Elfstones was actually the most recent book I read. Read through "First King," "Sword," and "Elfstones" as a way of getting up to speed with the series. Course I'm unlikely to be able to see said series until it comes out on DVD, but based on that, the question of whether it'll be GoT or LotS...
Well, I'd say neither. Of the above three books I read, "Elfstones" is easily the strongest, but it's still a very average book, and pretty much follows Sword's plot. Replace the Sword of Shannara with the Elcrys seed, replace the Warlock Lord's armies with demons, have the same "battle waging until hero does something at the end to save the day" sequence, have the same "Allanorn/Gandalf sits down to talk with Frodo/Shea/Wil at end of story" sequence, and, yeah. I've heard people say that the series came into its own with "Elfstones," but IMO, it's still wearing LotR's influence on its shoulder. The reason I'd say Elfstones is the superior work is that it focuses on a smaller cast of characters, whereas Sword spread them out far too much over too many areas, and most of those characters usually had a LotR counterpart. Granted, Allanon is still channeling Gandalf and Arragorn, but he feels like his own character a bit more in this case.
Which, at last, brings us to the Shannara Chronicles itself. Far as I can tell it follows Elfstones' basic plotline, but it's very different in tone. Will's a half elf rather than a quarter elf (and in the book the only time it mattered was that it made him harder to use the titular elfstones when compared to Shea), Eretria seems to have a larger role, and there's no denying that they've 'sexified' elements. Amberle is different in terms of looks and personality, Allanon looks nothing like he does in the book, and the princes are a bit more playboyey (probably not a word, but meh). On the flipside, I actually like how it plays up the post-apocalypse aspect from the books, in that it's a key distinction from LotR, and even if the early books were more subtle about it, I think it works for a visual medium. But then, this is just going by trailers.
