also known as the worst Historical Fiction ever written), and decided this was a fantastic idea. Uh huh. Terrifying.
It came to a point where we had to think about what made Landover great to begin with. The Paladin, Ben Holiday and his wife Willow, Demons, Witches, faeries, dragons, magic, and the bumbling wizard with his friend the talking dog. None of these aspects were improved on. In fact the Paladin--arguably the most important aspect of the series--wasn't even shown. Magic was used three times--inexscusable in a series called The MAGIC Kingdom of Landover. Simply put, there was nothing in this story to hold our interest, and is really a Landover novel in name only. It was boring. Really, really boring.
If you want a Landover novel to read, go pick up THE MAGIC KINGDOM OF LANDOVER VOLUME 1. It has the first three novels of the series in it, and they are the only ones worth reading. Don't, under any circumstances, buy A PRINCESS OF LANDOVER in hardback. If you absolutely MUST have it (which is just beyond us), wait until it comes out in paperback...then wait a little longer until some other sucker sells his paperback to a used bookstore and buy it from that store for no more than $2.00. We aren't joking. $2.00 is a the most money any sane person should waste on this pathetic excuse for a novel. Was Brooks just filling his pockets here, or what?
The absolute worst thing about this novel? It looks like Brooks will be writing this garbage from now on.
Recommended Age: This isn't an adult fantasy. It is a poor attempt at YA that is masquerading as a novel for adults. If you are 12 years and up, you are smarter than everyone in this novel...including the author. It should tell you something when the only cover-quotes Brooks has now are from YA/Children's authors like the terrible Paolini and Pullman.
Language: The Landover series was where Brooks allowed himself to be an adult, and it usually had more language and adult content in it. There isn't any here. It's for kids.
Violence: Nope. Very, very disappointing. There isn't even any suspense...
Sex: Alluded to, but nothing you don't see in Pixar movies.
Steve's Note: Landover was introduced to me by my mom, and the first three novels in that series were some of her favorite novels. She even liked the fourth and fifth novels to a degree. Yeah, she is a fan. I told her to avoid this book like the plague, because it will only taint her impressions of the past novels, as it did for my own. Sadly, I think Brooks needs to retire from writing.
A Princess of Landover
3:00 AM
Nikki
Posted in
