User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
It is always curious to see fantasy authors who don't consider themselves to be fantasy authors. Case-in-point: Terry Goodkind. The former landscape painter has told us how he isn't a fantasy author in every interview he's ever given:
"The books I write are first of all novels, not fantasy, and that is deliberate; I'm really writing books about human beings."(1)
"To define me as a fantasy writer is to misunderstand the context of my books by misidentifying their fundamentals."(2)
"The stories I'm telling are not fantasy-driven, they're character-driven, and the characters I want to write about could be set in any world. I'd like to address a broader audience."(3)""What I have done with my work has irrevocably changed the face of fantasy. In so doing I've raised the standards. I have not only injected thought into a tired empty genre, but, more importantly, I've transcended it showing what more it can be . . ."Then the interview usually devolves into a discussion of Ayn Rand and 'the meaning of art', just in case you missed the pretension of declaring fantasy books 'not fantasy!'
The guy certainly has a chip on his shoulder, but it makes me wonder whether he has
actually read any fantasy. He doesn't seem to realize that the things he claims separate him from fantasy are fundamental parts of how modern fantasy works. A novel that's fundamentally about character interactions with a magical setting? How droll. Goodkind doesn't reinventing the novel; he doesn't even reinvent the fantasy novel, he just twists the knobs to get a little more steam out of it.
Michael Moorcock critiqued Tolkien as a false romantic, which is rather apt considering that his love story takes place almost entirely in absentia (prompting Peter Jackson to infuse some extra loving with a hot, elven, psychic dream sequence). Most fantasy authors rectify this by having the girl come along for the journey. Goodkind likes to keep the separation for much of the story as our hero tries to seek her out across a continent (though she is often just in the next room! Oh! What a tragic coincidence!)
Actually, after the first time it's just an annoying and painfully artificial way to try to hold off the conclusion for another hundred pages. It's a good thing Terry doesn't have to rely on magical or artificial means to keep his stories fresh!
The rest of the time, the hero finds the girl and lovingly transfixes her on his mighty sword. No, really. I'm not sure why these authors always end up feeling as if they have to dump their sex fetish issues at this particular juncture:
"Huh, I dig BDSM. Maybe I should confide my fantasies in a book for mass publication".I cannot think of a single female character in the entire series who isn't either raped or threatened with rape. If you want to give me an example of one, remember: I'm counting magical psychic blowjob rape as rape. I wish I never had the opportunity to qualify a statement with 'don't forget the psychic blowjob rape'.
I don't mind actual BDSM literature, but I'd rather have my own reaction to it than be told "isn't it totally dirty and wrong!? (but still super sexy, right?)" Porn for porn's sake is fine, but remember, Goodkind isn't some escapist fantasy author, these are 'real stories about real people' so he has to act like his magic porn is somehow a reflection of real life.
Goodkind's books are cookie-cutter genre fantasy, but the first few aren't that badly done, and if you like people narrowly missing one another, bondage, masochism, rape, and dragons, it might work for you, but the series dies on arrival part-way through, so prepare for disappointment.
If you are enjoying the series, you should probably avoid reading any of his interviews, as he rarely misses an opportunity to claim that he is superior to all other fantasy authors, and never compare him to Robert Jordan, because
"If you notice a similarity, then you probably aren't old enough to read my books."(4)
Goodkind truly lives in his own fantasy world if he thinks his mediocre genre re-hash is 'original' or 'deep'.
Then again, I've never met an adherent of Ayn Rand who didn't consider themselves a brilliant and unique snowflake trapped in a world of people who 'just don't understand'. The Randian philosophies are also laid on pretty thickly in his books, but at least he found a substitute grandmother figure to help him justify his Gorean sex-romp as 'high art'.
All in all, he's just another guy who likes to hear himself talk. Despite what he says, nothing separates his work from the average modern fantasy author, and like them, his greatest failing is the complete lack of self-awareness that overwhelms his themes, plots, and characters.
My Fantasy Book Suggestions
Rating: really liked it
Originality is a bit of a gray area. It's hard to find what exactly constitutes paying homage versus stealing. Terry Goodkind has left that gray area, sprinted 6 miles down the road, dug up the bodies of fantasy authors who came before him, and took the coins from their pockets.
