The Shannara Saga Part 1: The Word and The Void Book 2 - Knight of The Word
The Word and The Void: Book Two
A Knight of the Word
by Terry Brooks
Published in 1998
THIS REVIEW IS NOT SPOILER FREE
The story begins five years later after the events of Book One: Running With The Demon. As with life, change has happened even if we don’t want it to occur. Our main characters have moved on from the events of the first book and are trying to live a normal life. it’s been a rough five years for our friends, John Ross and Nest Freemark.
John Ross has moved on to Seattle, Washington and has forsaken his role as a Knight of the Word. He has started a new life and is trying to just be a normal person. John is in a long term relationship with a woman, Stefanie Winslow, whom he loves. He also has a job working for The Wizard of Oz, or at least that is his nickname. The Wizard, Simon Lawrence, runs some successful non-profit organizations that work with the homeless and domestic violence victims. John and his girlfriend help with these non-profits. Before giving up being a Knight, John had a previous bad experience where he went to save some children in a potential school shooting but it went wrong and children were still killed despite his efforts. This was the last straw for him and he told The Lady that he was done being a Knight. Although his resignation wasn’t accepted, he stopped fulfilling his duties.
Nest Freemark has graduated high school and is attending Northwestern University and is an up and coming track star preparing for the upcoming Olympic Games. The story starts off with Nest and she is back visiting Hopewell, but everything has changed. Nest’s grandfather, Robert Freemark, has died and is now buried next to his wife, Evelyn, and Nest’s mother, Caitlyn. Nest is debating on selling the family home or not. Nest’s close group of friends is no more, and has slowly splintered over the years. Her close friends, Jared and Brianna moved away within a year of the events of the last book, Brianna would write letters to her friends over the following months at first, until eventually the letters stopped. Nest never heard from Jared again. Robert and Cass stayed through high school, but while Nest and Cass were finishing up high school and preparing to go off to college in the fall, Cass unexpectedly died in her sleep. Robert went off to college at Stanford and would visit Hopewell for the holidays and in the summers. Robert still has a big crush on Nest, but she isn’t interested in him like that. Nest has been feeling lost and adrift with no connections.
For me, it was painful to read these first few chapters as we were reintroduced to our friends, John and Nest, as their lives had changed for the worse. There was such despair and loss in their lives and it was difficult to get back in to their stories. This loss and sadness is something that helps drive Nest to seek out John. A messenger from The Lady finds Nest and urges her to find John and tells her of his current predicament and that she needs to convince him to take up the cause of The Word once more, or he will be destroyed.
Nest travels to Seattle to meet with John and it is a bittersweet reunion. The joy they feel at seeing each other again was a treat for sure, but John was stubborn and didn’t want to believe what Nest was telling him. John hadslost his faith in himself and the cause. Nest was disappointed in John but also understood why he was in that mindset.
As the story unfolds, Nest is attacked by a demon and barely escapes with her life. That same night, there is a fire at the homeless shelter and John and Stefanie rush in to save the residents and are able to get everyone out except for one of the their friends who was working that night.
Nest has come to Seattle at the behest of The Lady to warn John and has done so and feels her duty is done and is preparing to go back to college, but John doesn’t want to listen to what she has to say and this bothers her. After the attack from the demon, Nest wants to again warn John of the danger he is in and to tell him that she has been personally attacked by the demon. John is still denying his duty as a Knight of the Word and wants to be left alone to live a normal life.
However, there is a demon that is close to John who is in disguise and is actively working to bring John down. The demon has been involved in orchestrating a scheme that sets up John as the patsy in a situation that makes it look like John is stealing money from his boss and the domestic violence and homeless shelters. John is tricked into thinking that his boss, Simon, is going to fire him over this and John goes to confront him and meets him in a museum on Halloween night. As John has had dreams in the past to warn him of catastrophe’s that he needs to prevent, so it was with this situation. The last dream that John had was that he would kill the Wizard of Oz on Halloween night. John remembered this dream but felt that he could still control the situation. He was unable to and went after his boss after again being deceived by the demon.
Nest is able to reach John in time and stops him from killing his boss and setting off the events that his dream warned him about. Nest and John are able to determine that the demon is actually Stefanie and she has been actively deceiving him all along. John confronts Stefanie who doesn’t deny it and they battle it out with Nest joining in. Nest has had Wraith living within her since he disappeared over a year ago and during the attack Wraith manifests himself and attacks Stefanie and allows for John to kill this demon.
As the story concludes, Nest returns back to Hopewell and John takes up the cause again as a Knight of the Word.
This middle novel of the trilogy was a fun read and there was some mystery to it throughout. It was great to see the main characters, Nest and John reunite and have another adventure together. However, there was so much that has changed and the story was full of loss and regret which made the story more emotional than the last. As a result I wanted to see more of a connection developed between Nest and John Ross as they are the only characters from the last story that we spend any meaningful time with. Them being together again was a way for them to help heal their loss and pain, I wanted to see more of it. With John and Nest being the main characters, I expected more “screen time” with these two together once nest showed up to Seattle to warn John.. With these two having two momentous events happening that they were both involved in and helped save each other, I also expected more camaraderie afterwards and not just splitting up until the next story is written.
Overall I liked the book and give it a 3.5 out of 5.
Next up is Book 3 in The Word and The Void series - Angel Fire East.