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Shannara

The Four Lands are Earth after the end of the world, and that is a reveal. Read in publication order or you will spend it early.

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Where to start with Shannara

Start with The Sword of Shannara and read in publication order. This is Terry Brooks's own advice, and the reason is structural rather than sentimental: the Four Lands being post-apocalyptic Earth is a slow reveal, and the modern world books exist to pay it off. Reading in world chronology front loads the answer and turns every later discovery into recap.

  1. 1
    The Sword of Shannara The Sword of Shannara

    The 1977 debut. Its debt to The Lord of the Rings is overt and it is the weakest prose Brooks ever published, and it is still the right first book because everything downstream assumes it.

  2. 2
    The Elfstones of Shannara The Elfstones of Shannara

    A self contained story, the point where Brooks sounds like himself, and the book the television series adapts. Many readers find it the stronger entry point, and starting here costs you relatively little.

  3. 3
    The Wishsong of Shannara The Wishsong of Shannara

    Finishes the original trilogy, after which the Heritage books jump roughly three hundred years and the series properly opens out.

Then what? Once you have the original trilogy, publication order carries you through Heritage, then Voyage, High Druid, Genesis, Legends, Dark Legacy, Defenders and the four book Fall of Shannara, which is the chronological end. The modern world books, Word and Void and Genesis, land far better once you already know what the Four Lands are. The story order shown on this page is the world chronology, and it is offered for a second read rather than a first.

A suggested way in, not an official one. The full list is below — tick anything off in either place.

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