Rating: really liked it
Terry Goodkind is a grossly inept writer, with the writing ability of a somewhat intelligent seventh-grader, but he jumped into the wide-open fantasy field when there were hardly any good fantasy writers (a state that hasn't completely changed, btw) and he has the persistence to turn out 600 page novels, and so he got published and now he's grandfathered in, because some people don't have better taste than to buy his novels. Additionally, his early work is grotesquely derivative, mostly of Robert Jordan as a matter of fact. It also includes all kinds of cliché fantasy tropes, which then never appear again in the series, as though dragons and gars just up and wandered off the planet at some point. His bad guys, particularly in this book, are such a mish-mash of evil that they became caricatures of evil, and are actually laughable. For instance, either Darken Rahl or his henchman, I don't remember which. These guys were not just evil and out to despoil everything in sight and out for total power and in cahoots with the evil underworld spirits, one of them was also a child-molester to boot. I'm sure Goodkind would have called him a Nazi, had the concept fit into his milieu. And finally, after about four novels or so, Goodkind sacrifices story-telling on the altar of making a political point, and since then every book has been a thinly veiled objectivist, anti-religious and anti-altruism rant. I don't care that he has a point of view, or that he occasionally slips it into his writing, but his evil characters have become now, not caricatures of evil, but mean-spirited caricatures of the philosophy he opposes. And so he has shown himself, through his writing, to be someone I would despise quite apart from it: someone who can't conceive that the people who see things differently are men and women of good will who have just come to separate conclusions. He tortures the crap out of his writing in order to make it serve his convoluted agenda.
Do yourself a favor and don't start this series. Especially if, like me, you have OCD tendencies and feel compelled to finish what you start.
And yes, I am jealous—-that a lousy writer like that can have 600-page volume after 600-page volume published, and I can't. Because, frankly, I think I'm better than he is.
Rating: really liked it
This is the beginning. One book. One Rule. Witness the birth of a legend.There are books you read once, you enjoy them and never give them a second thought. There are books you love and want to share this love with the entire world. And then there are books that are so
precious to you that talking about them feels like sacrilege, like exposing your bare soul and instead you safeguard them like a treasure. For me, Sword of Truth belongs to the latest category. The only reason I decided to write a proper review is because it's a series that readers either love or hate, and I wanted to show you that despite the negative reviews there is something worth reading here, a
gem that not everyone can appreciate but the ones who do, they will never be the same again. So, here's my bare soul.
“Take care, Seeker. You have the gift. Use it. Use everything you have to fight. Don't give in. Don't let him rule you. If you are to die, die fighting with everything you have, everything you know. That is the way of a dragon.”
There is a storm coming in the Three Kingdoms. The tyrant of D'Hara is about to put together the pieces of an ancient puzzle that can either give him unlimited power to control the world of the living or destroy life itself. The wizards have fallen, and the only person that stands a chance against him is the Seeker of Truth, the wielder of the Sword of Truth, a weapon forged with magic destined only for those that are deemed worthy. And that person is Richard Cypher. With a grumpy wizard and a mysterious woman as his companions, he sets off an epic journey, a journey to unlock the secrets of magic and human nature, greed and love, and find his destiny.
“People are stupid. They will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true.”
Terry Goodkind created a world I'd give anything to live in. He combines
adventure with romance, magic, evil queens and dragons, sorcerers and wild tribes, past and present, death and life. His magic system is extremely well-written, his world-building solid and fascinating, his characters realistic. When I read his books, I feel like he's talking to
me, he unravels the multiple layers of my soul and when he puts them back together, his story is among them.
It's a part of who I am. Because his writing contains deeper messages and wisdom about life and love that sank into my bones.
“The light of a new day always chases the shadows of the night away, and shows us that the shape of our fears is only the ghost of our own minds.”
Every fantasy books narrates a version of the eternal battle between Good and Evil. What makes Sword of Truth stand out, is that the enemy isn't a dark, inhuman lord who commands legions of nightmarish creatures. No, the enemy is one man, a man who has given his soul to the darkness, whose goal is to eliminate resistance and free will. And because of his pervertion, this book is
dark, mature, cruel and sometimes disturbing, and themes like rape, tortures and human sacrifices are also included. But without the darkness, we would not appreciate the light.
“I am who I am; no more, no less.”
I struggle to find words sufficient to describe why Richard is the best protagonist you could ever ask for. He is not a child, he is a man, a man brave and loyal and fair, a man who tried for years to tame his anger only to find out that his righteous fury will be the means to use the Sword of Truth and deliver justice, no matter how hard it is. He is kind and noble, he can forgive his enemies and fight for people he never met and above all, he is the
smartest character I have ever met.
He is a hero. And so is Kahlan. She is a woman of power, strong and confident, dedicated to her mission and a nightmare to her enemies. But the price of her power is the isolation and fear she inspires to everyone but Richard. To say that they are my favorite couple of all time would be an understatement. I ship them in an
I-would-walk-through-the-fiery-pits-of-hell-to-make-sure-you-end-up-together kind of way. Don't expect rainbows and pink clouds, there are forces that keep them apart but their love is steady as a rock. In fact, I believe
those two give the definition of the word love.
