The Shannara series has become one of the quintessential fantasy series of the last two generations. What started in 1977 has become a huge sprawling series.

What’s on the Shannara Reading Order?

This Shannara reading order comes from the series of books written by Terry Brooks. The Shannara Chronicles is a television series, developed by MTV, based on the book series. The show starts with Elfstones of Shannara. This timeline lists all of the Shannara books and tie-in series. These include the Word/Void series. It also includes the show, even though the show does not perfectly follow the books.

The Shannara series has a lot of separate stories, often appearing in trilogies. While Terry Brooks has continued to write books in chronological order over the years, he has occasionally gone back and written prequel novels. He even created a graphic novel as part of the timeline. Now that MTV has adapted the series, more people have interest in reading the books. So enjoy this timeline which should hopefully help you catch up on the lore of the epic Shannara timeline.

Where to Start Reading Shannara?

While not the chronological beginning, you should probably start with the trilogy that began the epic series. These books are The Sword of Shannara, Elfstones of Shannara (which is where the MTV show starts), and Wishsong of Shannara. After that, it doesn’t matter if you go back to read the prequels, or if you continue with the sequels. That said, the Word/Void trilogy stands alone, and exists much earlier than the main Shannara storyline. So that’s another good place to start, especially since it begins the chronology.