Comments on: Complete Sword of Truth Series – Book review

By: Sburn

Sburn — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:47:31 +0000

About the recapping of previous events, I remember reading somewhere,that save the last three books, each book was meant to be a stand-alone book. In hindsight it did get quite preachy, but disregardingthat, the series was great, especially the Ja La games.

By: bhagwad

bhagwad — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:39:57 +0000

Thanks Mego :)

By: Mego

Mego — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 13:11:51 +0000

Sadly, I agree with most of your points, but don’t mind most of them… I love the love story, but I am a woman, what can you expect? :) I read through the series once, and am reading through again now. I’m focusing more on the other characters, and skipping a lot of his speeches. I agree with Levi, the recapping of the past events in each book was very annoying!

I got very tired of them constantly being captured, but I do think he made the point that Richard’s obsessive love is what brought him through some of his torturous moments where other people might have given up… I get very emotionally tied to the characters I read about… So I guess you could say I fell in love with the characters, and then got indignant about the way he treated them.

This is the first unhappy review I’ve read, and while I still love the series, I had to thank you for opening my eyes about some things! Also, don’t waste time with the TV series. Good series by itself, but they just used the characters names, it’s nothing like the books.

-Mego

By: Book Review: The Bonehunters (Malazan Book of the Fallen)

Book Review: The Bonehunters (Malazan Book of the Fallen) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:59:22 +0000

[...] This is usually the time when other such epic stories start to lose their way. It happened with the Sword of Truth books which ended in total disaster and even Jordan’s stories began to meander with nothing much [...]

By: levi

levi — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 07:25:07 +0000

I’ve read the whole series twice, and I actually liked it. I thought how the ending tied in was quite clever. But the worst part of the series was the sixth book faith of the fallen. It was such a bad book. it felt like terry goodkind was shoving his beliefs down the readers throats. Another bad thing in the series is how in every new book terry goodkind goes on and on about what happend previously in the series. I think i would know what a confessor, mord sith, and the power of the sword of truth is by book 11. :(

By: Aviram

Aviram — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 23:10:07 +0000

I read the first 6 books of this series, and, boy, I couldn’t agree with you more. The first 4 books were pretty decent (My favorite is definitely “Blood of the Fold”). Their upside for me was the fluency of the story (it was riveting at times) and some sparks of originality. Their main weak point was the character building. They act in a really unbalanced, unbelievable way, as you’ve written. Upon the 5th book I started to feel the storyline is getting too old for my tastes, but what really cracked my patience was the constant, nagging, self-indulgent, holier-than-thou sermons thrown at us abundantly in “Faith of the Fallen”. This really felt like I was reading a capitalistic propagandist brochure, and not a fantasy novel. Even worse, the plot itself was compromised for this bull****… It was really pathetic.
After reading the 6th novel, I decided to take a break from this series, and I often wondered if maybe I should give it another chance (after all, I did read half of the series already). So, I just wanted to thank you for the fair warning of what’s to come ahead should I continue reading the series. I think I can safely pass without fear of losing anything worthwhile.

By: bhagwad

bhagwad — Tue, 31 May 2011 13:00:47 +0000

Ego grows indeed! I’ve also read his response to some of the criticism leveled at the books and he says that the critics are unproductive people who want to spoil a great piece of work :D

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 31 May 2011 06:38:04 +0000

This review made me laugh, mainly because I pretty much feel the exact same way about this series. This first book was fantastic and I was locked after that. By Faith of the Fallen I would skip 10 pages of preaching only to find he was still preaching at the same spot 10 pages ahead. He abandoned all of the fantasy themes that I found interesting in the earlier books and turned the series into Atlas Shrugged with magic. Then he would get to the last 50 pages and say, oh I guess I should move the plot or story along or something. *SPOILER* Really at the end of The Naked Empire Richard just suddenly knows how to make the antidote? Really?… … Really? As the series continues you can read Goodkind’s ego grow.

By: Rick

Rick — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 21:56:12 +0000

Great review. In the 5th or so book (can’t recall the exact volume, and don’t want to either) the preaching went on and on and on, I wanted 3/4th of my money back for skipping over so many of the pages. Would Terry ever stop…. He did…with the final word on the final page of the book…..

For anyone wanting to take up this series: First book was nice . Read it and quit while you’re ahead.

By: bhagwad

bhagwad — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:25:05 +0000

Thanks for sharing your views Avinash. My feeling is that Goodkind ran out of ideas and filled up his books with bad preaching instead.