“Love is not about what you want. It's about finding happiness for the one you love.”
When I have a problem, when I can't decide what to do, I think of what Richard and Kahlan and Zedd would do. They're more than friends,
they live inside me. As soon as I read the first pages of Wizard's First Rule, I knew that my life was about to change. And for that I am eternally grateful.
Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | BookNest
Rating: really liked it
Wizard's First Rule is a good example of why people think all post-Tolkien Fantasy is trash. It bears one tenth of Tolkien's imagination, a smaller fraction of his brilliant study, and - oh look, swords! Cliche family drama, an angsty romance between tormented lovers, powerful characters who are so unjustly tortured - it's immature at best. At its best, it is a clunky and self-indulgently obtuse hero's journey. Then there's the hundred page BDSM tangent, where the hero goes through excruciating pseudo-bondage games with his captor. This part borders on self-parody, because the outrageous subject matter is stretched out for so long that it becomes boring and we're just waiting for it to end, and we know it will, because this isn't an inventive story that's going to venture to brave new intellectual worlds. The romance is similarly brutal, but on the weepy side rather than the sado-masochistic. There isn't even the hero-empowerment fun of
Eragon to turn this into a fun immature adventure - it's too slow and anxious for that. Instead it builds to a ludicrous climax and a plot twist that you wouldn't think anyone would pen after Star Wars came out. But this book would.
Rating: really liked it
I very much enjoyed this book! I only hope I can say so for the rest of the series
Mel ❤️
Rating: really liked it
So I made this review into a short parody video on my new booktube (youtube for book reviews) channel here. I hope you enjoy! Please subscribe if you do, thanks!
Richard and Kahlen's Relationship Timeline:
Day One:Richard: "Kahlen, now that we just met, we're the bestestest friends aren't we?"
Kahlen: "We sure are."
Day Two:Richard: "Kahlen, we're the bestestest of friends and I would give my life for you even though we just met."
Kahlen: "Me too!"
Day Three:Richard: "Kahlen, I love you more than life itself. What? It's only been three days? Well, that still seems sensible."
Kahlen: "My sentiments exactly!"
Days Four through 20:Richard: "Love, love, love."
Kahlen: "I love you, but we can never be together ever because of the magic."
Days 21 through 30:Random Mord Sith comes in out of nowhere.
Days >30:See Days Four through 20.
More Details:
So, I didn't quite go into this with the best of intentions. I wanted to jump on the bandwagon since I felt like the only one not making fun of Goodkind. I can, however, say that I enjoyed Wizard's First Rule.
Ten years ago, I would have loved it more than anything. Five years ago, I still would have really really liked it. Today, I've realized I'm not quite the same reader I was before.
I've always loved what many term the "traditional" fantasy. Farmer/scullion learns true history that he/she is the ultimate of awesome, the supreme queen of butterflies and aardvarks, the master and commander.
While I enjoyed Goodkind's twist on this traditional tale, it was still a bit much for me at times. Richard is the boy-who-would-be-insert-title and he's just too perfect. He's good at EVERYTHING. Okay, he's a wilderness guide, so he's good at tracking and woodsy stuff (that's the technical term, believe me, I'm a woodsy guide). I can get behind that. But then he can fight and solve riddles and do rubik's cubes and everything.
Then, and I kinda feel like a tool talking about this since I don't really know all that much what I'm talking about, there's the lack of foreshadowing. There's probably a better term that would qualify this, but we jump from one adventure to the next.
There's the ultimate good versus bad tale going on, but to get to the end, there's so much padding with multiple adventures in between. We have to go to the mud people so they can tell us stuff. Oops, the mud people can't tell us, we have to go to that mountain over there and it's such a dangerous mountain. Oops again, now we have to call a fairy by tapping our ankles twice while holding our breath, doing a somersault on a donkey and spelling the word Goodkind backward.
I know Eddings' Belgariad does much the same thing, but that has a special place in my heart, whereas The Sword of Truth was just too late in my reading career. Add to that the less than stellar feelings toward the later volumes in the series, you may not see me carrying on.
I will say, the ending was pretty good and will actually be moving my 3 star rating up to a 3.5. Lucky duck.
3.5 out of 5 Stars
Rating: really liked it
Okay everyone. Below is my review from when I tried to read Wizard's First Rule back in 2007. I was fresh out of college. You know, back when you thought your opinion mattered. While I didn't personally like the book and couldn't get into it, I really went for it in this review. I now regret it. You don't really understand how difficult it is to write something good until you try and write a book yourself. It's taxing, time consuming, alienating. Sometimes you think you wrote something amazing, and then someone will come around and tell you they'd rather lick their own dog's teeth than read what you wrote. Ouch. It's hurtful.
