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| The Elves of Cintra (Genesis of Shannara) | 
 enlarge | Author: Terry Brooks
Publisher: Del Rey
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  52 reviews
Sales Rank: 4081
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 4.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0345484134
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780345484130
ASIN: 0345484134
Publication Date: July 29, 2008
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Product Description
With his groundbreaking New York Times bestseller The Sword of Shannara and its acclaimed sequels, Terry Brooks brought a new audience to epic fantasy. Then he gave the genre a darkly compelling contemporary twist in his trilogy of the Word and the Void. Last year, in Armageddon’s Children, Brooks undertook the stunning chronicle that united two unique worlds. Now that story of clashing forces of darkness and light, of Shannara’s beginnings and the human race’s possible end, marches forward into an unforgettable second volume full of mystery, magic, and momentous events.
Across the ruined landscape that is America–hopelessly poisoned, plague-ridden, burned, and besieged by demon armies bent on exterminating all mortal life–two pilgrims have been summoned to serve the embattled cause of good. Logan Tom has journeyed to desolate Seattle to protect a ragged band of street urchins and the being known as “the gypsy morph,” who is both mortal and magical, and destined to save mankind unless he is destroyed. Likewise, Angel Perez has her own quest, one that will take her from the wreckage of Los Angeles to a distant, secret place untouched by the horrors of the nationwide blight–a place where the race of Elves has dwelled since before man existed. But close behind these lone Knights of the Word swarm the ravening forces of the Void.
As the menacing thunder of war drums heralds the arrival of the demons and their brutal minions in Seattle, the young survivors who call themselves the Ghosts are forced to brave the dangerous world of gangs, mutants, and worse to escape the invasion. And Logan Tom must infiltrate a refugee compound to rescue Hawk, the leader of the street urchins, who has yet to learn the truth about who and what he is. Meanwhile, Angel Perez has joined an equally urgent mission: to find the Ellcrys, a fabled talisman crucial to protecting the Elven realm against an influx of unspeakable evil from the dread dimension known as the Forbidding. But Angel and her Elf allies must beware–for a demon spy, with a monstrous creature at its command, walks among them.
As the legions of darkness draw the noose tighter, and the time of confrontation draws near, those chosen to defend the soul of the world must draw their battle lines and prepare to fight with, and for, their lives. If they fail, humanity falls.
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 47 more reviews...
 On the Road To Syrring Rise November 9, 2007
44 out of 48 found this review helpful
The Elves of Cintra (2007) is the second fantasy novel in the Genesis of Shannara series, following Armageddon's Children. In the previous volume, Logan Tom gave Nest Freemark's finger bones to Hawk, then left him in the compound lockup and returned to the Ghosts. Owl had decided to leave the Pioneer Square quarters and Logan Tom encouraged this move. After a few hours, Logan Tom took Panther with him and returned to the compound. While Panther kept the guards busy watching his antics, Logan Tom snuck into the stadium and reached Hawk's cell, but it was empty.
Hawk had been taken from his cell well before the time of the execution, maybe to build more terror within him. He tried to talk Tessa into jumping before the guards could touch them, but she was already terrified and clung to Hawk. Then the guards grabbed the couple and threw them off the wall.
Meanwhile, Angel Perez and Ailie the tatterdemalion learned that the demon Delloreen was chasing them on the Harley Crawler that they had left behind. Angel turned off onto a logging road and tried to slow the demon down and to throw it off her scent. However, the demon persevered and eventually caught up with them.
Angel fought the demon, but she seemed to tire faster than it did. Finally, she knocked it aside and reached the Mecury-5 ATV. Then she charged the demon and zipped down the highway when it flinched.
After King Arissen failed to recontact him, Kirisin confronted Erisha and forced her to admit that she had already passed the warning on to the king. Although she defended her father's actions, Erisha was convinced to help Kirisin look for more information about the Loden in the histories. As they were searching through the volumes, someone challenged them from the darkness.
In this novel, Logan Tom is climbing the steps of the stadium to the west wall when he hears cries of shock and excitement. Near the top, he overhears comments indicating that Hawk and Tessa had disappeared without a trace. He asks a young girl about the couple and she describes the throwing of Hawk and Tessa off the wall and then the flare of a bright light surrounding them. When the light faded away, the couple were gone.
On his way out of the Compound, Logan Tom sees a fleet of boats carrying the once-human toward Seattle. Although he looks and calls for Panther, the boy is nowhere to be found. Deciding to rejoin the Ghosts in their flight, he heads toward the freeway.
