The Sword of Shannara
Overview
1977 in literature
The year 1977 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Douglas Adams begins writing for BBC radio.*V. S. Naipaul declines the offer of a CBE....
epic fantasy
High fantasy
High fantasy or epic fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy that is set in invented or parallel worlds. High fantasy was brought to fruition through the work of authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, whose major fantasy works were published in the 1950s...
novel by Terry Brooks
Terry Brooks
Terence Dean "Terry" Brooks is an American writer of fantasy fiction. He writes mainly epic fantasy, and has also written two movie novelizations. He has written 23 New York Times bestsellers during his writing career, and has over 21 million copies of his books in print...
. The first book of the Original Shannara Trilogy
Original Shannara Trilogy
The Original Shannara Trilogy consists of the first three Shannara novels by Terry Brooks...
, it was followed by The Elfstones of Shannara
The Elfstones of Shannara
The Elfstones of Shannara is an epic fantasy novel by Terry Brooks. It is the first sequel to The Sword of Shannara and the second book in The Original Shannara Trilogy...
and The Wishsong of Shannara
The Wishsong of Shannara
The Wishsong of Shannara, an epic fantasy novel by Terry Brooks, is the third and final novel in the Original Shannara Trilogy, with the other two being The Sword of Shannara and The Elfstones of Shannara. The story revolves around Jair and Brin Ohmsford, the children of the main characters from...
. Inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
and historical adventure fiction, Brooks began writing The Sword of Shannara in 1967. It took him seven years to complete, as he was writing the novel while attending law school. After being accepted for publication by Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
, it was used to launch the company's new subsidiary
Imprint
In the publishing industry, an imprint can mean several different things:* As a piece of bibliographic information about a book, it refers to the name and address of the book's publisher and its date of publication as given at the foot or on the verso of its title page.* It can mean a trade name...
, Del Rey Books
Del Rey Books
Del Rey Books is a branch of Ballantine Books, which is owned by Random House and, in turn since 1998, by Bertelsmann AG. It is a separate imprint established in 1977 under the editorship of author Lester del Rey and his wife Judy-Lynn del Rey. It specializes in science fiction and fantasy...
.
