Straken

 

The third and final entry of author Terry Brooks’ High Druid of Shannara trilogy opens with the rogue Druids catching up to Pen and his companions, with the former disguising the tanequil intended to rescue his aunt Grianne from the Forbidding upon his capture. The rogue magicians interrogate Pen about his mysterious staff, although he manages at first to disguise the talisman’s true nature. His parents, Rue Meridian and Bek Ohmsford, are also in captivity, with the leader of the Druid order, the rogue Ard Rhys Shadea, still seeing Grianne as the antagonistic Ilse Witch that she was in the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy.

Several conflicts between the Elven forces and the Federation occur throughout the book, with Shadea maintaining her ties with its sinister Prime Minister Sen Dunsidan. Meanwhile, Grianne still finds herself stuck in the Forbidding, escorted by the Ulk Bog Weka Dart, as she awaits her salvation at the hands of a boy fated to cross dimensions. Pen does eventually cross into the Forbidding in search of his aunt, with Weka Dart wanting to join him and Grianne in their return to the Four Lands. The third book ends with a final conflict between the rogue Druids and their enemies at the Druid’s Keep Paranor.

All in all, I definitely relished reading the High Druid of Shannara trilogy, given its continuation of the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara books and close interval proximity to those particular stories. Granted, it’s not perfect, given the ambiguous nature of the Federation, and one can occasionally find it difficult to keep tabs of what races to which the various characters belong. There are also some occasional odd stylistic choices in the text, with occasional redundancy, and better descriptions for a few of the characters would have been welcome for readers to better imagine the story. Regardless, I would definitely recommend this book and its precursors to Shannara fans.