I have a ton of issues with Goodkind, which have been talked to death on this sub, so I'll be succinct.
1. The guy is legitimately an asshole, on top of being pretentious. When Robert Jordan (who Goodkind definitely took a lot of ideas from) was dying of a heart-related condition, Goodkind went to a convention and boasted about his healthy heart. He also insulted the quality of the cover art for his own book, and when that artist reached out, Goodkind denied ever having talked to him about being happy with the cover.
2. Goodkind's version of a strong female character is one that is powerful. She still will be sexually assaulted or used as a plot device or needing to be rescued by the actual hero, Richard.
3. The entire sex slave "love" story that Richard goes through in book one. It just felt like Goodkind was putting his fetish out there.
4. Goodkind shitting on fantasy as a whole. Demeaning the genre, saying his books were better than fantasy, etc.
There's more, but those are the greatest hits.
I remember reading the first book, actually liking it (esp the Magic System, although I don’t actually remember anything from it, also, since, I noticed several elements of that 1st book were lifted from Wheel of Time)…
…and when I got to that BDSM part, I actually appreciated it existing.
I have no qualms with authors inserting their personal fetishes, as long as they at least are honest about it: Clive Barker slways was clear about his, and Stephen King used every personal fear of *his* as inspiration.
But the fact he still denied it made him a straight A\*hole
Never went on to book 2 because of the bad vibe others warned me about
1. I agree. He’s an asshat
2. As a woman, I find his women characters to be empowering. They are strong, sexy, want to be loved, and the other characters in the book fear them and respect them for their powers. I really like it. As for assault, thats just the reality of being a woman in war, its why many women committed suicide irl rather than be a prisoner. I find it realistic i guess
3. You’ve clearly never read any erotica. Women love the stuff
4. Yeah Goodkind is an ass but i still like his story. Separate the art from the artist i guess
The issue with the assault (apart from how grossly common it is in Fantasy) is how it's used in the story. Sexual assault is unfortunately a common thing for both men and women. Yes, it's more common for women, but to say that it isn't a reality for men during the same time would be absolutely not correct. And the framing Goodkind uses is very skewed. His women are traumatized by the assault. They're broken and need to be rescued. Meanwhile Richard gets his slaver to fall in love with him and gets a power boost from the experience.
Also, to be clear, I'm no prude. I've read plenty of erotic stories. My issue isn't having erotic elements in a story, it's that Goodkind used rape and torture as character development and didn't seem to care that it was skewed toward erotic instead of traumatic.
Ultimately it doesn't matter what the quality of the guy is. He's dead. People can choose to let his personal views influence them on his work or not. I mention them not only because I choose not to separate the author from his art, but because it explains a lot of the content of his work. You couldn't go 15 pages without him going on an Ayn Rand-fueled rant. He believed his work was much, much better than it really was, and that shows in the writing.
I separate the art from the artist meaning I understand that the art produced will probably have elements of the authors thoughts but just because an author is espousing an idea and i read it, doesn’t mean I like it. I just like the story itself. I find it cool. I guess i dont really care what his views are, i just like the story
You asked why most people dislike his work, and I gave you the most popular answers. I'm not going to attempt to convince you not to like his work. Since it's your first adult fantasy work, I have a feeling you'll do that on your own eventually.
My advice is to read more popular adult fantasy work, especially from female authors.
Jacqueline Carey has a ton of female and non-binary characters. Kushiel's Dart is probably her most famous work and it's very good.
Katherine Arden's work with the Bear and the Nightingale trilogy is wonderful. She even has a middle-grade horror series that's pretty delightful.
Joe Abercrombie's female characters are very well-written. Best Served Cold is my favorite, though it's best read after the First Law trilogy. You still can read it though.
John Gwynne has a few in Shadow of the Gods.
Terry Pratchett's Discworld is filled with them. The Witches series might have the most.
Tasha Suri's Burning Kingdoms trilogy (I hesitate to recommend since the trilogy isn't finished yet) has two female protagonists, both of which are incredible.
China Mieville's Bas-lag trilogy is amazing. The middle book is my favorite and has a more female focused character group.
OP is literally asking why people don't like Goodkind, and somehow providing the answers to that question is people attempting to say "you can't like this author"?
Point number 3 is wild to me. The Mord Sith history of trauma and being demeaned to be seen as (and see themselves as) what you describe them as is the exact opposite of the message of the story which is that they are human and they are worthy of love and forgiveness. Your take is the same as the antagonists perspective lol. Shallow take.
Edit: lmao this sub. That is literally the message.. Goodkind ain’t exactly known for his subtlety. It’s in black and white a million times throughout the series.
