Review: Supposed to whet the appetite?  Fails.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 06 3, 2013
I give Brooks kudos for giving us something during the lull between books.  He's been putting content out faster than in the past.  Unfortunately, it highlights why in his case at least, the one-per-year model may be superior - assuming he goes back to the "book resolves itself" method and not persist with the cliffhanger method he adopted with the Voyage series.Black Irix is a side story detailing Shea and Flick Ohmsford (The Sword of Shannara: An Epic Fantasy) with a mini quest to retrieve a special artifact (The Black Irix) that was long lost from Keltset, a character from the aforementioned Sword of Shannara who perished saving them.  Panamon Creel has identified someone who is in possession of the artifact and would like Shea to once again use the Elfstones to locate and retrieve it, so he can return it to Keltset's people.Now mind, at a buck and change (with tax) I didn't expect an epic story.  But I also didn't expect something rushed given how long it took to get this.  It's not lengthy.  You should be able to easily finish it in less than 30 minutes.  But it's just not good.  First off, Flick tries again to warn Shea away from this quest repeatedly, and then just shows up and decides to go along.  That's fine - except he doesn't do anything for the story at all.  If you're going to have the character involved, have him INVOLVED in some way.  Second, without spoiling the story, the "climax" is anything but, since it makes no sense.  The Elfstones show Panamon where the Irix is, yet in the book he says he knows exactly where it is and who has it.  Later, he claims to not know where the vault is.  Errr, the Elfstones just showed you where it was.  There's more about the vault that doesn't make sense (i.e. how Panamon knew how to open it yet doesn't know its location), but again, I don't want to spoil things.In terms of quality comparison this is far inferior to the previous books (Paladins of Shannara: Allanon's Quest (short story),Paladins of Shannara: The Weapon Master's Choice (short story)).  At least in those we got to dig a small bit into Allanon and Garet Jax.  Here, nothing.  My opinion only.