Panther has fled the compound to avoid a group of hunting Croaks. He meets Sparrow in Pioneer Square and both of them flee from the pursuing Croaks. Everywhere they go, the Croaks are there waiting. Finally, Logan Tom appears and they drive off the Croaks.
Heading down a freeway entrance ramp, the Ghosts draw near to Logan Tom's vehicle, but are faced by a group of mutant street kids. Owl is beginning to get through to the strangers when a sudden movement causes the leader to shoot her with a shockgun. The electrified leads hit Squirrel instead of Owl, but Owl also receives a lesser shock since the boy is on her lap.
Bear rushes at the youngster with the shockgun and knocks him senseless. Chalk receives a minor shock from the wheelchair handles, but recovers quickly. Owl recovers more slowly, but is soon able to tell them that Squirrel needs more aid than she does.
River checks out Squirrel and finds that he is not breathing. She starts CPR, but Squirrel still isn't breathing after many minutes. Owl stops her, but Logan Tom arrives shortly after that and tries more CPR. Finally, they have to give up. They load up the Lightning S-150 and head south out of the city on the freeway.
In this story, Angel flees on the Mercury-5 ATV with Ailie. Behind them, the demon howls and follows. In her new shape, Delloreen is cat-like, but with scaly skin and a body over ten feet long. The demon concentrates on following the scent of the Knight as she runs through the night.
In Cintra, Kirisin and Erisha have been discovered by Cluth, the keeper of the histories. He soon falls in with their plans and provides more information about the elfstones and the Loden. He tells them that a queen and sorceress of long ago had been buried in Ashenell -- the elven burial ground -- with a trio of blue search stones.
Elsewhere, Hawk finds himself in a great garden, with profuse greenery stretching out of sight in all directions. An old man -- the King of the Silver River -- tells him that his memories have been edited and fills in some of the missing memories. Hawk is told that he will be the one to lead thousands of humans and elves to safety. Hawk has trouble believing the old man.
This story has Angel and Ailie finally reaching the elven domain and waiting for Simralin, the older sister of Kirisin. After their mission is explained, Simralin blindfolds the Knight and guides them to the meeting hall. She also sends messengers to the king and the elven High Council. Angel is given an opportunity to tell the Elves of their danger and the need for escape to another sanctuary.
Kirisin is still thwarted by the Elven King and forced to search for the Loden Stone with few companions while being pursued by demons. The Ghosts continue on toward a rendezvous with Hawk, Tessa and Cheney. Helen Rice and the rescued compound children reach the Columbia River and camp on the south bank.
This volume ends with the discovery of the Loden Stone and its aftermath. Presumably this subseries will conclude with the next volume. Enjoy!
Highly recommended for Brooks fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of demonic conflict, magical quests, and familial love.
-Arthur W. Jordin
 Where is the cadence, the rhythm, the art? August 30, 2007
11 out of 29 found this review helpful
Warning: If you are a Brooks sycophant this review is going to cause your Elf Stones to glow blue, or your Wishsong to rise in your throat.
This thing tastes like a dish with expired ingredients.
What happened to the journey? This book (series) moves at breakneck speed, in fits and starts, to a predictable end.
What happened to dialogue? Is character development through interaction and dialogue "old school"?
Where is the cadence, the rhythm, the muse? Too many "scene changes", which brings to question the editing?
How many times can a character pull knees to chest (the universal posture of an impending monologue) and tell us what the author couldn't show us.
Where is the art? Van Gogh's "Sower with Setting Sun" is not the figure in field beneath a sun. It is the artist moving us intellectually and emotionally through the execution, choice, and application of the pigment; a unique vision masterfully expressed - the art.
Perhaps, if someone could effectively wield the seeking stones we could find answers to these questions before the finale.
I think I know what has happened here. Terry has transitioned from a literary artist to a business man, and in business there is always an end game. The end game here is a movie deal. And that clarifies it form me. This is not a book; it is a screen play on steroids. This series is devoid of all the artistic nuisances of literature, and streamlined for the screen.
Compare this book to "Running with the Demon"; the amount and quality of the dialogue, the extended development and interaction of the characters, a fulcrum (Nest Freemark), and the effective blending of reality with the "otherness". It works there. But not here.