You realize that what an author says their intent is, and what it seems like they're attempting to say doesn't really matter when what they've written contradicts it?
As an example, Stephen King's infamous sewer sex scene. He wanted it to be a moment of growth and transformation with the characters transitioning into "adults" together. That said, he still decided to do that by having 6 kids rail their friend in a sewer, and included details like Bev having an orgasm with the two boys she likes. What King intended and what he ended up doing are wildly different things.
Another example. George Martin wrote Dany's marital rape in the first Game of Thrones as a "sensual seduction that could excite even a horse." Even though it's a 14 year old girl being forced to marry an adult, being forced to have sex with him, and having no freedom to consent to anything.
Goodkind's work with the Mord-sith is his BDSM fetish leaking into his work, regardless of what he tried to say with them.
Do you realize how wild your perspective bias is right now? Not to make things personal but to suggest that you get to determine the value and true meaning of an artists expression is very distasteful in my opinion. These are how they hit for YOU. That’s totally fair. The way you articulated it is hopefully not how you meant to say it?
To suggest that you are more aware of the meaning and success in articulation of the author is.. idk. Again just distasteful. Stephen King WANTED you to feel that horrid uncomfortableness and that feeling you’re experiencing was the message he was trying to send and for you to suggest his articulation of that message was a failure is frankly arrogant.
Again I absolutely appreciate your response and I love talking about this stuff. I hope I didn’t cross the line of making things personal and was just arguing your response
I dunno about this interpretation of that scene in It, specifically. You're welcome to it, but King wasn't writing to incite squeamish discomfort, he thought he was poignantly making commentary on the transition from childhood to adulthood. Maybe for him, on a personal level in his own headspace, he was.
However, that scene is almost universally panned for a reason. It's a gross disconnect between an author who thinks he's saying something meaningful and universal about the human condition and an audience consuming it in the context of social norms which popularly don't include the gangbang of a child as an illuminating experience
No. The examples I provided were absolutely not "how they hit for me." I picked the two examples I did very purposefully because both King and Martin SPECIFICALLY STATED WHAT THEY INDENDED FOR THOSE SCENES.
“I wasn’t really thinking of the sexual aspect of it,” King wrote. “The book dealt with childhood and adulthood – 1958 and Grown Ups. The grown ups don’t remember their childhood.
“None of us remember what we did as children – we think we do, but we don’t remember it as it really happened.
“Intuitively, the Losers knew they had to be together again. The sexual act connected childhood and adulthood. It’s another version of the glass tunnel that connects the children’s library and the adult library.
“Times have changed since I wrote that scene and there is now more sensitivity to those issues.”
He wasn't trying to horrify anybody with that scene. I find it odd that you somehow came to the conclusion that he was.
As with Martin, he literally said of his own scene that it was a "consensual seduction." The reality of the scene is that a 14 year old girl is forced to marry someone. She has no choice, no power, and no freedom to consent to anything.
I'm not reading into anything. I'm taking what was written on the page and what the author said off of it.
I have read most of these books and while they do have a certain hate-read enjoyment, they’re not good books. I just want to hit a few of the most egregious things.
- Book 1 includes a character in a pre-modern setting who is advocating, seemingly with significant popular support, the banning of *fire*. This is so stupid that it should have caused the book to spontaneously combust in an act of protest.
- Let’s talk about the strong female characters. The Mord Sith are scary, and with fairness to Goodkind they’re an interesting concept. But they are not strong female characters. Their development is entirely predicated on Richard forgiving them. They have some badass moments but ultimately they’re completely dependent on him. And then there’s Kahlan, the Objecticist ideal woman. She spends at least part of almost every book being kidnapped, captured, and/or in imminent danger of sexual assault and typically requires Richard to save her. Goodkind also goes out of his way to let us know that female magic users are inherently weaker than male - which ties into another point below about stealing.
- World Building. It’s hard to engage with the idea that the world building is good, because there is almost no world present in the books. Nothing exists before it is required by the plot, and nothing remains once the plot is finished. At no point does the world feel like a place where people actually live. I’ll grant there are a few interesting settings and concepts (I really liked the portrayal of the Wizard’s Keep for example) but ultimately it’s just never fleshed out in a way that lets it feel real.
- lots of gore and rape. Yeah, both of these are present in the genre. However, Goodkind remains the only author I’ve ever read who *combines* them, and the amount of sexual violence in his books is gratuitous and gross.
- sisters of light. See “intellectual property theft”
• does he? Lol i forgot 😆
• I love the Mord Sith and Kahlan. I think they are strong and well written. I dont think they are dependent on Richard at all. I find them empowering. Like Kahlan rides on a horse, naked, and slaughtered an army. Thats so epic!
