The Shannara Saga Part 1: The Word and The Void Book 1 - Running With The Demon
The Word and The Void: Book One
Running With The Demon
by Terry Brooks
Published in 1997
THIS REVIEW IS NOT SPOILER FREE
The Word and The Void series by Terry Brooks was written after several Shannara books had been previously published and is a prequel of sorts for the series. The series takes place in “modern day” 1990’s, the decade when it was written. The series consists of three novels and follows the two main characters, Nest Freemark and John Ross, and spans about 15 years. This first novel starts on July 1st and ends on July 5th.
Nest Freemark is 14 years old when we are first introduced to her in this first book. She lives in the small town of Hopewell, Illinois with her grandparents, Evelyn and Robert Freemark. Her mother passed away when she was really young and she has been with her grandparents, Evelyn and Robert Freemark, since then.
John Ross comes to town as a drifter, but with a mission to find a demon. John is a Knight of the Word and has dreams of the future when he sleeps. These dreams are apocalyptic in nature and in the dreams he is given clues on what he needs to do in the present to prevent this future from occurring. In this story, he is to go to Hopewell and stop a demon from putting events into motion that eventually lead to the end of the world. John Ross was called as a Knight of the Word by The Lady, who is the voice of the Word. The Word and The Void are the yin and yang of this story, the light and the darkness, the good and the evil. The Word calls a champion, the Knight, to challenge the forces of the Void. John is called and later given a black staff that is imbued with magical powers which in turn give John magical powers to fight the servants of the Void.
Nest Freemark is a teenage girl with a group of teenage friends, who do small town teenager things. They all live close to each other and hang out in the park across the street from their neighborhood, Sinnissippi Park. In the park, there is a sylvan, a magical creature whose job it is to guard the park and balance the magic. This sylvan, Pick, is 150 years old and has a friend Daniel, who is an owl that he also uses to transport his small, 6 inch self around the park. Pick and Nest are friends and Pick is able to only reveal himself to those that he wants to. Pick enlists Nest to help him care for the park. In the short story, Imaginary Friends, we get a preview of Pick’s role and a little side story that happens before this one starts.
Terry Brooks does a good job of capturing the small town summertime feel and how teenagers spend their summers in small towns in that era. As a teenager, I grew up in a small, rural town similar to the one portrayed in this story. I was able to relate to Nest and her friends and the friendships they shared and the activities they did, especially around the Fourth of July in America. This laid the groundwork for me being able to be brought into the adventures of the story and the characters. Growing up in a small town, with not too much to do in the summers, it was easy for me and my friends to imagine going on a quest and on our own adventures, as we were always the heroes in these stories. As a result, I ended up connecting to this story and these characters more than I thought I would, and more than I had realized as I continued the series. But more on that in later reviews of this series.
Nest has an interesting Fourth of July weekend as she meets new people, John Ross, Two Bears, and even her long lost father. As the story unfolds, John Ross meets up with Nest and her grandparents under the guise of being a friend of her late mother, and starts to from a friendship with Nest. John Ross eventually reveals his purpose for being there to Nest - to stop the demon from causing an event that changes the fate of the world. However, he doesn’t know what that is yet, but finds out as the story progresses. Nest is drawn to John as she also has some magical abilities and secretly hopes that John is her long lost father.
As the story goes on a demon eventually reveals himself and he also has an interest in the Freemark’s. We are also introduced to Two Bears,or O’olish Amaneh, as he reveals himself to Nest. John Ross also knows Two Bears, but interestingly enough they never interact in this story or in the trilogy, as Two Bears is the one who gave John Ross his magical black staff after he was chosen as a Knight of the Word. Two Bears facilitates a vision for Nest that reveals that her grandmother, Evelyn, and the demon knew each other and were close friends. Nest confronts her grandmother about this and her grandmother admits to being in love with the demon and though she eventually found out who he was and ended the relationship, the damage was done. One of the reasons the demon has come back to Hopewell is to exact revenge on his former lover.
Another reason is that deep within the park, among the older trees there is an enormous oak tree that is the prison for a raver, or a maentwrog. The tree is dying at a faster rate due to the demon’s influence to release the raver so that it can cause chaos, allowing it to be a distraction for John Ross to try and stop. The demon’s true purpose is to kill Nest’s grandmother and to then turn Nest to the cause of the Void. John Ross has seen this in his dreams and knows that he must protect her. But John also knows a secret, that the demon is Nest’s father. Evelyn also knows this and is a protector of sorts for Nest, along with Wraith. Wraith is a magical creature that was sent to keep watch over and protect Nest when she was little.
