I was re-reading the trilogies, which actually led me to re-watch the movie, and I found the trilogies to be sorta bad in parts, not to mention extremely derivative itself.

What, like an MTV audience reads books, or is old enough to have seen the movies?

I've got to say, using magic elfstones causing a person to have his balls mutate might be the most original thing Brooks ever came up with

Although they can be used to heal, can't they? I can't remember.

Again, there's a difference between being Tolkienesque, which the WOT books arguably are, and being a straight-up copy, which Sword is. Hey, and Jordan ripped off Frank Herbert more than Tolkien. He has Fremen in the later books.

IIRC (talking about books I haven't read for 20+ years is dangerous), doesn't the climax of the series rely on already knowing how the Sword works?

I don't see how you can avoid the generational gap, due to the nature of the wishsong.

My favorite description of him ever. Not that there was a huge pool.

Even Brooks wouldn't copy that debacle

Yeah, I read Elfstones then Sword at 9, before I had read LOTR, and I'm sure I had a much more positive view of Brooks because of that.

Elfstones and Wishsong and the rest of 'em still feel like Tolkien knockoffs,

Right, Elfstones is the better book, and not one of the most successful complete literary rip-offs ever. We already have 3 LOTR movies

Yep. And Allanon has that speech about the creation of the trolls, dwarves, and gnomes, IIRC, saying that the story of the elves' origin was a story for another time, which was in Elfstones

He started out as a basically amateur writer ripping off LOTR, had a better sophomore effort, and then the rest of his post-apocalypse books basically rehashed the same characters and plots (with the addition of the wishsong) for like 16 more books.

That's what was hinted at. There was something of a retcon in later books that suggested there was never a nuclear war, just other catastrophes.

Yeah, IIRC, there are the remains of skyscrapers in… hm, I don't remember, but definitely one of the first three because Allanon was there. Pretty sure it's not Wishsong, and Allanon wasn't traveling with the group in Elfstones, which means it's probably Sword. And he explains the origin of the gnomes dwarves and…

Hell yeah for evil masterminds auction that bids by firing guns into the air.

And what does god need with a starship?

oh right, no dvr

I've never seen Scorpion, but I'm still judging you for liking it