The Word and The Void: Prequel #2

Warrior

by Terry Brooks

Published in 2018

This a spoiler filled review.

Warrior is the continuation of the story of Jack McCall, whom we were first introduced to in Imaginary Friends. While Imaginary Friends followed Jack as a young boy, Warrior jumps ahead in his timeline to the point when he has just graduated college and is heading back home to Hopewell, Illinois. Jack remembers the time that he had to fight the dragon with the help of Pick and Daniel, but hasn’t had any contact with them since and unfortunately as we learn in this story, he doesn’t have any contact with them ever again.

While this story is chronologically the second story in the whole Shannara Saga, this was written after the next trilogy, The Word and the Void, was written. There will be terms and characters introduced in this story that will be further expanded upon in the next trilogy. While I wouldn’t consider them spoilers while reading this story, the reader will gain a better understanding and context in the next three books.

Jack has graduated college and is getting ready to leave when he sees a man approaching him, a large Native American man dressed in army fatigues. Jack talks with this man who is named O’olish Amaneh, or Two Bears in English. (While readers familiar with the Word and the Void trilogy will find this as a reunion with Two Bears, for chronological readers this will be their first introduction of Two Bears into the story.) Two Bears calls him kem’sho, or warrior. Two Bears tells him about the need for him to go to Wales and meet the Lady. After a discussion of whether or not he wants to go, Jack ultimately agrees to go. Two Bears hands him some plane tickets and leaves.

Jack later boards the flight to Wales and heads to the town of Betws-y-Coed to visit the Fairy Glen as instructed by Two Bears. Jack arrives at a hotel and spends a few days in Betws-y-Coed and then one night heads out to the Glen. He sees a fisherman as he walks up to the Glen, but the fisherman strangely disappears after he passes by him. It’s almost as if he is a guardian for the Glen that night. Later that night, the Lady appears and speaks with him about becoming a Knight of the Word. But this task of becoming a Knight will require just one mission for him to complete. She tells him that he will have the dreams that all Knights have and that his task will be very important and vital for the Word’s success. Jack accepts the mantle of Knight and the task (even though he doesn’t know what it is at the time) from the Lady.

Upon returning home to Hopewell, Jack starts working for the City of Hopewell in Sinissippi Park as a Park Ranger. A few weeks later, Jack is again approached by Two Bears. This time Two Bears gives him a black staff and admonishes him to keep it by his side at all times. Two Bears also fills him in on the threats that await him. The Void will send his minions to stop him and he must be prepared to fight. A couple of weeks later he is attacked by three men who think he is the devil and Jack is able to defeat them with the help of the staff’s magic. Jack understands that the threat is real and that he must take it seriously.

But then strangely enough nothing else happens for years. Jack lives his life and eventually becomes the Director of Parks at Hopewell. He eventually becomes a public speaker on park preservation and travels the country as a public speaker and a consultant to others and he becomes an expert in the area. His career is taking off and he is successful. Jack eventually meets a young woman, Anne, and they date and get married. Jack leaves Hopewell for Seattle, Washington to go live with his new wife as her life and career are there. After awhile, they have children and end up with two kids, a 10 year old girl, Mila, and a 14 month old boy, Jack Jr.. This is where the story begins again.

One day while in the airport waiting for a client to arrive to Seattle, a man sits next to him and starts up a conversation. The man reveals himself to be a demon who hunts Knights of the Word to kill them. This demon has killed many Knights of the Word and plans to do so with him. He tells Jack that he wanted to introduce himself to give Jack a chance to give up the staff and being a Knight of the Word. Jack declines and says that he will fight if needed. The demon tells him that he will be in touch.

From this point, Jack starts having dreams where he is being hunted by evil beings. The first dream is so realistic that he wakes up in the night and finds that the family cat has been killed and mutilated by a creature. Jack has no doubt is was the creature from his dream. The next day Jack again runs into the demon at the store and they have words, Jack tells him to stay away from his family and he will fight him to the death if he makes a move against them.

Jack decides to take action first and sends his wife and kids to her aunt and uncle a few hours away. He drops them off at a limo service station to avoid detection from the demon and heads home. While at home he finds himself unusually tired and takes a nap and has a dream that he is at a nearby park and that the demon has his family held captive in a home by the park. But then he also hears a voice telling him to meet Ineke in the park at sunset.

Meanwhile at the limo service station, Anne and the kids have been there for 5 hours waiting for their limo driver to show up. Anne is suspicious and is unable to use her cell phone to call Jack. The attendant there won’t let her use the agency phone to call and gets angry with her insistence on getting the limo driver there so they can leave. The demon had found out their plans and sabotaged Anne’s escape. The attendant is one of the demon’s servants and Anne is able to pepper spray him and run out the door with the kids to a nearby gas station and then escape to a hotel without being followed to the hotel.

