Publishers Weekly
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Brooks returns to the epic fantasy world he debuted in 1977’s The Sword of Shannara for a final, by-the-numbers adventure that picks up the story from 2019’s The Stiehl Assassin as the residents of the Four Lands continue to confront the invasion of the Skaar, who flee the permanent winter that has fallen across their lands. Meanwhile Tarsha Kaynin works to rescue her mentor, druid Drisker Arc, from the perilous realm he’s been banished to by the evil witch Clizia Porse. The noble Tarsha and villainous Clizia are thinly developed genre clichés and similar laziness in world-building too often makes this a slog. The story’s bare bones will strike many readers as too close to the framework of the Star Wars movies for comfort: a young woman with mystical powers, who has been mentored by an older wizard, must confront another magic user who has turned to the dark side and so betrayed her mystical order. Even longtime fans will likely be happy that Brooks is moving on to a completely new imagined world. Agent: Anne Sibbald, Janklow & Nesbit. (Oct.)

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

The final novel in Brooks' long-running, multi-pronged Shannara series features signature elements: high stakes battles, dramatic magical duels, and the possibility of the end of the world as our heroes know it. Tarsha Kaynin, having miraculously survived Clizia Porze’s latest attempt to kill her, knows that’s not the end of their battling. Drisker Arc is trapped in a demonic realm, with no hope of escape, until he sees Tarsha in his dreams. The Skaar invasion force continues to press at the armies of the Four Lands, with betrayal and assassins at work behind the scenes. Ajin, Skaar princess, and the airship crew are on the way to test an invention which might turn the tide of climate destruction in the Skaar homeland. Of course, nobody’s plans go smoothly. Both the successes and the flaws of the storytelling will be familiar to readers of Brooks’ extensive oeuvre, and the way every thread plays out is a satisfying enough place to end the massive epic of Shannara, although of course the end isn’t so final that there isn’t room to carry on. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Brooks' epic began with The Sword of Shannara in 1977, and generations of fantasy readers will want to read the series finale.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The chronological conclusion to both the four-book Fall of Shannara miniseries and the entire Shannara oeuvre established in 1977. What began as a standard sword-and-sorcery universe has morphed into one where magic and technology coexist, where heroes zoom around in airships powered by something akin to dilithium crystals yet still fight with swords and blast each other with magic. Here, the Four Lands face destruction by the warlike Skaar, invaders driven from their home by climate change. Four groups with dominant female leads operate largely independently and often without reference to the plot's main thrust. Tarsha Kaynin, schooled in wishsong magic by the druid Drisker Arc, faces a showdown battle with the evil witch Clizia Porse. The witch has hurled Drisker into a demon-infested realm from which there's no escape, where he discovers Grianne Ohmsford, an old acquaintance, a long-term prisoner. Young Belladrin Rish, a clandestine Skaar agent working to subvert the Four Lands’ defenses, begins to doubt her mission. And Skaar princess Ajin D'Amphere, now collaborating with warrior Dar Leah and friends, heads toward Skaarland with, just possibly, a technological solution to the climate problem. Familiar Brooks strengths—courage, perseverance, loyalty, and so forth—are prominent, yet it's hard to ignore the underlying exhaustion. Things happen randomly, so the narrative strands never quite cohere into a single satisfying package; events readers might have anticipated from the previous volumes fail to materialize. Brooks' style is easy and undemanding. His characters often resemble fantasy archetypes yet possess just enough individuality to avoid skepticism; plots seldom stray far from boilerplate. His greatest appeal has been to youth, and recent attempts to inject mature themes such as sexual violence have not been a success. As he has pretty much throughout the entire Shannara cosmos, Brooks takes his departure with the contention that science and magic are flip sides of the same coin. They're not. Science works for anybody. Magic works only if you have the gift. Like a weary yet exultant marathon runner: wraps itself in a flag, totters across the finish line, and crumples in a heap. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.