The Sword of Shannara

This book is primarily bad because of the obviously borrowed ideas from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. If you've read LotR, you'll find Gandalf, Aragorn, Frodo, Samwise, Boromir, Grima, Sauron, Gimli, Legolas (as 2 elves), and even Gollum. Locations? The Shire, Rivendell, there's even a mountain version of Moria and a Gandalf-like fight with what's really just a Balrog and a Gandalf-like fall as well.

The writing itself is not that bad, but the pacing is quite slow, with a lot of reminiscing portions. The last part of the book gets better but overall, if you skip this one, you wouldn't lose out much on the world of Shannara.