This whole Elf and Faerie thing is juxtaposed out of context, compare the original Shannara (1977). To the point, an impressionist (e.g. Monet) painting flowers in the context of an emerging Industrial Age has a different meaning/impact on the psyche than an artist executing that same painting today, at the dawn of the Cyber Age. The time is past, the world moves on. It is almost ironic that this is a prequel to a piece of literature that worked 30 years ago.
I am thinking the whole elf and faerie thing has burned through; mating them with these new characters of the new (or is it old) apocalypse in a new (or is it old) socio-politically charged landscape is by turns aggressive and absurd.
Importantly, Terry in these books fails to show the other side of the story (mutants / demons) and treats them merely as archetypes. The energy in contemporary thought explores the lack of boundaries between good and evil; that it is not so black and white.
Perhaps if he would have left out the whole Shannara thing, and worked on the new characters, while at the same time exploring with objectivity and humanity the Void and its characters, he would have had a more compelling and relevant story.
Want some really good heady reading, pick up Terry Pratchett.
He does this whole fantasy genre as satire in his Discworld series. Brilliant man - big on anthropomorphic personifications like DEATH (no kidding, DEATH TALKS IN CAPITAL LETTERS LIKE THIS). Pratchett delivers gems like:
Give a man fire and you keep him warm for a day, Light a man on fire and you keep him warm for the rest of his life.
 Bridge the gap September 28, 2007
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
As is the case with so many titles that are the middle stretch in a trilogy, this book suffers from being highly anticipated with a sense of trepidation at the fact that even before reading it you already have a good sense of the outcome, at least in broad general terms. An author who writes knowing, essentially in advance, that they are producing a trilogy must accept that certain plot points cannot be resolved by the end of book two though some others must be drawn further out.
With that said, I am not diminishing this book at all. Terry Brooks does a solid job in carrying the story that bridges the gap between his trilogy about the Word and the Void and the huge sweeping epic which is the Shannara realm. We get to see the story started with Armageddon's Children carried forward, with a great deal more involvement from the elves. As a reader of this entire mythology, the links start to take shape with this book--how we get from the world in which we human beings live in to the world that is the basis for the many Shannara stories that Brooks has told us over the past thirty years.
But alas, it is the middle book. Sometimes the middle story is the best but usually it just does not have the same magic as the beginning or the end.
I still hesitate in trying to imagine the breadth that the final book will have to have to really meld the two different universes together. As I mentioned in my review of the first book, the questions that come to mind have to do with those creatures that have not shown their faces yet...in partcular dwarves, trolls, druids...etc. Now I am sure that it will all be sorted out (and perhaps Terry has in mind yet another trilogy that will slide in between the first Shannara books and this set to give us even further detail) but I hope that the last book is not crammed to the rafters with a lot of unsubtle "glue" to bind it all together. Another way of putting that would be this: he completes the story of Hawk, Kirisin, Angel, Logan, and all the others, and then spends thirty pages spilling out the next one hundred years...how the dwarves boil up from the earth, how new magic was formed, etc. in such a way that it is just crammed in there. I have faith that Terry Brooks will avoid something like that, but you never know.
The trilogy still has, in my mind, a lot of promise, but I also have high expectations for the third book and hope that it will do justice to the idea of bringing these two different worlds together as one. Until I have the chance to read that book in another year I honestly cannot judge this series effectively. As it stands, as a single novel, this book is solid. It moves the story along, keeps you interested in the characters, and you can start to see how everything is going to start coming together in the end.
I liked the book, despite the "middle" book issues that I already mentioned. It has certainly whetted my apetite for the final chapter in this trilogy.
Great Middle Book August 31, 2007
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
So many middle books lag -- just look at A FEAST FOR CROWS by George RR Martin -- but this one doesn't! It goes somewhere with likable characters that develop with each page turned.
The Elves of Cintra takes the characters from Armageddon's Children -- characters who are wholly unique -- and pushes them along toward the inevitable conclusion to come in the third and final book of the series. But unlike some author's middle books, this book has a climax all its own for most of its characters. No cliffhangers here, folks! I was satisfied with how the story unfolded and finished up.
The characters are fantastic and despite what one of the other reviewers said are new and invigorating. There has been no character like Angel Perez in Terry Brooks's other stories -- a hispanic woman who speaks in her native tongue sometimes and has been given great power. Angel must overcome her own doubts, doubts that have plagued her since the beginning in this deteriorated world, and she grows over this middle volume to a great final confrontation with evil.
