October Ask Terry Posted

Joshua Colenda writes: I live in a town called Angel Fire, in New Mexico, and I know that you wrote a book called Angel Fire East. What is the significance of that?

Terry Brooks replies: The significance is pretty simple. I saw the name on a store in New England years ago and loved it. I wanted to find a way to use it, and it became the basis of a story one of the characters tells her child in the book. But I am sure there are other forms and uses of Angel Fire out there. Still, it is a pretty cool title.

Corey Silver writes: I’m curious as to why the Running with the Demon series isn’t listed as prequels to the Shannara novels. They are connected after all.

Terry Brooks replies: There is a difference between connected and prequel. Word & Void is its own story at a time long before anything Shannara. There are a couple of characters that carry over and a few ideas, but basically they are very different stories. The main connection is that in W & V John Ross, as a knight of the Word, dreams of a future in which he has failed in the present. That dream comes to pass many years later and long after Ross is dead. So rather than treat Word & Void as a prequel, I prefer to let readers think of it as its own separate story.

Jeb Holt writes: Will we ever find out the primary function of the remaining three sets of Elfstones?

Terry Brooks replies: Not sure, Jeb. It would take a separate book that I might one day write, but at present there are no plans for it. Best just to leave it to the imagination of the reader as to what those magics might be.

Harjinder writes: I’m excited about your new book Street Freaks. Can you tell us more? Is it a one-off or part of a trilogy? Is the story set on Earth, in a fantasy world… or both?

Terry Brooks replies: Street Freaks, at present, is a stand-alone. It has nothing to do with anything I have written before. It might be called a science fiction thriller or a futuristic tale. Most of it takes place in a world that is very changed from what it is now. Our world, but much evolved. It involves a story that centers around genetics and a boy who might have been genetically altered. There is a very different love story. Out in hardcover in October of this year, I am willing to bet you are going to love it.

Erika Longhi writes: I’m currently re-reading The Elfstones of Shannara and I was wondering whether you will ever write about the birth of the Ellcrys?

Terry Brooks replies: Now there is a suggestion I haven’t heard before. I would have to go back to the time of Faerie to do that, and that would mean writing about a world that I haven’t set a story in before and that would mean a whole lot of world-building. So if I do write something about it, likely I will do it as a shorter work of fiction and not a novel.