Long ago, the wars of the ancient Evil had ruined the world and forced mankind to compete with many other races - gnomes, trolls, dwarfs and elves. Half-elfin Shea Ohmsford learns that the supposedly dead Warlock Lord was plotting to destroy the world and the sole weapon against this Power of Darkness was The Sword of Shannara, which could only be used by a true heir of Shannara.

Ben Holiday, High Lord of the magic kingdom of Landover, and his wife Willow have sent their 15-year-old daughter Mistaya to our world to attend a prestigious girls' boarding school. Mistaya--Misty to her friends--is not pleased with the arrangement. She is forbidden to use her magic for any reason, can't understand why other girls her own age don't revere the natural world, and is too clever for her own good in coming up with activities definitely not contained in the private school charter.

Eighty years into the future, the United States is a no-man's-land: its landscape blighted by chemical warfare, pollution, and plague; its government collapsed, its citizens adrift, desperate, and fighting to stay alive. Survivors in fortified compounds hold the line against wandering predators, rogue militias, and hideous mutations spawned by the toxic atmosphere.

Eighty years into the future, the United States is a no-man's-land: its landscape blighted by chemical warfare, pollution, and plague; its government collapsed, its citizens adrift, desperate, and fighting to stay alive. Survivors in fortified compounds hold the line against wandering predators, rogue militias, and hideous mutations spawned by the toxic atmosphere. But from around the country, allies of good have been summoned to challenge the rampaging evil.

Former Chicago lawyer Ben Holiday was proud and happy. And why not? The Magic Kingdom of Landover, which he ruled as High Lord, was finally at peace, and he and his wife, the sylph Willow, could watch their daughter Mistaya grow. But his idyll was interrupted when Rydall, a king of lands beyond the fairy mist, assembled armies on Landover's border and threatened to invade unless Ben was able to defeat Rydall's seven champions.

Everything should have been quiet and pleasant for Ben Holiday, former Chicago lawyer become sovereign of the Magic Kingdom of Landover. But it wasn't. Horris Kew, conjurer, confidence-man, and trickster, had returned to Landover from Ben's own world. Alas, Horris had not returned of his own volition - he had been sent by the Gorse, a sorcerer of great evil, whom Horris had unwittingly freed from the magic Tangle Box.

Logan Tom is doomed to remember the past and determined to rescue the future. Far behind him lies a boyhood cut violently short by his family's slaughter, when the forces of madness and hate swept our world after decadent excesses led to civilization's downfall. Somewhere ahead of him rests the only chance to beat back the minions of evil that are systematically killing and enslaving the last remnants of humanity.

A year had passed since Ben Holiday bought the Magic Kingdom from the wizard Meeks, who had set a series of pitfalls against him. Ben survived, by the aid of three loyal friends: Questor Thews, an ill-trained wizard; Abernathy, a talking dog, the Court Scribe; and the lovely Willow, who sometimes had to be a tree.

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.

Landover was a genuine magic kingdom, with fairy folk and wizardry, just as the advertisement promised. But after he purchased it, Ben Holiday learned that there were a few details the ad had failed to mention.The kingdom was in ruin. The Barons refused to recognize the king, and the peasants were without hope.