The end of the world?

There is a world very unlike ours. Humans live in closed compounds against the outside world, "once-men" roam the hillsides, the once-booming cities are empty except for outcasts and strange creatures that appeared from no-one-knows-where, even the earth itself is poisoned. The only similarity to the world we know is that it is, in fact, Earth, the United States of America, after man's hatred and greed led to nuclear holocaust.

About the Book

In a world gone bad the forces of evil arise in two very distinct factions to battle against each other. First, the demons and their pawns, known as once-men, that have the sole objective of destroying all remaining humans in the world, attacking compounds one by one and murdering all the inhabitants.

On the side of good, a motley band of street kids and two "Knights of the Word". One Knight, Logan Tom, spent most of his life hunting the demon that led the attack against his home compound and slaughtered his family. Then one night a mysterious Indian whom Logan is apparently acquainted with appears and tells him the tale of a gypsy morph that can restore the balance of the world and must be found. The other, Angel Perez, expends her energies rescuing children from compounds under attack before they fall to the demons, until a strange ephemeral creature sends her on a mission to find some Elfstones.

My Opinion

First off, I must confess that, though I am an avid fantasy reader, this is the first book I have ever read by Terry Brooks. The reason I chose this one? I am already in the middle of several series, and I didn't want to start a new one, and by all appearances this book was unattached to any other.

Second, judging by this book, Terry Brooks is not high on my list of authors to read.

The beginning of the story caught my attention, "end of the world" scenarios always appeal to me for some reason. As the book progressed I couldn't help but notice the lack of progression in the plot; personally, I think the entire book could have been fitted into one or two chapters, except the bit about the elves. Smack dab in the middle of this story about humans and demons struggling against each other in a ruined world, there is a couple of chapters about elves tending a sacred tree and discovering that they must find some elfstones in order to move the tree so it won't die.

The characters seemed rather two-dimensional and stereotypical to me. Every single character became predictable after the first chapter they were in and none have really established a personality in my mind except "good" or "evil".

There were some parts of the book that confused me a bit and were not explained, now that I know this is supposed to be a precursor to Brooks' Shannara books I assume this is because the author figured that anyone reading Armageddon's Children would have already read at least some of the Shannara books.

On the positive side, I did find the story somewhat intriguing and even suspenseful in places. I was actually even starting to get into it when I hit the end of the book...and there found out that I had indeed started yet another series despite my efforts to avoid just that.

To conclude, I found this book interesting enough for a weekend if there's nothing else to read. Without having read the renowned Shannara books I cannot say if fans of that series would find this book more interesting or not, but speaking from the view of someone completely ignorant of all things Terry Brooks, don't waste your money on this one but if you happen to notice it at the library it will help stave off boredom for a time. Will I read the next book? Possibly. This book ended quite abruptly and I must confess I am curious about how it turns out, so if I stumble across the second book I will probably read it, but I'm certainly not going to scour Amazon for it. Will I read anything else by Terry Brooks? Probably. Many people have recommended the Shannara books to me, so I will probably read one or two to see what all the fuss is about.

In short, here's a weekend read for you if you don't get overly annoyed by slow plots and shallow characters. If you're looking for a book to remember, you'll probably want to look elsewhere.