In case you've been living under a rock for the last forty years, Terry Brooks is the author of the Shannara and Landover books. He's been compared to Tolkein -- all other comparisons don't really matter, do they?
I remember reading Shannara in college, with the incredible Brothers Hildebrandt illustrations. The glory days when I was buying every book I could afford from the Science Fiction Book Club.
Yes, this book is about writing. I love seeing inside other writers' heads, getting glimpses of their struggles, the processes they go through, the breaks they got and didn't get. Brooks offers some insights and wisdom applicable to all writers of fiction, no matter what genre you love or loathe. It's a shorter book compared to some of the massive explorations of other writers' careers and minds and journeys that are on the market. Easy to digest, but a lot of "writerly nutrition" packed into it.
Read it. You'll be glad you did.
And when I get my to-be-read skyscraper whittled down a few million pages (yeah, that big!) I'll have to pull out the first books of Shannara and Landover and read them again, and see how different they are, now that I've had a glimpse through the eyes of the wizard behind the words.
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