News
Magic Kingdom for Sale movie is now in the motion of casting, etc! The wheels are now in motion!!!! :)
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February 21st, 2005
- Universal Studios Options Magic Kingdom
Universal Pictures has acquired the rights to Terry's book series Magic Kingdom of Landover for Stephen Sommers to direct. Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel have been hired to adapt the screenplay. Sommers also will produce the project along with partner Bob Ducsay through their Universal-based the Sommers Co. banner. David Alpert of Circle of Confusion also is producing.Terry is very excited about this project because of the quality names attached to it. He will be writing a sixth installment of the series to be published next year around the time when the movie is released.
Sommers wrote and directed The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, and Van Helsing for Universal, so he is very experienced in directing CGI creations.
Ganz and Mandel's writing credits include Parenthood, City Slickers, Where the Heart Is, Multiplicity, Greedy, A League of Their Own, Splash, as well as the upcoming Fever Pitch and Robots. They also are big in the rewrite world, having worked on National Treasure and The Notebook.
The website will be building a website addition devoted to the progress of the movie. More information to come on this when Terry posts his reaction letter for you all to read!
- All About Maps
For years, fans have written the website asking how they can get their own Shannara Four Lands map. This is now going to be a reality! More information coming very soon!
Written by Terry Brooks
Forthcoming: August 30th, 2005
An excerpt from Chapter 11 read by Terry while on tour September 2004.
e did not know where he was. He was stretched out on the hard ground, his bones aching and his muscles sore. The world was dark and hazy. There was no sunshine no brightness of color, no welcoming warmth or bird-song to encourage his rising. The new day was cloaked in sullen stillness and a deep-gray wash that made him want to go back to sleep.
He closed his eyes for a moment and opened them again as his head cleared and he remembered that he was inside the Forbidding. He glanced down, the long knife was still in his hand, his fingers stiff from gripping it. The Darkwand was clutched to his chest, its runes pulsating softly come alive with the day.
He stared at the staff doubtfully. Why was it glowing? He couldn’t remember thinking about his aunt, about his search for her, about anything that would make it brighten like this.
Then his attention was drawn to a huge cluster of model boulders settled squarely in front of him. He didn’t remember those boulders being there the night before and wasn’t sure how he could have missed seeing them even in the dark. It was like having a wall materialize out of nowhere, a great massive barrier that somehow didn’t seem to quite belong. He stared at them in confusion.
Then a window-sized eye blinked once, a shutter slowly closing and then sliding open again and all at once, Pen realized what it was that he was looking at.
“Shades!” he whispered.
He had never seen a dragon of course. No one in his lifetime had ever seen a dragon. Most were extinct. Those that weren’t were consigned to the Forbidding like this one or so deeply and thoroughly entrenched in mountain caverns and wilderness forests that no human had ever ventured in far enough to encounter them. But he knew what dragons were and what they looked like, and this was clearly a dragon.
The eye blinked again, a lazy lowering and lifting of a scaly lid. Pen caught his breath and held it. The cluster of rocks began to assume shape and take on definition. Limbs studded with spikes crooked awkwardly at the joints to ending claws that were each the size of his leg. Scales larger than blankets layered a body that would dwarf a small cottage. Bony ridges ran in parallel lines down a broad back and long reticulated tail. A triangular shaped head was tucked between its forelegs. Encrusted snout and brow thick with armor and blunt horns. It was easily the biggest living creature that Pen had ever seen. It was bigger than he had imagined anything could be.
Fascinated in spite of himself, he stared at the dragon and wondered what it was doing here. He wondered why it hadn’t eaten him. He wondered if it still planned to. He became aware all at once that it was looking at him. It was watching through half-closed lids with a sleepy almost dreamy sort of gaze. It seemed mesmerized like a cat stretched out for a nap, lazy in content drifting in and out of private revelries.