I'm leaving my review up below because I think it's a good lesson. If you don't like something, cool, that's fine. But you don't have to tear it down publicly. Better yet, why not point out the good you saw in it? There will be, inevitably, some person who shows up to point out all the bad. Nobody's worried that that person won't show up, so they now must shoulder the responsibility. I'm also leaving this review up so that I don't run from it. This review has gotten a lot of likes here on Goodreads, and with each new like, I feel more and more guilty about it.
Writing is hard. My hat's off to you, Mr. Goodkind. I apologize for my distasteful and mean review. Thankfully, you have so many fans out there that love your book and will stand by it, even when little shits like me throw out a mean review.
-----
I'm sorry. I really did try for this one, as I love my boyfriend (very much) who loves this book. I found the writing unbearable, as I would rather smell my dog's breath and lick his teeth than have to read words written by Terry Goodkind. That being said, I was interested in the story, but it was as if the guy did not have an editor. Oh, he had spell check, don't get me wrong, but no one told him to take out the emotions and/or inner-dialogue he would repeat up to 4 times in a paragraph.
I did love reading his acknowledgements page. Does that count?
Also, just incase Terry Good and Kind is out there, I am very sorry too. I wasn't too keen on your book, and I'm sorry this attack on your book was personal to your writing style and abilities. I think you are a cool looking man - one of the best with a ponytail - and I am sure you are as your last name implies.
Rating: really liked it
I am adding this author to the list of people that I wouldn't want to have lunch with. After this review, I suspect he won't want to have lunch with me either.
This book reads like a game of Dungeons and Dragons. It's a quest, a bit formulaic, and at times I could practically hear the narrator telling me to roll the ten-sided die to see what happens when we go down the left fork. In this book, we have the hapless regular guy who through a great series of coincidences finds himself traveling to save the world with the beautiful, mysterious woman (formerly, the damsel in distress), the great and powerful wizard (who is utterly disappointing and mostly serves as comic relief), and the hardened, streetwise soldier. It almost feels like the author drew a map of his new fantastical world, decided to put the main character at one end, and the solution at the other, and then gave him a veritable obstacle course of classic problems on the way. He runs into underworld beasts, monsters, dragons, deluded armies, and betrayal (which, consequently, the rest of us saw coming 500 pages before he did). To say this book is plot-driven would be an understatement. Sadly, though, even the pacing of that plot isn't good.
But none of that has anything to do with why I wouldn't want to hang out with the author. I found the creations of his imagination really disturbing. I could almost feel his delight in divining new and more horrible atrocities to detail as the story went on. Yes, the bad guy is very, very bad. But there was a definite sick, sadistic side to the story. I just have to wonder what kind of person decides to spend something like eight chapters on very descriptive and imaginative torture of one character, when the great love that supposedly drives the story took a comparative flash to develop. He's great at devising innovative ways to cause pain and anguish, but terrible at imagining realistic human interaction. The dialogue, sadly, reflects that.
When the author isn't describing pain or evil, a sitcom-like feeling prevails. A paraphrased typical scene: a genuinely disturbing challenge with an emotional resolution that should leave everyone drained and perhaps scarred, until big old wizard asks, "When do we eat?" To which everyone chuckles, "Oh, that wizard, his stomach's always in charge." and they all saunter off into the sunset arm in arm.
If you love Dungeons and Dragons, or if you're someone who enjoys causing or experiencing pain, this book is for you. For me, not so much. I wonder if his other books get any better?
Rating: really liked it
The sheer depth of Wizard's First Rule is simply amazing. His characters are unique and original, yet seem simple when you realize that they aren't perfect. Every chapter you read will cling you tighter to his series. Of course, many will dislike Terry Goodkind's works, either because he establishes dead on ethics in an 'I'm right, your wrong' approach, or because of dissatisfaction with his writing style, but it would be a baseless altercation to state that he is a run-in-the-mill, and mediocre author. Terry Goodkind deserves nothing but praise for this extraordinary novel.
Rating: really liked it
a total shitshow.despite the common monomythic DNA that should have excused it, this book seemed altogether cribbed from robert jordan's
wheel of time series.
and then doused with absurd flourishes of disturbing provenance until it fairly reeked.
like when some seriously NYC-aggro person opens a plate of take-out chinese chicken wings in hot sauce on the subway.
usually just after the express leaves 125th and everyone has to spend the next eight minutes in an enclosed space together, stewing in the fumes.