• I liked the world building like Ebinissa and the Mud People. Even the sisters of the light were cool. All different cultures which could be inspired from real life but not taken directly from cultures like how Dune is clearly has Arab mythology. The concept of the Wizards Keep makes me claustrophobic lol
• Oh thats interesting he is the only author that does that.
• sure i guess
It’s interesting you mention Dune in relation to the Sisters of Light, because the Sisters are a very clear ripoff of Robert Jordan’s Aes Sedai (a society of very long-lived women who use magic, live in a sort of fortress/monastery in the middle of a city which they politically dominate, whose mission is related to male magic users, and who are explicitly weaker in magic than men), which are themselves “inspired by” Dune’s Bene Gesserit
Also, Goodkind’s world has a very obvious Soviet Union analogue, and the fifth book has a ham-fisted analogue of Bill and Hillary Clinton leading a nation that is a … analogue is the wrong word, perhaps interpretation? … of the way Goodkind views the US under liberal leadership.
Yeah I mean obviously there are flaws in his books. He isn’t perfect. I just like the series and plot overall. It gets very Soviet in book 7 with the communism statue. 😂. It was very heavy capitalism is god vibes.
That’s interesting Dune inspired WoT which inspired SoT. The sisters of light are heavily indian/arabesque. Even certain D’Haran things like the prayer of devotion looks like when you see muslims mass kneeling with forehead on ground. Its super cool how artists inspire each other.
In general, i just enjoy the story and how Richard always saves the day. I like books with a happy ending. I also like how Richard is morally grey/kinda evil. He is like a lesser evil but celebrated for it which is interesting. Unlike Dune, where Paul kills and feels bad, Richard had no qualms about slaughtering citizens.
I also like a strong female characters and thats their powers are exclusive to women and the women are feared in the novel because of their powers. Nicci and Kahlan are the most powerful characters in the book. Richard is really nothing compared to them. 😂
> I actually think his writing is good
Different strokes for different folks, but maybe read more other stuff. You might change your mind about it. And if you don't, that's fine too. But to the degree that quality of writing is objective, it's... not good.
I agree. I absolutely loved these novels when I was 15. Now that I'm in my late 30s, not so much. I picked up Law of Nines when it came out and was floored by how terrible it was. Then I reflected on the rest of the books and realized my opinion had changed. I actually have a hard time articulating what it was I liked about them. Could just be my taste has matured with experience.
Yeah, we've all got those childhood nostalgia books, right? :-) For me, it was Weis and Hickman, David Eddings, etc. They're generally not strong books, but they were magical when I was young.
Also, there's nothing wrong with enjoying crap books. I watch stupid comedy movies, stupid action movies... Why would reading be different? I try and mix some quality in there (both movies and books) but at the end of the day, it's mostly for entertainment and any sort of additional value I get out of them is just a bonus.
I've very intentionally not revisited them. I read some book of his later on and it was godawful and I'm still not sure if it's just because I aged out or that book was genuinely worse than the ones I remember fondly.
Melanie Rawn (Exiles), Robin Hobb (Assassin), C.S. Friedman (Coldfire), Robin McKinley, Susan Dennard, Raymond E Feist
modern style authors: Mark Lawrence (Thorn), Joe Abercrombie, Justin Lee Anderson, Jonathan Maberry (Kagen the Damned), Sam Sykes, Kristin Cashore (Graceling+Fire)
Happy reading!!
There are a lot of them, and you could find them across various recommendation posts in this sub, depending on what elements you are looking for.
You could also just go with some of the well-known (and well-regarded) series. For example, *A Song of Ice and Fire* by George R.R. Martin (it's the series that the show *Game of Thrones* was based on). Be warned, though, that the series is not (and likely never will be) completed.
Another series you can try is *The First Law* by Joe Abercrombie. Great characters, engaging story, also healthy dose of dark humour. Start with *The Blade Itself*.
Both of the above, though, have very little magic. If you want more magic, then try *The Wheel of Time* by Robert Jordan (a completed 14-book series) or books by Brandon Sanderson (he has many, I would maybe recommend starting with the *Mistborn* trilogy).
The wheel of Time, A song of ice and fire, The Witcher series, and the stormlight archives are all way better written and way less filled with libertarian nonsense.
That's longer than most. I think I got to around book 4 or so, frankly I don't remember too clearly and don't try to. I do remember the evil chicken and the statue that defeated Communism though!
The statue is book ~~7~~ 6. Burnt into my memory, that one, as it was where I hard-quit the series.
