Bearers of the Black Staff
core novel 2010 Shannara
Record
| First published | 2010 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.07 (11,238 ratings, collected 2026-09-12) |
| First-edition ISBN | 978-0-345-48417-8 |
| First-edition date | 2010-08-24 |
| Internal chronology | 7 |
Synopsis
Opening the Legends of Shannara duology roughly five hundred years after the events of The Gypsy Morph, the novel finds the descendants of the survivors protected by the gypsy morph Hawk sheltering in a valley behind magical wards, largely unaware of the wider, slowly recovering world beyond. When those protective seals that have shielded the valley from the horrors of the earlier global catastrophe begin to fail, previously unknown predators start to emerge, and the community of humans, elves, and mutated beings must confront threats they have never faced before. Sider Ament, a descendant of the Knights of the Word and bearer of the valley's magical black staff, is among the first to recognize the danger, and the situation grows more dire as an army of trolls masses at the valley's borders, forcing its peaceful inhabitants to prepare for an unprecedented invasion.
Where it sits
- Universe: Shannara
- Series: Legends of Shannara core; position 1 of 2 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Terry Brooks
Notes
- From the series record (Legends of Shannara): Set 500 years after the Great Wars; bridges Genesis of Shannara into Shannara-proper.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series Legends of Shannara: position 1 of 2: next The Measure of the Magic (2011)
- Internal chronology, within Shannara: position 7 of 32: previous The Gypsy Morph (2008) · next The Measure of the Magic (2011)
Sources
- Terry Brooks official site
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannara
- https://www.isfdb.org
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearers_of_the_Black_Staff
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