Wizard's First Rule – Sword of Truth Series Book Review

I have to admit I’m embarrassed to be reading a book with such a clichéd title. I mean the whole idea of a magic sword is so passé, it reminds me of He-Man. But let’s face it – almost all epic fantasy novels are set in a middle ages atmosphere and the attraction of a special sword can be too powerful to resist.

Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind is the first book in the Sword of Truth series and my feelings about the book are mixed. I don’t know if I’m going to move onto the next one or not. There’s something missing for me that I can’t quite put my finger on. I think it has to do with the fact that I don’t really care about the characters in the book. The only really interesting ones are the bad guys who engage in some pretty unusual practices to say the least.

There are a few new concepts that I kind of liked, but really not as much as the “endowment” logic in the Runelords series or the Saidar/Saidin concept in the Wheel of Time. In those two, the magic system is just that – a system. So far in the Sword of Truth series, there’s not much logic to how magic works. It’s haphazard and things become possible as and when the plot dictates it must.

Also, unlike the Wheel of Time and the Runelords series, I’m not really keen to find out what happens to the hero. Perhaps the problem is that I don’t really feel the sense of destiny that characterized the protagonists in the other two despite late references to “prophecies”. Another problem may be that he has things a little too easy. He has a tutor right from the word “go”, and the realization that he’s more than just the sword he carries comes a little too late.

It also pisses me off when close friends in the story keep vital secrets from each other for ridiculous reasons. This is a flaw shared by other series’s too by the way. People must tell each other everything. Only then is it believable. I’ve decided to read an “in-between” book before I determine whether or not to read the second book in the series. Let’s see how I feel about it then. I might give the series another chance and see if I start caring more.