2012 marks the 35th anniversary of The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks!
That's right. It has been that long. Don't tell Terry. Ha!
The Sword of Shannara is one of those perfect books—a great tale that comes along exactly when a readership is unknowingly demanding it. Before Sword, the only epic fantasy that existed was The Lord of the Rings. Publishers for whatever reason didn't think people would want to return to a setting similar in scope and detail. All of them were wrong except for Lester del Rey, who took a chance on it. Once editors and publishers saw how long Sword remained on the New York Times bestselling list, they changed their opinion of epic fantasy quickly, giving rise to a sub-genre that reigned supreme for three decades.
It is fascinating to talk Terry about the history behind Sword's publication. As I wrote back in January's Creating The Annotated Sword of Shannara: Part I article, I was hired by Del Rey Books to do the initial annotations on a 35th Anniversary edition of The Sword of Shannara. I jumped at the chance. I love projects like these, sure, but it was an excuse to get to know Terry and his work better. An annotation book requires asking a lot of questions that usually have not been answered, and I had to do just that over the last two months.
I'm lucky in one regard: I've been a fan of Terry's work since 1987, have read The Sword of Shannara numerous times, and I've heard Terry talk in depth about the book—at signing and convention events as well as in private—hundreds of times. I daresay I know more about the book than anyone alive other than Terry.
But when I got into annotating the book, I discovered I had a great deal more questions than I had answers. There will be approximately 200 annotations in The Sword of Shannara: Annotated 35th Anniversary Edition, and once I completed my re-read I only had about 120 annotations. I asked Terry a few questions and he came over to talk. In the time we had, he answered about 25 more questions that led to annotations, meaning I basically needed another 50 to complete what Del Rey wanted.
Two weeks ago, in the solitude that is Terry and Judine's Oregon coast home, I wrapped up the final set of questions for Terry to answer. I went through Sword again, taking what I had learned from Terry already to form new questions, and after two days I had my 200 + annotations and thoughts. Now that Terry has gone over my contributions as well as his own, we are prepared to hand the project into Del Rey for an October 16, 2012 release!
Here is one of the interesting annotations Terry added to Chapter 1:
The original set of editing notes I received from Lester del Rey was 25 pages long, single-spaced. There were further sets of notes along the way and the entire editing process took the better part of two years. An example of the work I had to complete included rewriting the ending to the book, of which Lester was dissatisfied. I rewrote it three times and three times Lester sent it back and said, “Do it again.” After the third time, Lester threatened to do it himself, at which point I panicked, buckled down, and got it right.Terry and I have grown close over the years, the result of mutual respect fought for and won, to the point we are friends—hell, we are family. And I am more than that now. We talk every other day on the phone about a number of things. For instance, this morning he called me to talk about the possible change of his next book's title, the cover art, the full-color interior artwork that is being painted right now, and what is going with his works in Hollywood. Working with Terry is always fun. There is no doubt about it. I hope to bring some of that to the remaining Creating The Annotated Sword of Shannara parts! Until October 16, 2012—when you can see it for yourself!
