I use that term -- urban fantasy -- intentionally.  While genre classification can often be detrimental to a review, I think in this case it clarifies the work's impact.  With the publication of Running with the Demon in 1998, Terry Brooks became one of the first major authors in that genre.  Granted, Word and Void is not of the same ilk as the innumerable penny dreadfuls that line bookstore shelves today, featuring the erotic exploits of various vampire hunters and any number of supernatural detective thrillers.  But the concept of telling a fantasy story in the context of real life, of describing ordinary people of our world dealing with extraordinary problems, is one that, as I see it, Brooks helped bring to the forefront of mainstream American fantasy fiction.

The lifestyle of small-town America permeates the entirety of the trilogy, which makes sense: Brooks set out to write a fantasy story, a story about good and evil, as it might occur in a small town like the one in which he grew up.  All of it feels very Stephen King, in a way; the author here does well in achieving a very specific sense of place.

The books tell the story of Nest Freemark, a girl born to magic, and John Ross, a Knight of the Word.  Much like other Brooks works, in these there is no explication of any system of magic; magic simply exists, is innate to those who can use it, and is apparently an instinctual, natural trait the origins of which are left largely unexplained.  What is explained is that the forces of good and evil -- the Word and the Void, respectively -- are locked in an eternal struggle, and the servants of both masters are struggling against each other in a contest for the fate of the world.  Very dramatic, even for a series of books about the build up to armageddon.  But Brooks's approach is novel: each book in the series focuses on a few days, always surrounding an American holiday, during which the players for each side work to sway the events of those days to one side or another.  The struggles in these books, though of global import, focus on individual people and the small choices that can have a much greater influence on the whole than they could ever imagine.

The demons of Word and Void are clever, you see, and to bring about global armageddon they focus on the small picture, not the large, on the pawns as opposed to the kings and queens.  In Running with the Demon, a demon's effort to influence the outcome of a labor dispute in small-town Hopewell, Illinois promises long-term consequences for the United States as a whole.  It also introduces us to Nest Freemark, who at that point in her life was susceptible to being turned to serve the Void.  A Knight of the Word focuses on John Ross's inner conflict, and how easily his (understandably) selfish desire to lay down the burden of his office (as the eponymous Knight of the Word, a powerful servant of good) was subverted by his enemies.  Finally, Angel Fire East features the birth of a gypsy morph, a powerful magical entity capable of affecting the outcome of the war for either side.  The worst demon yet seen tracks John Ross back to Hopewell, where he and Nest work to contravert his increasingly violent efforts to obtain the morph.  The trilogy, as it stands now, ends with a promise; the final resting place of the gypsy morph was one nobody could expect and one which portends great things for Nest Freemark and her allies.

That said, one of the most powerfully literary aspects of this trilogy is the fact that it is set in the shadow of certain disaster.  The mechanisms Brooks uses to set his scene in each volume are the dreams of John Ross, who in his sleep is sent visions of the coming apocalypse.  While the events of each book, of each battle, are a small victory for the Word, Brooks doesn't pull his punches: the world as we know it will end, he writes, the Void will achieve dominance (at least for a while), and the best we can hope to do now is postpone it as long as possible. 

The inevitability of this apocalypse was confirmed, finally, when Mr. Brooks began writing the Genesis of Shannara trilogy, which revealed that the worlds of Shannara and The Word and the Void were in fact one and the same.  While Brooks had always hinted that the Shannara world was a far-future, post-apocalyptic version of our own, he had not until recently revealed that the story of John Ross and Nest Freemark was in fact a prequel.

The themes and characters are classic Brooks.  Those who have read Shannara know of the constant conflict between the Druids and those that they choose as their allies in regard to how much information the former choose to share with the latter and how much they hold back.  Can the protagonists do what is asked of them with full knowledge of the consequences, or would such knowledge shock them into helpless fear and hold them back?  For that matter, would advance knowledge of everything that was going to happen even help them, or would it be incomprehensible?  Can they only learn through experience, by coming to the necessary conclusions in their own time?  The Powers in these worlds are always portrayed as utilitarian, doing what they must when they must, even if it confuses and even harms those mortals for whom they care.  Are we to resent them, for all their good intent, or learn from their wisdom?  Or is the dichotomy between the human and the divine simply too complex to understand?

Although John Ross often chafes under his burden, his worries are washed away as soon as the Lady of the Word, the avatar of Good in these novels, embraces him.

These are the questions that Terry Brooks asks, and his characters struggle to answer them as they deal with the difficult choices their extraordinary lives force them to make.

If the Word and Void trilogy has an obvious flaw, it is perhaps the unquestioning faith displayed by its protagonists.  The Word -- God, for all intents and purposes -- is something in which both Nest Freemark believe without reservation.  Because they have seen it, because the evidence of the supernatural is all about them.  It is easy to have faith when the object of that faith presents itself to you in physical form.  Although Ross and Freemark occasionally find themselves resenting their service and wishing for the ignorance of normal humans, they never truly have a crisis of faith.  Even John Ross's attempt to distance himself from his duty in A Knight of the Word is merely an attempt to ignore what he knows to be true; at no time does he truly question the existence or rightness of the Word.

And in that sense, the character arcs of Word and Void are ultimately predictable, because the Word is set up as undeniable, as the correct path, as the path from which its destined human followers only occasionally stray.  Nest and John are ideals: you find yourself wishing you were as constant as she, as innately strong as John proves to be.  They are the best of humanity, which, of course, is why they were chosen; but the inevitability of their faith is sometimes a bit irritating.

But such are the petty criticisms of books openly described by their author as a "story of good and evil."  These are good books to read in the summer, when America seems young and proud, and when the thought of its inevitable fall is somehow even more poignant.  Mr. Brooks, as ever, presents a solid journey through a new modern fantasy. 

 

*As you might imagine, this sort of behavior severely limited the already slim odds I had of actually developing any kind of experience with members of the opposite sex.