Read Shannara in publication order, starting with The Sword of Shannara. But there is a second, better answer for a lot of readers, and it needs saying immediately: if you are testing whether this series is for you, start with The Elfstones of Shannara instead. It is the stronger novel by common consent, its plot is Brooks's own rather than borrowed, and it needs almost nothing from the first book — a paragraph of context is enough.
The reason for that unusual advice is the reason people bounce off Shannara. The Sword of Shannara is openly derivative of The Lord of the Rings. This is not a matter of shared influences and it is not subtle: a reluctant young hero of hidden lineage, an aged wandering wizard, a party leaving a rural homeland, a Dark Lord, riders in black, a hard road under a mountain, a fellowship that breaks. Readers who arrive expecting originality hit that wall hard. There are two workable ways past it — read it fast, as publishing history and for the world it establishes, treating the borrowed plot as scaffolding; or skip it for now and let The Elfstones of Shannara make the case.
The order controversy
Chronological order is a live option in Shannara because Brooks eventually connected this world to his contemporary Word and Void books and then wrote the Genesis of Shannara sequence to bridge them. Read chronologically, you would open with Running With the Demon, set in the present day, then Armageddon's Children (Genesis of Shannara), and only reach the Four Lands hundreds of pages later.
Do not do this. The bridge books were written to be a revelation to readers who already knew the Four Lands as high fantasy; taken first, they are simply a demon story with no payoff, and they defuse the one genuinely distinctive idea in the series. Publication order is the recommendation, and it is not a close call.
That idea, incidentally, is worth knowing going in: the Four Lands are post-apocalyptic rather than mythic. The elves, dwarves, gnomes and trolls are descended from humanity after a nuclear war. Reading what looks like standard high fantasy with that in mind changes it considerably.
The original trilogy
The Sword of Shannara, The Elfstones of Shannara and The Wishsong of Shannara, at 726, 608 and 504 pages. The Elfstones of Shannara is the one most readers name as the best in the series — the Ellcrys and the Forbidding are Brooks's own invention and the plot is genuinely tragic. The Wishsong of Shannara is darker again and makes Brin Ohmsford's magic a moral problem rather than an asset. Brooks writes plainly and fast, so 30 pages a day is realistic.
The trilogy is a complete, satisfying unit. Stopping after The Wishsong of Shannara is a defensible way to read Shannara, and plenty of people do.
The prequel and the Heritage quartet
The First King of Shannara (Prequel to the Shannara Series) is self-contained at around 480 pages and sits comfortably before the quartet. Then The Scions of Shannara, The Druid of Shannara, The Elf Queen of Shannara and The Talismans of Shannara — one continuous story rather than four standalone novels, so read them back to back with as little gap as you can manage. At 30 pages a day the five books are roughly a three-month commitment; treat it as such.
Each novel jumps a generation and follows a different Ohmsford, which is the structural pattern that lets the series run for thirty books, and Brooks's most reliable habit is that magic always costs the user something.
If you want to keep going
Running With the Demon first, and Armageddon's Children (Genesis of Shannara) only if it worked for you. Both are optional and this stage is as much a decision point as a reading assignment. What matters is that they come after the Four Lands books, never before.
More series reading orders, including the Foundation series, are on Discover.
Follow the full ordered path here: Shannara Reading Order: Publication or Chronological?.
