A while ago, I reviewed Wizard’s First Rule and later decided to read the whole series by Terry Goodkind. While there were some good points to it, I have no hesitation in saying that the latter half was predominantly bad. Now that all eleven books are over, I can pronounce my judgment. Unlike the Wheel of Time, I’m going to start with the bad since it stands out so much. In case you’re wondering why I went through and read eleven books, it’s because once you read the first 4 books, you have to know what happens!
Note: No specific spoilers here, but only a general commentary on the series.
The Ugly – Repetitive Sword of Truth Themes
Several things bug me about this series. One of them is that each book makes use of the same themes over and over again. For example, Terry Goodkind seems to be completely obsessed with people getting captured. In the course of the series, every single good guy has been rendered helpless in the hands of the enemy at least once, and many of them more than once. Each book contains people getting captured and then escaping. I’ve lost count of how many times the main protagonist (Richard) has been rendered helpless by someone or the other.
Also, Richard is somehow or the other deliberately crippled in each of the books. Either he gets debilitating headaches, or he’s prevented from using his gift (or forbidden from doing so), or he’s losing his magic or whatever. As a result, we never get to see him at his full potential as a war wizard.
And what’s with everyone being tired? I mean does no one sleep in the books? Whenever we see Richard, we hear about how he hasn’t slept well for weeks – or any of the main protagonists for that matter (Zedd is the only exception. He’s my favorite character). Another means by which Goodkind incapacitates his heroes. They’re always hungry or tired.
The next huge issue is the love story between Richard and Kahlan. Ok they’re in love. We GET IT! They behave like lovestruck teenagers. Whenever Kahlan isn’t present, Richard loses all capacity for thought and the world can go to hell. It’s sick. He doesn’t behave like an adult, but some moonstruck juvenile. Kahlan is a little (just about) better. At least she can operate cogently without Richard being around. Every book in the Sword of Truth series has to have at least one mandatory separation of Richard and Kahlan. Every single book. The two are so boring together that Goodkind is forced to pry them apart and thus provide the motivation for Richard to get off his butt and do something. Sometimes it seems that it’s the only thing that works.
Richard is supposed to be the most powerful wizard in 3,000 years and a war wizard to boot, and even at the end of the book, he still doesn’t know how to use his powers. Time and time again he gets an opportunity to learn about them from his Grandfather Zedd who’s the First Wizard of the land, and each time he throws away the opportunity – and for what? Yep – that’s right. To spend time with Kahlan. He doesn’t care that if he doesn’t learn, his gift will kill him. He just wants to be alone with Kahlan. But then hey! If he learns how to use his powers, he can actually ward off the threat from every Tom Dick and Harry who captures him! And we can’t have that can we? How will he get the motivation to rejoin Kahlan then hmm?
Just once in the series, he gets his wet dream. Kahlan is injured and she recuperates with him in a forest where it’s just the two of them. If it wasn’t for a nice evil sorceress who stole Richard away, he’d still be cuddling with her in his wooden shack in isolation. A pathetic hero to say the least.
I’ve saved the worst for the last. After the fifth book or so Richard who’s supposed to be the Seeker of Truth, mutates into the Preacher of Truth. Pages and pages (and pages) of the books are devoted to long winded black and white monologues by Richard who suddenly gets a Christ complex. The funniest part is that after dozens of pages of monologue, his listeners instead of going to sleep or throwing a rotten egg at him, stroke their chins and say “Y’know? I wish I had thought of that!” As if you can change a person’s entire nature by just boring them to death. I mean who talks like that? Goodkind tries to stuff his sickeningly righteous Ayn Rand bullshit down the throats of his readers over and over again. And then he does it again for good measure. Richard, who’s originally a nice sort of guy becomes this holier than thou – Oh I’m so wise and all knowing – jerk.
One final aspect of the entire series. What’s up with Richard losing his sword all the time? I mean I know that Goodkind has to do his usual thing of incapacitating his hero again and again, but why even bother to link the sword to Richard if just about anyone can take it and use it? Richard is separated from his sword over and over again (and Zedd even castigates him for it) – makes him seem careless you know what I mean?
Also, the whole Sisters of the Light concept was a knockoff of Robert Jordan’s Aes Sedai – complete with Sisters of the Dark resembling the Black Ajah.
