BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Terry Brooks's The Measure of the Magic.The time of the Shannara follows in the wake of an apocalypse that has destroyed the old world and very nearly annihilated its people as well. A thousand years of savagery and barbarism have concluded at the start the series with the emergence of a new civilization in which magic has replaced science as the dominant source of power. A Druid Council comprised of the most talented of the new races--Men, Dwarves, Trolls, Gnomes, and Elves, names taken from the old legends--has begun the arduous task of rebuilding the world and putting an end to the racial warfare that has consumed the survivors of the so-called Great Wars since their conclusion. But the wars continue, albeit in a different form. Magic, like science, is often mercurial, can be used for good or evil, and can have a positive or negative effect on those who come in contact with it. In The Sword of…
