<P> The Sword of Shannara sold about 125,000 copies in its first month in print . This success provided a major boost to the fantasy genre . Despite Lin Carter's scathing and subjective thumbs - down review in The Year's Best Fantasy Stories: 4, DAW books . </P> <P> Louise J. Winters writes that "until Shannara, no fantasy writer except J.R.R. Tolkien had made such an impression on the general public ." Critic David Pringle credits Brooks for "demonstrat (ing) in 1977 that the commercial success of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings had not been a fluke, and that fantasy really did have the potential to become a mass - market genre". With Stephen R. Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, The Sword of Shannara ushered in "the era of the big commercial fantasy" and helped make epic fantasy the leading fantasy subgenre . The Sword of Shannara and its sequels helped inspire later versions of Dungeons and Dragons . </P> <P> The Shannara books were to be adapted by Mike Newell, the director of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but he left the project . The books eventually were adapted for television by Farah Films and executive produced by Brooks, Dan Farah, and Stewart Till . This begins with Elfstones, leaving Sword for later . The Shannara Chronicles premiered on American television network MTV on January 5, 2016 . </P>

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