Book Review: Magic Kingdom for Sale
The first book in the Magic Kingdom of Landover Series by Terry Brooks
If you love fanciful fantasy scenarios with good life lessons incorporated, these books are for you!
The series starts with successful trial lawyer from Chicago, Illinois who is dissatisfied with his life and disenchanted with the justice system he serves. Ben Holiday finds an ad in a Christmas wish book of a reputable department store for a “Magic Kingdom For Sale” complete with dragons, witches, and fairy creatures of all sorts. For 1 million dollars, he can become king of this enchanted land!?!?!? This seems, clearly, to be a hoax but his need to escape the purposelessness of whom and what he had become leads him to check it out anyway.
His desperate need for a challenge that could give meaning again to his existence has him taking the biggest leap of faith of his life. He purchases Landover. Upon arriving, he discovers Landover is everything the ad promises….and not. The kingdom is a magical place with true fairy creatures present. The kingdom is in ruin after years without proper governing, he has no subjects, no army and no royal treasury. The land is dying from the loss of the magic provided by a true king. His only retainers are a wizard who’s magic most-times goes awry, a court scribe and historian who happens to be a Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier, two monkey-faced kobolds who refuse to speak the language of the land and a beautiful Sylph who is sometimes a tree.
Ben must overcome a myriad of barriers, most importantly his own fears, to secure his place as king and save this magical land he still has trouble believing in.
Title: Magic Kingdom For Sale Author: Terry Brooks Publisher: Del Ray/Ballantine Books ISBN: 0-345-31758-0 Review written by: Tammi Appelman |