The villains in the books also seem to be blessed with good luck. Somehow, the main evil guy (Jagang) repeatedly gets his hand on the rarest books in existence when they’ve been sitting right under the noses of the good guys all along. I mean his luck is simply unbelievable. All the books have a theme where things are going really really bad for the good guys and then in the last 100 pages or so, Richard the Preacher of Truth saves everyone with some jiggery pokery.
The Good
There are several really nice interesting characters in the book. They provide a refreshing break from the two main boring ones. Zedd, the First Wizard and Richard’s grandfather is the most entertaining, powerful and nicest old man in the series. Adie, the blind sorceress is an excellent complement. Nathan the powerful 1000 year old prophet is also a commanding character, but he doesn’t get much onscreen time unfortunately.
For me, the best concept was a set of scary guards called the Mord Sith. Fantastic addition. They really gave the entire series a breath of fresh air.
The villains were quite decent, though not as good as the one in Runelords (The villain called Darken Rahl however, was the match of Raj Ahten). I wish there were more good things to say about the books. I really do. After all, I spent a lot of time reading all eleven books. But I don’t feel sad that it’s over – unlike with the Wheel of Time series, or Runelords. I just feel relieved.
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. :(
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
In reply to Mego
Thanks Mego :)
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.
Wow. Thanks. I tried to read the first book, because I heard it was good, but I couldn’t get past the first 150 pages. Blah, blah, blah… it just seems to drag itself out and everyone got into the most cliche’d situations. The characters are totally underdeveloped and two-dimensional (except for Zedd, I agree). I tried and tried, but I didn’t even renew it when it was due at the library. I was actually quite relieved to return it and move on to something interesting like Peter Brett or Joe Abercrombie. Thanks Bhagwad.
In reply to Ryan
I’m sure most everyone here would surely disagree with you. The first book is arguably one of the best books ever, so, I guess your mind isn’t quite ready for 150 page books yet. Sorry little Timmy.
The first two books aggravated me no end, but I felt as if I’d been sucked in, I just had to continue. The writing is really mediocre at best, his dialogue jumps between Old Endglish (trying for LOTR touch perhaps?), and the kids down the block. It’s kind of silly actually. Thank you for your review, you’ve taken me off the hook, I won’t feel compelled to finish the whole darn series!
Wow, you offer some harsh words of critisim my friend. I am currently reading, book 4 temple of the winds and I have to agree with you that I have notice that the next book is always worse than the last,but I still love the series so far and will continue to read them. Personally I think the love story between richard and Kahlan ties the hole book together, without a strong love story the book would not be as compelling. So you may critiscise the books, and who am I to persicute you for it, I haven’t even finished the series yet. But I agree that you should watch the t.v. series and perhaps give the books another chance.
In reply to Kmali
Comment back here when you’re done with all the 11 books, then tell me what you think :)
What a rubbish review obviously this person has the shittiest taste in books or no imagination the sot series is the most magical series of all time and cannot be beat terry goodkind is a genius and has given the best gift to us all / rock on sword of truth series the best books in the world however won’t even bother reading wheel of time can tell by this review and others our tastes are for terry goodkinds sort of work the opposite wheel of time will obviously have no emotions within it. It’s part of life good times bad times a struggle the sword of truth series is the most magical journey u can ever have but you need a magical imagination to go with it terry goodkind rules x I read the series every year as a treat if I can since there release and every time it’s like falling in love with the series all over again.
In reply to Tasha
Tasha:
. This is a period.
? This is a question mark.
! This is an exclamation point.
, This is a comma.
Even Terry Goodkind uses punctuation marks. They make comments, including misplaced comments about a terrible book series by a formerly great author, much easier to read than a wall of punctuationless text. Try them! :)
Everyone’s got different tastes, imagination, and passions for what they seek in life. Many of the concepts in this book are strongly expressed, they were NEVER meant to appeal to everybody, Terry Goodkind is trying to express his passion and pain for the world we live in. Have you read his definition of art? He knows what he is doing and is doing it very well. From my standpoint, this is the best story I have ever read. He is delivering a message and dressing it up with a story to make it… awesome! What is poetry but words, a message dressed up to rhyme and flow in a beautiful manner. To make it more pleasant to read his philosophy.
