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High Druid of Shannara: Straken (High Druid of Shannara) | 
| Author: Terry Brooks
Creator: Charles Keating
Publisher: Random House Audio
Category: Book
Buy New: $26.95
Rating:  69 reviews
Sales Rank: 1983666
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Media: Audio Cassette
Edition: Abridged
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 7 x 4.3 x 1.2
ISBN: 0739321315
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780739321317
ASIN: 0739321315
Publication Date: September 6, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 3 weeks
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The High Druid of Shannara trilogy draws to a thrilling close as a young hero nears completion of his trial by fire, a banished ruler fights for her life in a wilderness of dread, and forces of darkness and light square off in a battle unto death for the right to absolute rule. Prepare to be spellbound by the masterly hand of bestselling legend weaver Terry Brooks, conjuring at the peak of his skills.
For reasons known only to himself, the King of the Silver River has charged young Penderrin Ohmsford, barely more than a boy, with the daunting task of rescuing his aunt, Grianne, Ard Rhys of the Druid order, from her forced exile in the terrifying dimension of all things damned: the Forbidding. With the noble dwarf Tagwen and the prodigal elven princess Khyber Elessedil by his side–and with the outcome of the bloody war between the Federation and the Free-born at stake–Pen has accepted his mission without question. But not without risk . . . or sacrifice.
Because Shadea a’Ru, the ruthless Druid responsible for imprisoning the true Ard Rhys and usurping leadership at Paranor, has sent her agents and assassins in relentless pursuit of Pen and his comrades. And in securing the talisman he needs to breach the Forbidding, Pen has paid a devastating price. Now if the Free-born forces–already decimated by the Federation’s death-dealing new weapon–should fall, Shadea’s domination of the Four Lands will be assured. Nothing short of Pen’s success can turn the tide.
But Pen’s challenge grows greater when he learns that his parents, Bek Ohmsford and Rue Meridian, have fallen into Shadea’s hands. He must try to help them–but once within the walls of Druid’s Keep, where Shadea’s minions and dark magic lurk at every turn, Pen’s survival is far from assured. Yet it will all pale in comparison to the horrors that wait inside the Forbidding–horrors poised to break free upon the Four Lands when the time is right. .
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| Customer Reviews: Read 64 more reviews...
 Great ending to the shannara series. April 13, 2008
rebotco
I started reading Shannara books in November (First King), and I vowed not to stop until the library had run out of books. Well with Straken my journey has been completed. And i have to say it was an enjoyable one. Straken was easy to read and fast paced, Brooks' writing had really evolved since the Sword. The book has a great ending, there was nothing I wanted to see more than what happened. If you have followed the whole Shannara epic like I have, you have no reason not to read this book. I was just really sad when it was all over.
good story March 31, 2008
Carolyn S. Almennigen (Lake Villa, IL, United States)
I enjoyed this story, but some of the pages were hard to read due to printing errors: fingerprint smudges, faint print across the page, ink blotches. If I were to do it again, I'd fork out the money for the hardcover.
What's not to love? December 24, 2007
Super Dave (Ada, Oklahoma)
Terry Brooks has a lot of critics out there, and I can't quite figure out why. Perhaps it is just the fact that he is a one of the few consistently good authors out there in the fantasy business. Perhaps we expect to be dazzled with his books like we were when were so so so much younger reading the Sword of Shannara. I don't know. But I am going to give him some slack. This book is great. It resolves all the conflicts in an action packed unpredictable way that leaves you mesmerized from beginning to end. Perhaps people wanted the more predictable ending. I haven't read the other reviews, so I don't know.
There are very few areas in Terry Brooks writing where I feel he is weak. Perhaps the worst area is in coming up with names. Sometimes the climax is kind of silly, or anticlimatic (which is a lot like Stephen King sometimes). You seldom get a peek into the innermost thoughts of the characters (unlike Robin Hobb who absolutely drowns the reader in every thought of her protagonist) and a lot of the story is left the imagination. Perhaps, this is the fault most people find. That their personal lack of imagination ruins their appreciation of the story. And, I'll admit, I've suffered from this problem myself at times when reading his work. But, overall, he writes a well crafted plot, and paces it expertly, so that you never have a chance to get distracted. In fact, you can hardly put these books down. The characters are interesting, if perhaps a bit stereotyped, and the world is sufficiently developed to create a sense of intrigue as well as a very real sense of plausibility.
This series is drawn to a great conclusion, and I find the writing between all the books in the series to be remarkably "tight" in the sense that the pacing and style is identical in all three books. Which is important to note, as reading any of the other series from Terry Brooks, you will notice each series has its own pacing and feel. This is pretty good, considering he is using virtually the same setting in most of his series, and he could try to be formulaic in his approach to each series. I find he hasn't done that at all, but he tries to reinvent the world with each book by bring in a different tone, or approach, which ends up lending each series its own special flavor.
The High Druid of Shannara is more like an action movie than anything else I have read that he has written. Straken is like the big finale third movie of the trilogy. An immense number of loose ends are all tied up satisfactorily, in this unpredictable and dramatic conclusion. This series lacks some of the emotional buildup of the previous series, and builds a lot of that drama into the last book, though the second book lent a little more to the emotional investment than the first one.
Overall a very satisfying read.
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