The Gypsy Morph by Terry Brooks

Title:  The Gypsy Morph
Author:  Terry Brooks
Format:  HC
Pages:  401
Genre:  Fantasy
Publisher:  Del Rey, 2008
ISBN-13:  978-0345484147
Series:  Shannara, Book 20


Favorite Quote:  He must become like them -- hardened to the future, focused on survival, willing to put aside childish pursuits in favor of mature commitments.  He is eleven years old.

Synopsis (Amazon):  Eighty years into the future, the United States is a no-man’s-land: its landscape blighted by chemical warfare, pollution, and plague; its government collapsed; its citizens adrift, desperate, fighting to stay alive. In fortified compounds, survivors hold the line against wandering predators, rogue militias, and hideous mutations spawned from the toxic environment, while against them all stands an enemy neither mortal nor merciful: demons and their minions bent on slaughtering and subjugating the last of humankind.

But from around the country, allies of good unite to challenge the rampaging evil. Logan Tom, wielding the magic staff of a Knight of the Word, has a promise to keep–protecting the world’s only hope of salvation–and a score to settle with the demon that massacred his family. Angel Perez, Logan’s fellow Knight, has risked her life to aid the elvish race, whose peaceful, hidden realm is marked for extermination by the forces of the Void. Kirisin Belloruus, a young elf entrusted with an ancient magic, must deliver his entire civilization from a monstrous army. And Hawk, the rootless boy who is nothing less than destiny’s instrument, must lead the last of humanity to a latter-day promised land before the final darkness falls.

Review:  This is the final book I have to read in this series.  There is another trilogy in the works but it will probably be a few years before I have the books to read.  As much as I wanted to stop reading this series a few times and as disappointed in some of the books as I was, I am sorry to be done.  This book was wonderful.

The Four Lands, it seems, might be a large valley in the mountains of the northwest US.  They are protected by Hawk's gypsy morph magic.  I'm not sure I understand how this is possible, since in the books set far in the future of this one, there is a coastline and ocean and islands around the Four Lands.  Did the nuclear destruction that followed tear the entire continent to shreds except this valley?  I suppose it's possible and maybe I'll find out for sure in the next set of books.  But, if so, what happens to Panther and Cat, who go north to try to find a life for themselves?

Either way, this book was as good as, if not better than, any of the others preceding it.  I can't wait for the next 3 to become available.  It took me the better part of two months to finish this set of 20 books.  Looking back, it was time very well spent.

Rating:  5 / 5