.............but yeah, i hated this.
Rating: really liked it
I can honestly say this is the worst piece of fiction I have ever encountered, in any genre. It's hard to know where to start critiquing this book since I hated so very many things about it. First off, it is about four times too long. I'm all for an epic sized novel if the story can support it, but this one doesn't come close.
The dialogue is, for the most part, trite and boring and the characters are all
astoundingly two-dimensional and unauthentic. They are all constantly doing things against their described nature, and so many of their actions are inconsistent with what the characters know and how they would logically act. This is part of what makes the story read like a rough draft where the author is trying to get the plot down and needs to go back and do some serious polishing. The polishing never occurred.
The characters all make the most idiotic mistakes about things that a kindergartner would have been able to reason out. This is just bad writing. The author could have achieved the same results in far more plausible ways, while at the same time giving the characters some consistency, intelligence, forethought, and reasoning ability.
Like many other negative reviewers, I am astounded by the sheer quantity of trite plot devices. He really pushes Jungian literary theories of collective conscious and archetypes to the limit. On just the fantasy genre level, we have woodsmen/rangers, a magical sword, a quirky old wizard, young, mysterious, and coincidentally gorgeous magic-wielding young woman, and old witch living by herself in the woods, hellhouds (I know they're called heart hounds, but come on, they're hellhounds), a mystically wise yet primitive tribe, a talking and intelligent red dragon, an evil sorceress, a wicked queen, mystical artifacts, spells and enchantments out the wazoo, a charming yet horrible villain who happens to have mastery over every type of magic with an unquestionably detestable 2nd in command, a monster in a cave, a character that is undeniably a Gollum rip-off, a magical deadline, and more. The real show stopper on the trite-fest that is this book is the "Luke, I am your father"-esque moment at the end.
The plot line in the book was not well planned out, if it even was planned out; I would not be the least bit surprised to hear that the author just winged it. Think of the plot of a good book as an enjoyable road trip. The route will turn, taking you past several interesting vistas, while still generally heading towards the destination. The plot for Wizard's First Rule stops at every turn out and explores every cul de sac along the way, and frequently stops, goes back a ways, and then drives over the same stretch a second time. It is chock full of sequences that do nothing to advance the story or aid character development.
The anti-collectivist/anti-communist/pro-individualism message came across crystal clear, as well it should, since it was not in the least bit disguised and was often repeated. I don't have a problem with the content of this message, just that it was so blatant and heavy handed. The other oft-repeated and preachy moral was that of relative morality, which I did have an issue with. The main character, through the preaching of his trusted wizard friend, keeps having deep thoughts about how there is no good or evil from the viewpoint of those making a choice or performing an action. Like we are supposed to believe that, from the viewpoint of the child-molesting serial killer character, he considers his actions good and morally acceptable. Boo, Mr. Goodkind, boo.
Speaking of the child-molesting serial killer, he was only one of several deeply disturbing elements of the book. Not only do we have evil characters doing horribly naughty things, we, as readers, are treated to graphic descriptions of said naughty things. We get to hear about the molester's love of buggery, the dominatrices passion for torture, and how the pointlessly-vegetarian-turned-cannibal evil ruler first brainwashed his child victim before pouring molten lead down his throat, mutilated his body, and ate parts of it. Oh, and a bunch of rape.
This was just 832 pages of a horribly written waste of time. If I didn't enjoy meeting with my book-club (which is discussing this in a few weeks), I wouldn't have continued past the first chapter. I deeply resent the time this book took to read, as I have so many more worthy things I could have been reading in its stead.
Rating: really liked it
The gender ideologies underlying the novel's cosmology are just so profoundly disturbing that I couldn't enjoy what there was of the story -- not that I was likely to enjoy it anyway, since it featured large amounts of sexual torture of Our Hero. It's really not any more tasteful when gender-reversed.
Rating: really liked it
I was referred to Terry Goodkind as a better alternative to Robert Jordan. I feel betrayed and lied to. Or maybe it was some kind of joke. Goodkind's characters are simply not believeable, and this absolutely kills the book. The dialog is forced, and it feels as if no one ever proof read Goodkind's "masterpiece."
If you like books written in a style where if you squint your eyes and pretend that instead of reading, you are watching a one-liner Bruce Willis fantasy movie, go out and get this book right now.
Rating: really liked it
*** 4.25 ***
"...“People are stupid. They will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true.”..."This was much better than it would seem when you first start the book. It is a linear story, no multiple POV's or constant action sequences, but engrossing nonetheless... Recommend it to all Fantasy lovers, but I think those new to the genre would enjoy it most!
