The Elf Queen of Shannara

By: Terry Brooks

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 15 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

The third volume of The Heritage of Shannara, which continues one of the most popular fantasy series of all time

"Find the Elves and return them to the world of Men!" The shade of the Druid Allanon had ordered Wren.

It was clearly an impossible task. The Elves had been gone from the Westland for more than a hundred years. There was not even a trace of their former city of Arborlon left to mark their passing. No one in the Esterland knew of them - except, finally, the Addershag.

The blind old woman had given instructions to find a place on the coast of the Blue Divide, build a fire, and keep it burning for three days. "One will come for you."

Tiger Ty, the Wing Rider, had come on his giant Roc to carry Wren and her friend Garth to the only clear landing site on the island of Morrowindl, where, he said, the Elves might still exist, somewhere in the demon-haunted jungle.

Now she stood within that jungle, remembering the warning of the Addershag: "Beware, Elf-girl. I see danger ahead for you...and evil beyond imagining." It had proved all too true.

Wren stood with her single weapon of magic, listening as demons evil beyond all imagining gathered for attack. How long could she resist?

And if, by some miracle, she reached the Elves and could convince them to return, how could they possibly retrace her perilous path to reach the one safe place on the coast?

©2016 Terry Brooks (P)2016 Random House Audio

Great!

Great story! I was interested the entire time and I was drawn into the story, becoming part of it... becoming one with it.

doesn't disappoint

Terry Brooks did it again. This book is an awesome continuation of the Shannara stories. It is compelling and spellbinding. John Lee brings the characters to life in fascinating ways.

This entire series was great!

Very action packed! Had me on the edge of my seat the entire time! The descriptions paint a very vivid picture to set the tones of what's happening.

Why the random chapters?

Loved the story. Just don't get why 3 random chapters from Druid were thrown in...

Absolutely Awesome 2nd book

This was Terry at his height all their stories were similar in a way WALKER and WREN MADE over. Can't wait for The Talismans of SHANNARA to begin tonight
Rob..Tardisrobb

Great books

I look forward to the rest in the series. 7 books deep and loving everyone of them

Best of the series so far

Way better then the last one. Good story and it answers questions instead of wasting time.

Dangerous quest, unexpected secrets

The Elf Queen of Shannara is the third of four books in the Heritage of Shannara series. This one tells the story of Wren Ohmsford, the girl Ohmsford cousin whose story we have been waiting for.
The story is good, and the action, once they reach the island of Morrowindl is nearly nonstop. Even when she is not in a life-threatening situation, Wren is deluged with unexpected information about who she really is and what has happened with the Elves.

Most of the story in this book is Wren’s. But there are just a very few glimpses of Par and Col Ohmsford and Walker Boh and the journeys they are still on. This is just a little jarring in how it is done. I sort of wish that the books in this series would have either focused on one quest at a time once the three quests were set up or would have updated us fairly evenly on how everybody was doing. To have a single story interrupted with little bits of the others kind of destroys the continuity.

The shade of the late Druid, Allanon, had tasked Wren with finding the Elves and returning them to the Four Lands. It seems that since the original Sword of Shannara series, some three hundred years previously, the Elves had taken the notion that it would be best for them to leave the corrupted Four Lands. And nobody has seen them since.

For all the trouble that Wren has getting to the Elves and back once she discovers where they have gone, the most difficult part of this mission is finding them. In the little snippets we have seen of Wren’s journey in the earlier books in this subseries, she finally discovered an old witch of a crone who told her how to find them. So, she and her friend, the silent warrior, Garth, try it and are rewarded with a trip to the Island of Morrowindl where the Elves are supposed to be.

It is a wonder that they make it into the interior of the island where the Elves are at all. There are so many dangers they must face on the way. The only two creatures they meet who are nice at all are Stresa, a Splinterscat (a critter you don’t see every day, but whose knowledge of the island is the only thing that keeps them from being killed by the other denizens of the island) and an inoffensive creature that Stresa refers to as a “tree squeak.”

When they at last encounter one of the Elvin guards and are brought into the fortress where the Elves have sequestered themselves, Wren discovers many many things she didn’t expect about herself, the Elves, and magic.

Even as she is talking with the Elf Queen the walls around the fortress are giving way. Although some people protest the idea, it’s clear if you are paying attention that the only way to save the Elves as a people is to get them out of their island fortress. The Elf Queen, Elinroe Elissidel, performs a spell to place nearly the entire population into a special Elfstone, the Loden Stone, for the trip to the Four Lands.

Then they set out, just a small company that includes Wren, Garth, Elinroe, Elinroe’s best friend and seer, Eowen, four of their best guards and trackers, and Elinroe’s nephew who is also Wren’s cousin.

The death toll on the trip back to the coast is incredibly high. Even the indomitable Garth is finally bitten by something that threatens to do more than merely kill him. This part is really sad. Only Wren, Stresa, the tree squeak, and one seriously injured guard are left when Tiger Ty returns on his Roc to retrieve them. They barely escape the island before the volcano at its heart destroys it.

Another great book by Terry!

Another great book by Terry! I love this series! I do wish that the narrators would all pronounce the names the same in this series though. Otherwise great!

Terry Brooks and John Lee - what a combination!

Absolutely love this series with the best narrator and brilliant writer! Wish there were more!

Thank you legends!