The Sword of Shannara

Blurb

The Sword of Shannara is a 1977 epic fantasy novel by Terry Brooks. The first book of the Original Shannara Trilogy, it was followed by The Elfstones of Shannara and The Wishsong of Shannara. Heavily influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Brooks began writing The Sword of Shannara in 1967. It took him seven years to complete, as he was writing the novel while attending law school. Ballantine Books used it to launch the company's new subsidiary, Del Rey Books. Its success boosted the commercial expansion of the fantasy genre.
The novel interweaves two major plots into a fictional world called the Four Lands. One follows the protagonist Shea Ohmsford on his quest to obtain the Sword of Shannara and confront the Warlock Lord, the antagonist, with it, while the other shadows Prince Balinor Buckhannah's attempt to oust his insane brother Palance from the throne of Callahorn while the country and its capital, Tyrsis, come under attack from overwhelming armies of the Warlock Lord. Throughout the novel, underlying themes of mundane heroism and nuclear holocaust appear.
Critics have derided the novel for being derivative of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.