Tanequil

High Druid of Shannara, Book 2

By: Terry Brooks

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Dark magic has opened a gateway to the Forbidding and trapped within it Grianne Ohmsford, rightful High Druid of Shannara. Rescuing Grianne will be merely the beginning of the effort to return the Four Lands to some semblance of peace. Only her young nephew, Penderrin, has any hope of returning her to power. But to breach the Forbidding and bring Grianne back to the natural world, Pen must find the fabled Tanequil...and the talisman it alone can provide.

That means journeying into the Inkrim - a dreaded region thick with shadows and haunted by harrowing legends. And there, Pen will strike a bargain more dire than he could ever imagine.

©2004 Terry Brooks (P)2004 Books on Tape

Critic reviews

"Brooks' efficient pacing, skillful characterizations, and suspenseful plotting all bode well for the trilogy's conclusion." (Publishers Weekly)

“A great storyteller, Terry Brooks creates rich epics filled with mystery, magic, and memorable characters. If you haven’t read Terry Brooks, you haven’t read fantasy.” (Christopher Paolini, author of Eragon)

“[The] Shannara books make up the most important contribution to fantasy literature since The Lord of the Rings.” (Rocky Mountain News)

“Nonstop action [and] well-honed characterizations...will certainly satisfy his devoted following.” (Booklist)

Love this series!

Awesome book series, love the progression through the years. Look forward to the next book everytime i finish one.

Great story told by SpongeBob characters.

The narrator is skilled, but poor choices for the different voices. Squidward’s voice does not belong to a noble Dwarf.

Epic Terry Brooks - Not so epic narration

Well, this is a tough one for me to review. I have read “everything” Shanara at least twice. Therefore I must admit that I am approaching this with an already personal bias of what the characters personalities and presentation should be. In my opinion Scott Brick’s narration comes closest. However it is hard for me to listen to Paul Boehmer’s presentation. It is lackluster, and reads more like a children’s fairy tale, rather than the epic fantasy adventure it was intended to be. I’ll get through it and I will listen to Straken, just to finish it up. Overall, I enjoyed revisiting this series in audio. But choice of narrator can make it or break it.

In second thought no. I don’t want the narration of Straken to ruin my memories of the book. I’ll skip it. Unfortunate.

Good book, adequate narration

As always, Terry Brooks has managed to build new pieces into a world both dark and inviting, pieces that add to the world's magic and mystery in a way that few can. The events story as it exists has become so far removed by time and events from the first story that they're barely recognizable as being the same, but still believable as the same world nonetheless.
That said, I found the narration to be disjointed and distracting. The speaker made poor attempts at distinguishing one voice from another, and at times would shift "voices" amidst a sentence, making dialog more difficult to distinguish from the rest. He has the voice and stylings of one well-suited to children's stories, of which this is definitely not one.

Adequate narrator but no Scott Bricks

I wish that Scott Bricks had continued this series. His voice and expertise pulled me into the world of audiobooks. I agree with the previous reviews that Paul Boehmer does not sound as good as Scott Bricks but he is no slouch either... Having heard a few samples from other books (some of the sherlock holmes come to mind) I would have to say he does a fairly decent job. It would have been even better if the sequence of readers had been switched going from Paul and finishing with Scott.

One tree is as good as another

If you don't like Paul, get over it or read it yourself. As for the story, it is a typical Brooks tale that succeeds in keeping me hanging around to see how it all comes out. But I can't imagine it being the center of a book club discussion about what it all means or about the elegance of style. Having said that, between Jarka Ruus and Tanequil, I did a detour through MZ Bradley's Avalon series, and now we can have a discussion about how incredibly different writing styles can be.
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Brooks is Brilliant!

Yet another exceptional epic fantasy by Terry Brooks. The depth of the characters and their growth makes the Shannara series OP.

Excellent

I am a big Terry Brooks fan. I've not read the entire set of the Shannara series, but I did read the trilogy just previous to this. I've listened to both Jarka Ruus: High Druid of Shannara and book 2. Both excellent to listen to and, IMHO, much easier to follow than reading them.

overall awesome

This is yet another epic from Terry Brooks, leaves your heart pumping and hurting. Enjoyable thoroughly. the journey I take with the characters never got dull. the reader was good too. a lot of complaints, but he is no Scott Brick, but still very good. Thanks all in your work on this book!

A very good book!

I don't mind the new narrator but I do think it would have been nice for Brick to have done the entire trilogy