Then it occurred to him, almost as an afterthought, that the dragon wasn’t looking at him. It was looking at the Darkwand, or more particularly, at the glow of its runes. At first, he thought he must be mistaken, after all, why would the dragon be interested in the staff and its runes? Was the beast sentient? It certainly didn’t look it, but maybe it understood something of magic and of talismans and recognized the Darkwand for what it was. But he didn’t think that was right. The way the dragon was watching the staff suggested that it was all but hypnotized, that its interest was one of almost primordial distraction.
Pen glanced down watching the way the light played across the runes—how it worked itself up and down the staff in ever-changing patterns. How it brightened and dimmed, pulsed and steadied, reinventing itself over and over. The dragon was watching too, fascinated by the movement of the light as it danced from rune to rune.*-----------------------------------------------------------------*
There is a letter Terry posted on his official site telling about what he's going to be doing in the next few years or so. I have taken it directly from the site but if you wish to see it, then go here. :-) Enjoy!
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I promised a letter before Christmas detailing how things will progress on the writing and publishing front for the coming year - and a little beyond - and here it is. I was waiting for several things to fall into place before attempting this, and as it is, a few are still undecided. So I will give you what I have, but some of it will have to wait until the first part of next year.
Let me start by telling you what is not going to happen, and this requires that you take a deep breath and not call me names. Remember how I promised you a new Magic Kingdom book next? After Straken publishes in the summer of 2005? Remember that? Of course you do. Well, you can forget it. The reason I changed it is that you learn to go with what excites you most, and early November saw the beginnings of a new story take shape, but it wasn't a Magic Kingdom story. It was something else entirely.
For years I have been asked if I would ever write about the early Shannara periods, the ones involving the Great Wars and Galaphile and the First Council of Druids. My response was always the same: I wasn't interested in going back in time, only forward. I fudged a bit on First King of Shannara, but that was mostly to answer a whole raft of questions about the Sword and the Druids and whatnot.
But lately I have found myself thinking about the whole business of a civilization destroying itself and then rebuilding in the aftermath.
So after considering alternatives, I have decided to undertake a pretty ambitious project. I will write a pre-Shannara history from the advent of the Great Wars to the formation of the First Council of Druids.
It will probably take me at least six books to do this and likely more. But the first trilogy, which I will write next, will chronicle a period of time beginning with the destruction of the old world. Familiar elements of Shannara will surface right from the beginning. The Elves will come out of hiding, Elfstones will be present, the King of the Silver River will appear and the Races that comprise the population of the Four Lands will begin to evolve. I have already begun writing Book One, and it is set for publication in late August 2006.
The new Magic Kingdom book has been pushed back for several years, mostly because I felt I needed to write the pre-Shannara books first. But also, the movie of Magic Kingdom might come about in that three-year time period, and it might make more sense for a new MK book to come out then. I had hoped to be able to reveal some details about the movie by now, but until the contracts are all signed and sealed, I think it would be best to wait. That should happen in the next sixty days, but these things move at their own pace. So be patient, and I will tell you something more as soon as I can.
It has also been decided to put the newly expanded version of The World of Shannara on hold. The publisher and I think it might be a good idea to hold off on this version until after the first three books in the new series so that some of that material can be included. That will give Teresa Patterson, our valued writer of The World of Shannara, more to work with and the readers more to delve into. In the meantime, you can still get a copy of the old version of The World of Shannara, which will be reissued in September 2005 with a new cover.
Of course, the last book in the High Druid series, Straken, will be out in late August of this coming year.
There you have it. I know you will have lots of questions about the new series and what it will accomplish, but I believe it is bad luck for a writer to say too much about a project he is working on. So I am keeping a lot to myself for now. Once I have finished Book One, which should be sometime next fall, I will be more willing to talk about the specifics.
So, go out and do your shopping. Have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. Think good thoughts and don't forget to be kind to others. We could use a little more of that.
Best Wishes, Terry.
December 6th, 2004
bravenet.com