On the Third of July, everything comes to a head and the demon’s plan is put into action. John Ross is distracted by a pretty lady, Josie, in town and is over at her house when the demon uses some teenage bully’s to kidnap Nest and take her to some caves in the park and tie her up there. This leads Robert to go looking for her and Evelyn is left unprotected. The demon shows up to the Freemark home and there is a confrontation and it is revealed that Evelyn’s magic has been used up and while she tries to protect herself with a shotgun, the demon easily over powers her and kills her. Nest and Robert arrive home too late to save her.
The next day, John Ross shows up to talk with Nest and offer his condolences. He comes clean on why he is there, as he had hidden it form the Freemarks earlier. He also reveals that the demon is Nest’s father and he has come for her.
The plan continues into the Fourth of July celebrations, as the demon is now after Nest. While he had Nest in his grasp for a minute, he had to dispatch Evelyn thinking she would still protect Nest with her powerful magic, as the demon had been defeated by Evelyn in the past. With Evelyn out of the way, he can concentrate on Nest. But John Ross is still around and he needs to occupy the Knight. On the night of the Fourth of July, Robert is distracted by a plot put into play by the demon to cause the firework display to blow up prematurely and have all of the fireworks explode at once, potentially killing and injuring innocent people that had gathered to watch the fireworks. The demon goes to the oak tree to release the raver, drawing Nest and John Ross to the tree to try and stop him. The raver is released and John Ross has to stop the raver from attacking the town. John uses his magic to stop the raver and destroy it, but it leaves John powerless due to his expenditure of his magic This leaves the demon to deal with Nest.
There is a confrontation between the demon and Nest, but she rebukes him and doesn’t want anything to do with him. But the demon is powerful and Nest is having a hard time resisting him. Wraith shows up to watch, but it is revealed that Wraith was actually sent by the demon when she was little to keep tabs on her. This confuses Nest as her grandmother had always told her to trust Wraith. She attempts to use her magic on the demon, by pushing him away as hard as she can. The demon retaliates and strikes out at her. This sets off Wraith who then reacts by tearing into the demon to protect Nest and eventually killing him. It turns out that the reason Evelyn had lost her magic is because she had put it all into Wraith to turn him to the purpose of protecting Nest, no matter who was threatening her.
Nest and John Ross leave together, but then John Ross has to leave as he needs to move on as to not draw attention to himself.
One of the themes of the book is love. Love of family and the ties that bind us together. Nest had lost her mother due to the craftiness of the demon, but her grandparents were there to love her and protect her. There is also the love of new friends and acquaintances, as Nest met and got to know Two Bears and John Ross, a love and connection grew between them as these two were mentors and protectors for her throughout the story.
The love of friends and how friends are such a big support for us in our teenage years is prevalent and a key theme of the story. Nest and her friends were inseparable and always looked out for each other, no matter how annoying they were to each other. Nest started to form a connection with Jared, a nice boy who respected her, and although he was awkward and shy, Nest connected with him. Nest loved her other friends, the ever annoying Robert, her best friend Cass, and even the self absorbed Brianna was someone she cared about. These friends of hers always supported her in whatever she was doing and notably came to her after her grandmother died to comfort her and support her in that trying moment. In all of the chaos of the Fourth of July, Jared was critically injured by his mother’s boyfriend and was in the hospital in a coma. Nest enlisted the help of Robert to sneak into the hospital so she could see Jared as he was reportedly close to death. Nest was able to use her magic to heal Jared and bring him back to consciousness. This was a big moment for Nest as up until now she had only used her magic to hurt others when she was being threatened, so she began to be hesitant to use her gift. Using the magic to heal her close friend was a turning point for her and ended the story on a happy note for our hero.
I give this first book a 3.85 out of 5 as it was a fun read once it got going and in the flow. As is the case with a lot of first books in a series, it takes a minute to set the stage and introduce characters, but I felt it went a little too long in doing this. Once it got started, I was invested in the story and grew to love the characters and their adventures. I felt the demon was too faceless and nondescript and I wanted more info on him and his history with Nest’s mother, and even a name would’ve been nice.But these are small things and overall I enjoyed the story.
Next up is Book 2 in The Word and The Void series - A Knight of The Word.