Tolkien´s high fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings in college, and it served as strong inspiration for the creation of The Sword of Shannara, but Brooks was also influenced by adventure novels set in history, such as Ivanhoe by Walter Scott, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, Treasure Island by R.L. Terry Brooks started writing The Sword of Shannara in 1967, when he was a twenty-three year old law student at Washington and Lee University. The Dark Wraith of Shannara (Graphic Novel) (2008).

Mundane heroism and ordinary people are thrown into extraordinary situations are two main themes in The Sword of Shannara, and these themes are present in many of the other books as well throughout the series. The Southland (the southernmost of the Four Lands) is primarily the homeland of Men, while the Northland is mostly inhabited by trolls, the Westland is the homeland of the Elves, and most of the dwarves and gnomes live in Eastland. Also, the Elves are slowly beginning to re-emerge after staying hidden for a very long time. There are Men, Trolls, Dwarves, and Gnomes. Since the apocalypse, the surviving humans have mutated into several distinct races – all named after creatures from old myths. The first book of the series, The Sword of Shannara, is set 2,000 years after the apocalypse.

The setting of the adventures is a post-apocalyptic world called the Four Lands, where magic and pre-industrial technology exist side by side in the damaged landscape that remains after a chemical and nuclear holocaust caused the fall of a previous civilization and wiped out most human life on the planet. Shannara is a high fantasy book series written by Terry Brooks and published in 1977-2020.

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