First, the language he uses is awesome. I can’t remember where in the first book, but it stuck out in context when he used ‘biggest’ instead of ‘largest’, it was a part with Rachel and he is portraying a certain feel, emotion… aura… in a way that can’t be simply described, he writes it in a way to draw the emotion from the readers own experience and memories. For an average reader too, you can forget your reading. A fight scene is described in enough detail to visualize the whole scene, yet short enough to read through and imagine it happening in real time, like a movie.
Second, what is so bad about ‘Oh, he got captured again…’, what a great story it would have been if ‘What, I’m a war wizard? Oh, so maybe… HAH, I DID IT!! I WIN, NO ONE CAN DEFEAT ME! KAHLAN, COME TO HAPPILY EVER AFTER, THE END. I mean, he would be a pretty bad ass hero right? Its kind of like cheating at video games, GOD_MODE = ON. Now I can rip through the levels without dying! I did that when I was younger, but it quickly became incredibly boring. Lots of people like to do that though and there’s nothing wrong with it, but I bet if your a gamer, you’ve probably done that a lot. Whats a Hero without struggle, its what the reader relates to. And Tired?! Really?! Umm, if I was traveling around for months and months with the weight of saving the world by not being able to live the life you want, eating what you can dig up before the heart hounds come, and you turn to run all night before you can burn some roots over a fire (yummy), yeah I’d be tired I tell you what.
Third, Sex Sells. Period. Passion and romance is one of the strongest of human emotions. He uses it to deliver the feeling to the reader, to cut through to the heart. The Trojan War between Sparta and Troy, that inspired The Iliad and The Odyssey, the recent film 300, was fought over one woman. Thousands died. It was real. Everyday grown adults lose their job, ruin their lives, grow bitter and destroy the relationships in their life, if not go crazy and murder people…. wait for it… over a woman. Not saying they aren’t childish or wrong, (or really messed up), but it is true. In all of history, of all the peoples of the world, this has always been true. It is again, one of the very strongest emotions that exist in the human mind.
Fourth, preaching… It’s called the ‘Sword of Truth’, not everybody wants to hear preaching from the Sunday Sermon or by reading Aristotle’s Metaphysics or by reading Ayn Rands Objectivism books and manifestos. Some people read them for the preaching, which may go on more than necessary at times, but are you so afraid of skipping pages if your sick of it? Did he tell you to read every single page, in this order? Read what you want, if it is no use to you, move on and skip over. I feel like he might agree with this statement… And, the comment on ‘Capitalistic Propaganda’… You’ve proven his point, the entire theme of the whole series. Some people, usually the majority, are willing to sacrifice my (and your and your childrens) rights, freedoms, and even means to live, so that they can have a false sense of security, of being safe, of being right. They want to believe, and so they do. They convince themselves together that its OK to steal our money for themselves, as long as they do it together, for the greater good, right? I work 50-60 hours a week and hope to put myself through school, but I can’t afford it, because the ‘majority’ come take my school money and give it to some inner-city kid that’s never worked a day in his life so he can go get a degree, get a job at Batteries Plus, and never appreciate what he has, while the hard worker could have cured cancer… IF he went to school… but wait, for the greater good right? Maybe I was going to open a business that grew because of my hard work, and produced a 1000 new jobs for anyone willing to work, but instead, my hard work gets me and one other (2 people) a mediocre living. Geez capitalism sucks, clearly. But people believe what they want to believe :)
That’s the message, and a strong one, more important to him than selling books.
Simply the best books I’ve ever read.
In reply to Rabb
I absolutely agree with you! Terry Goodkind’s story plot in my opinion is realistic and that is one of the many things I love about the series. The interesting thing about it is that the hero does not not just meet one or two obstacles conquers it and wins like in other books. Instead, the fact that he struggles through them and builds up his experience in a good way and succeeds in the end with that makes him a much more of a true hero! Every character has his or hers own flaws and that is what makes them interesting. Some of the bad points in the review a true in a sense, but personally, I think the good points outweigh the bad points!
Do try out Terry Goodkind’s latest book about Richard and Kahlan ‘The Omen Machine’. It is a good read!
I totally agree with your review, thanks for posting it. I stopped, I could not finish the series. I got through the first 6 or 7 books, then I had had enough. Boring, tedious and dreary to read. At one point, I was rooting for the villains to whack Richard and his annoying wife.
Ugh.
Save your money and skip this lame series. It started out well, then went downhill quickly and just got worse and worse.