Terry Brooks

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Terry Brooks
Born January 8, 1944 (1944-01-08) (age 64)
Sterling, Illinois
Occupation author, former attorney
Nationality United States
Genres epic fantasy, urban fantasy
Influences
Official website

Terence Dean "Terry" Brooks (born January 8, 1944) is a writer of fantasy fiction. He writes mainly epic fantasy,[2] and has also written two movie novelizations.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Brooks was born in the rural midwestern town of Sterling, Illinois and spent a large part of his life living there. [3] He is an alumnus of Hamilton College, obtaining his B.A. in English Literature in 1966. [3] He later obtained a J.D. from Washington and Lee University. He was a practicing attorney before becoming a full-time author, and now resides in Seattle, Washington with his wife, Judine. [3]

Brooks had been a writer since high school, writing mainly in the genres of science fiction, western, fiction, and non-fiction. [3] One day, in his early college life, he was given a copy of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, which inspired him to write in one genre. [3] He then made his debut in 1977 with his first novel The Sword of Shannara. [3] This novel became the first fantasy book ever to appear on the New York Times bestseller list, where it stayed for five months. [3]

After finishing the sequels to The Sword of Shannara, Brooks moved on to the series which would become known as the Landover series. [3] Upon finishing these novels, Brooks began to write a four book series that became The Heritage of Shannara. [3] For the next fourteen years, he wrote more Landover books, then went on to write The Word and Void trilogy. Continuing the Shannara series, Brooks wrote the prequel to The Sword of Shannara, titled First King of Shannara. He then wrote two series, The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara and High Druid of Shannara and is continuing with a third, Genesis of Shannara. The second book of his new series, Elves of Cintra, came out August 28, 2007.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Shannara series

Note: these novels are listed in suggested reading order.[4]

[edit] The Original Shannara Trilogy

  1. The Sword of Shannara (1977)
  2. The Elfstones of Shannara (1982)
  3. The Wishsong of Shannara (1985) (The short story Indomitable is an epilogue to The Wishsong of Shannara)

[edit] The Heritage of Shannara tetralogy

  1. The Scions of Shannara (1990)
  2. The Druid of Shannara (1991)
  3. The Elf Queen of Shannara (1992)
  4. The Talismans of Shannara (1993)

[edit] Prequel

  1. First King of Shannara (1996)

[edit] Word & Void series

The Word & Void series precedes the action in Genesis of Shannara trilogy. With the publication of the Genesis of Shannara series, it became known that The Word & The Void is actually the same series as Shannara.

  1. Running with the Demon (1997)
  2. A Knight of the Word (1998)
  3. Angel Fire East (1999)

[edit] The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy

  1. Ilse Witch (2000)
  2. Antrax (2001)
  3. Morgawr (2002)

[edit] High Druid of Shannara trilogy

  1. Jarka Ruus (2003)
  2. Tanequil (2004)
  3. Straken (2005)

[edit] Genesis of Shannara trilogy

  1. Armageddon's Children (August, 2006)
  2. The Elves of Cintra (August 28, 2007)
  3. The Gypsy Morph (forthcoming, 26 August, 2008)[5]

[edit] Shannara related works

[edit] Magic Kingdom of Landover series

  1. Magic Kingdom For Sale -- SOLD! (1986)
  2. The Black Unicorn (1987)
  3. Wizard at Large (1988)
  4. The Tangle Box (1994)
  5. Witches' Brew (1995)
  6. Untitled Book 6 (forthcoming, September, 2009)[7]

[edit] Novelizations

[edit] Other

  • Imaginary Friends (1991) (short story published in anthology Once Upon a Time: A Treasury of Modern Fairy Tales)
  • Indomitable (2003) (short story published in anthology Legends II)
  • Why I Write About Elves (2005) (short story published as an Amazon short)
  • The Writers Complete Fantasy Reference: An Indispensable Compendium of Myth and Magic (Writer's Digest Books, 2000), with Michael J. Varhola
  • Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life (2003)

[edit] Film adaptations

The rights to a film adaptation for all of the Shannara novels have been sold to Warner Bros until 2010. [8] The Elfstones of Shannara, the first planned film, [8] will be directed by Mike Newell, [9] who was also responsible for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. [10] Elfstones is expected to start filming in 2008 and finished sometime during 2009 and will probably be followed by an adaptation of The Sword of Shannara in 2010 or so. [8] [11] Note that the sequence of the films differ from the sequence of the books, although Terry Brooks believes that this is the best starting place for adapting the Shannara novels. [8]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Influences
  2. ^ Speakman, Shawn (2008). Terry Brooks' official website. Retrieved on 2008-05-19.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Speakman, Shawn (2008). Terry Brooks' official biography. Retrieved on 2008-05-19.
  4. ^ Speakman, Shawn (2008). Terry's Suggested Reading Order. Retrieved on 2008-05-19.
  5. ^ Terry Brooks' Website. Retrieved on 2008-01-20.
  6. ^ Terry Brooks' Website. Retrieved on 2007-10-28.
  7. ^ Terry Brooks' Website. Retrieved on 2007-10-28.
  8. ^ a b c d Speakman, Shawn (2008). Possible movie adaptations for the Shannara series. Retrieved on 2008-05-19.
  9. ^ The Elfstones of Shannara (2009)
  10. ^ Mike Newell at IMDB.
  11. ^ The Sword of Shannara (2010)

[edit] External links