Newsletter – February 6, 2026
When I was in high school, my brother and I painted houses to earn money for college. We listened to a radio that kept playing the same top ten hits all day long and my mind would wander off to a story by Terry Brooks that had captured my attention: The Sword of Shannara.
Having read all the magical adventures of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, the release of the first Shannara book whet my appetite for more adventure. That began a long procession of Brooks’ books that I read for about fifty years. The man has only recently announced his retirement but fortunately his designated successor will continue to carry the torch under his oversight.
When Running With The Demon came out in 1997 I was quick to dismiss it as “not a Shannara book,” but Brooks later acknowledged the Word & Void series as a distant prequel to Shannara. I’m currently listening to the second book in the series, but wanted to tell you about the first one.
The story takes place on a Fourth of July weekend in a small town in Illinois. A fourteen-year-old girl named Nest lives near a park where a magical forest creature teaches her about taking care of the park and staying away from the Feeders that thrive on the fears and vulnerabilities of their human victims.
Nest knows she has magic, and knows that none of her band of close friends can see the Feeders. She protects them as much as she is able but much more dangerous magic is on its way. The demon of the title soon arrives, as does a Knight of the Word, and the Word and the Void have a showdown that includes Nest.
I won’t spoil the story by telling you too much, but I think it’s fair to warn you about one scene that matches the supernatural brutality of a Steven King novel. Brooks describes the gruesome death of a human that the demon has seduced into doing his bidding. If you’re a parent wondering if this story is a good fit for your child, I wanted to give you let you know about that part.
The other aspect of the Word & Void drama is its remarkable parallels to our modern world. The Word is order and the Void is chaos. In this divided world of 2026, as our social media rewards outrage and fear, this fantasy world offers us a staging ground of the many possible outcomes. It feels very current and very real.
I recommend it highly.
TTFN
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Having ended on a dark note above, I’ll lighten the tone with another cartoon from The New Yorker and the caption I submitted for their weekly contest:
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Eric Margerum 