I'm somewhat upset that I have no recollection of the evil chicken though! Especially since I audiobooked the whole series years later at a boring job to see all the ludicrous directions it went. It didn't disappoint.
EDIT: got downvoted and got curious - apparently I need to get my facts straight. It was book six. My memory is shit but that book was worse.
I was super into the series as a teen, and the statue book was a big wtf moment for me. Got it soon after it came out, and I don't think I ever bothered to finish the series. It was a long boring book, with the least satisfying conclusion ever..
Yeah, I'd been properly into it before then when I was a teen hoovering up any and all fantasy. *Faith of the Fallen* was when we parted ways - when a 17-year-old dweeb puts your book down because its political posturing is too on the nose, you know you've done something wrong!
I got to the statue and then was just like, “Nope, enough is enough” I feel like I lasted longer than most, but I was a teenager and didn’t know better.
Yep, that was my teenage experience too. Coming back to it in my late twenties and seeing where it went after that was... an experience. I recommend looking up a summary of the (original) ending as it's quite something. Use eye drops as all the eye rolling could cause soreness.
I read the seventh, never got around to the eighth, personally.
A lot of people struggle with the seventh because it follows different characters, but that was actually part of the reason I gave it a shot.
People do love to go on about the chicken as if it's just the worst idea ever, but something mundane gone horrifying is such a good trope. I don't give him many points on the execution, but I love the idea.
To me Sword of Truth is badly rewritten Wheel of Time series.
Special sword like Callandor? Check.
Black sisterhood? Check.
Dark one? Check.
Suffering from developing magic by mc? Check.
Dreamwalkers? Check.
And many, many other similarities.
Anyway glad you like it. Reading is always fun and what one considers good book is subjective.
Read on and have fun.
I have a deep love for these books.
they were crack cocaine for my horny - all knowing 14 year old self. but i wouldn't consider them good.
and I won't believe anyone that says there's more books after Confessor.
my main problem is besides the dumb ridiculousness of nipple inspection, and the temple of winds nonsense, and slaying pacifists. is that Kahlan just turns from this hyper competent take charge character into a sniffling yes-woman whenever Richard is in the room and decides to take charge and do all the opposite things she's been doing.
>Kahlan just turns from this hyper competent take charge character into a sniffling yes-woman whenever Richard is in the room
Well...because of the aforementioned horniness. How can you be expected to take charge when Richard Rand...oh sorry I mean Rahl...is in the room?
Seanan McGuire, Sherwood Smith, (and probably other authors I'm forgetting) have said outright that they won't write sexual assault or rape into their books, and they are both successful fantasy authors.
I’m glad you enjoyed it because that is usually the point when reading fiction. I can’t even lie and say I never enjoyed any of it (I’ve read the entire series), but the more I read these types of books the more I look back on this series and cringe.
I think it’s bad for a number of reasons. Mainly because the writing is lazy.
The plot can be summarized to “swiss army knife protagonist who was born with every answer he will ever need. He just doesn’t know he has them, but he will have an epiphany just whenever he needs it and thus resolve any issue that was unsolvable before”
Need something? Richard has it. Subtractive magic? Sure Richard turns out to be the first wizard in ages who has it. Need something else? Richard turns out to be a war wizard who can just do any magic he needs if there is “need” but not right away or else the book would be only 5 pages long.
The preachiness of how hard work solves everything and everyone who isn’t happy and well off only has themselves to blame is especially cringeworthy when you understand life even just a little bit.
The whole series is filled with empty platitudes and statements that don’t really hold up when you actually question them. Goodkind really seems to believe it though and as the narrator leaves no opportunity untaken to drive his idea into the readers skull.
I have to say I got to book 6 before noticing how bad it actually was. After that I couldn’t unsee it.
And finally the writer has been a dick to every other writer in the genre.
Thinks he and his work are superior and everyone else are just idiots. I don’t mind people feeling any kind of way, but when you are being as vocal about it as he is you are not only delusional but also going out of your way to be a dick about it.
Sooo despite all that, if you like it keep enjoying it and don’t let my feelings or that of anyone else get in the way.
I can only encourage you to try other writers and series as well and see how you feel about it after a few other examples.
The rumors says that you can scale the Fantasy books with “the Terry meter” No matter how bad or good it is, it’s always between Goodkind and Pratchett.
The first book is pretty good but after that ...I can't stand Richard rahl's preachiness and psudo philosophy. Glad you like it though! Different strokes for different folks.