Logan Tom is another example of a new character for Terry Brooks. He is no John Ross, no Allanon, no Balinor. He is a man destroyed from losing his family and conflicted with the new family he has been given despite not being able to follow the command of the Word. Revenge drives him. This is unlike anything Brooks has tackled before and allows him to talk about responsibility in dark times -- times much like we are living in now.
Then you have the street kids, the Ghosts. All of them are unique, all of them have never been in a Shannara book or Word/Void book. Terry spends time with each of them as they travel from ruined Seattle southward, and as this trilogy unfolds all of them will have their individual stories told.
The only drawback I could see in The Elves of Cintra is the absence of Hawk. Hawk is maybe only in the book for three chapters. He will undoubtedly be in the third book a great deal -- this middle book is the story of Angel Perez and the Elves for the most aprt -- but I felt his absence. Time will tell how his story unfolds and completes.
There were also real moments in this book when I had to reread the passage because I couldn't believe what Terry had done! No one is safe in Terry Brooks's work, and he really surprised me at times with the avenue he took the story. So be prepared for that!
Anyone who loves the Word/Void books should read this series. Anyone who loves the Shannara Elves should read this series. I look forward to reading the third book in this series!
Great sequel, great character development, great story! January 11, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Following in the footsteps of Armageddon's Children, the first book in the Genesis of Shannara series, The Elves of Cintra (2007) seamlessly advances the major plotlines from before, and brings about new truths, excitement and character history to an already great story.
In the previous book, the reader is left with a literal cliff-hanger. Logan Tom has found Hawk, the leader of the Ghosts and also the powerful gypsy morph, only to realize that Hawk is to be executed by being tossed from a compound's high-level wall. Just as Logan gained entry to the complex, Hawk and Tessa were being tossed to their death from high above.
Logan Tom realizes this too late, but during a frenzy at the compound he learns that when Hawk and Tessa are thrown from the compound wall, a great burst of light emerged, whisking them away into nothingness. After learning of this, Logan Tom seeks to regroup with the Ghosts sans-Hawk, and protect them/travel with them towards a safer destination. While doing so, he looks upon the harbor and realizes that hundres, if not thousands of ships approach to take on the compound. He knows that the ships carry once-men and demons, and it's time to leave.
Meanwhile, Panther flees the compound without Logan Tom, seeking to reunite with the rest of the Ghosts. He meets up with Sparrow at Pioneer Square only to be swarmed by croaks, feeders, and all sorts of other madness. It appears that the oncoming attack at the compound has all in the area in complete chaos. They finally escape to meet up with Logan Tom and the rest of the Ghosts.
Later, the Ghosts and Logan Tom encounter incredible battles, death, freaks, a long lost Knight of the Word, and a group of mutant kids. Throughout these ordeals, the reader is privy to further life history from each one of the Ghosts. Where they are from, what brought them to the Ghosts, and a deeper understanding of their character.
As this is occuring, the other Knight of the Word, Angel Perez, is travelling with the tatterdemalion, Ailie, towards the elven domain. As they are traveling, however, they are aware that the demon Delloreen is steadfast in pursuit, and determined to kill them.
Once at the elven domain, Angel and Ailie meet up with Kirisin and his older sister, Simralin, who is an elven tracker. The group minus-Kirisin meet with the king and the High Council to find out that not only will the council not assist them in saving the Elcryss, but there is also trouble amiss at the High Council; there is an intruder of sorts.
Despite the king's wishes, the group alongside the king's daughter Erisha, decide to learn about the elfstones and the Loden through the elven histories, and travel to the elven cemetary, Ashenell, to uncover more facts about the powers with which they are dealing. While there, the group faces terrible tragedy, incredible discoveries, and an understanding about the next step in their quest.
Last but not least, the reader finally learns of Hawk's powers, responsibilities, and goals as the encounter with the King of the Silver River fills in the details of the past as well as Hawk's destiny.
The Elves of Cintra (2007) ends with Angel Perez and her group discovering the Loden and its powers while dealing with the demons; Logan Tom and the Ghosts searching for Hawk; and Hawk, Tessa, and Cheney, along with Helen Rice and the rescued compound children with whom Hawk was joined making their way towards the Ghosts.
It's a highly enjoyable read that easily ties the loose-ends together, providing new excitement and new character development, and leading easily to the finale of the series. Like Armaggedon's Children, I plan on reading The Elves of Cintra at least one more time before the third volume of this series is released. I highly recommend this book.
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