Back at the park, Jack goes to the park and meets up with Ineke, who is a tatterdemalion. Tatterdemalion’s are magical creatures sent by the Lady to aid the Knights in times of need. Ineke talks with Jack about the dream he had and how it’s a trap and that the demon is likely lying about having captured Jack’s family. Ineke tells Jack that the demon’s biggest weapon is telling lies disguised as truth to deceive Jack and kill him. They head to the house by the park and are able to sneak inside. They encounter some more demons and Jack defeats them with his staff and his quick thinking.

Jack meets up with the demon and challenges him to a duel. Jack notices that there are feeders (shadow creatures that belong to neither the Word or the Void and feed on negative emotions until they destroy the person) all around him and he realizes he is getting too emotional and needs to calm down to think clearly. The demon tries to deceive Jack by telling him that he has his wife and children captive in a cage. They are screaming for help and for Jack to save them by doing what the demon wants. Ineke is able to disrupt the visual deceit but is dealt a mortal blow by the demon in doing so. Once Jack realizes he has been deceived he confronts the demon knowing that his family is safe and he is able to use the staff and it’s magic to defeat the demon and destroy him. Ineke is still alive and Jack talks with her and thanks her for her help before she “dies”.

Jack returns home and sees that he has some voicemails from his wife that she and the kids are safe at the hotel. Jack brings them back home and he makes up a story about how he unknowingly got involved with some shady characters through work, but the police are involved now and have taken care of everything. Anne doesn’t fully believe him, but Jack reassures her that nothing like this will happen again. Jack isn’t sure that is the case, but can’t bring himself to tell her about being a Knight of the Word, the staff, the demon, and the Lady.

A few months later, Two Bears shows up and tells him that he has fulfilled the task set to him by the Lady. Jack can relinquish the staff and not have to worry about demons anymore. Jack is hesitant to do so as he has become used to having the protection of the staff for so long. Two Bears offers him the option of becoming a Knight of the Word permanently if he wants it. Jack thinks about it for minute but declines so that he can spend time with his family not worrying about more attacks from the Void. Jack relinquishes the staff and feels relieved. Two Bears says that he will be giving the staff to another who will be serving as a Knight of the Word and then leaves. Jack heads home and decides that he can now tell his wife everything now that the threat is no longer there.

There were a lot of good things about this story. It was great to see Jack’s growth as a character and how he used the events from Imaginary Friends to gain confidence in himself. As a result he not only was successful with his career in Parks and Rec, but in his showdown with the demon as well. I enjoyed seeing that unlike the other Knights that we read about, Jack was able to have a family and be happy with his life and when the time came, to relinquish the staff so that another can take up the fight.

I was disappointed that the story didn’t tie more into the larger story of John Ross or Nest Freemark. I would’ve like at least a brief encounter or even a mention of Nest, I mean they did live in the same small town presumably around the same time. As a small town product myself, I know that you do know everyone in town (especially one as successful as Nest was) and you do see everyone at the neighborhood park at some time or another. Since Nest was always in the park, Jack could’ve seen her and talked with her, or her mother or grandmother even. Then also that there was no further mention of Pick was disappointing as well. Any of these small things could’ve had a big payoff in connecting the overall story.

Another thing that I mentioned at the start is that while this is chronologically the second overall story in the entire series, it was written much later in real time. The story concepts of Knight of the Word, the Lady, demons, tatterdemalions, feeders, the black staff, and even Two Bears are things that were well established in the Word and the Void trilogy that follows this book. For someone reading this story as the second story in their introduction to the Shannara Saga might be lost and wonder what these things are why aren’t they explained more. Which to their delight will be explained more in detail in the next three books they read. Unfortunately these concepts and names might not be as interesting as they are introduced in the next book, due to being exposed to them here. Or they might be a great re-introduction for them as they read about them again and gain more information and context.

One of the great things about this story is that we get to see more about Jack McCall and his story. This was one of my complaints about the first story, Imaginary Friends, is that we just got a snippet of his story and then never heard from him again. I’m glad to have read more about Jack and his opportunity to be a Knight of the Word, even if it was for a short time. I felt that Jack’s story needed to be expanded upon and am glad that Terry Brooks did too, and that he gave us a little more about Jack McCall.

Overall I give this story a 3.75 out of 5.

Next up is Book One in The Word and The Void trilogy - Running With The Demon.