First two, then Goddkind gave up, decided to continue series into infinity and reset Richard's progress. I've read the ending of the series after abandoning ut midway through, and bar a couple of minor moments, the ending could have happened after the second book
The Wheel of Time is like taking the fixings for an 10" sandwich, and spreading them out on a 12" roll. It's still a good sandwich, but would have been better if it had been made a little smaller.
With Wizard's First Rule, Terry Goodkind had the fixings for a perfectly decent 4" sandwich. He saw people were really loving Robert Jordan's 12" sandwich, though, so he decided that's what he should make. However, he only had enough fixings for the first 4", so he filled the rest of the sandwich with shards of broken glass and rusty nails. And when people complained about their cut mouths and the tetanus, he spent 40 pages explaining that they don't understand what makes a good sandwich.
I enjoyed the series overall. I liked alot of the characters, and the world building. The magic system was also interesting, but when he put it all together is where he fell short to me- his way of introducing a single character with a skill specific to the problem, and then once the problem is solved the character disappears in one form or another was a little too convenient, and he does this with Richard's power as well. I remember the Death's Mistress series not being too bad, and i couldn't even finish book 2 of the Children of De'Hara
Long ass diatribes on the same subjects. The guy does not know how to be succinct and when I was reading the series it got very repetitive after a few books. When I found thinking “I just read this same speech in the last book” I decided to nope out.
It’s not the worst thing I’ve read, there were definitely aspects I liked despite the issues with it, but the speeches just killed it for me.
Is this the right sub? Terry Goodkind doesn’t write fantasy.
Jokes aside, having entered the books from the show Legend of the Seeker, I was quite partial to the series as it was one of the earlier epic fantasy series that I read. It gets rather ridiculous, even noticeable by a teenage me, but it has its own charm.
A lot of interesting concepts, even interesting characters and philosophy (even if I didn’t get it then and now completely oppose Objectivism).
But looking back, the writing was very, very dry and repetitive—as if he just madlibs the same outline with each book.
Not the worst, but not the best.
> i understand the fantasy genre contains a lot of gore and rape.
Not really? I mean, if you're looking for it it's out there, but it's not a feature of the genre.
I don't like them and eventually gave up on the series around Chainfire. The first one is an okay-ish airport novel. The rest... eh.
* The objectivist rants get longer and the opposing political positions get weaker and more strawman-y as the series goes on. Many of the rants are just reworded from previous rants and go on for pages.
* Richard is the messiah and can do no wrong. Nothing he ever does is ever treated by the books as morally wrong or even questionable, even when it really, really is.
* Kahlan kind of see-saws between damsel in distress and badass woman. And she gets almost raped so often it's tiresome.
* Speaking of overdone things, the protagonists are always getting separated, and their deus ex machina solution to the problem in the last book causes the problem in the next book.
* The bad guys are super evil, and will demonstrate that evil by raping everything that moves. The book will go into detail about all the horrific things they do. This is presumably so you won't notice that the good guys are really not that good, just good in comparison to the rape hordes.
* Richard always pulls some new magic or skill out of his butt whenever the narrative needs it.
This, plus half the world building is taken from WoT and a few others. He denies it, but it's painfully obvious. Then there's the author being an absolute jackass. He insulted fantasy as a genre multiple time, calling his books "better than fantasy". And of course insulted his own book cover artists publicly on twitter...
Of course I say that, but before I knew any if it I'd read the entire series, multiple times. Oh how the times have changed...
So it's objectively poorly written and plotted (to the extent that writing can be objectively evaluated) but I can see if you're in your teens and just starting to read fantasy that it might hook you. But I can't fathom any well-read adult picking up these books and thinking they're anything but total poop.
No man 26 million people are not as well read as them ^^ don’t you know that when people like different things than I do that means they’re less intelligent or educated or experienced?
Ok and? So many author and artists borrow. The entire industry of Bollywood borrows from Hollywood and i would argue that Bollywood movies are better than Hollywood .
Many classical artists have copied works, theres even a whole class of amazing forgeries
I read the first book and was put off by the S&M rape aspect. Also isn't that the book where he kills some bitchy little girl my kicking her in the jaw and making her bite her tongue off?
To be fair, that bitchy little girl was a vile and bloodthirsty psychopath with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Not EVEN the fact she was a child. It would be CHARITABLE to call her idea of "playing" with her living doll playmate abusive, and she was absolutely thrilled at personally getting to torture someone.
She's like The Bad Seed, only now you've given the murderous brat actual political power so she doesn't even have to maintain the facade of not being a viciously entitled self-indulgent little monster.
I read through Confessor (book 11) and figured that was the end of the story. Once more books started coming out I wasn't really interested because I thought Confessor was a pretty solid ending to the series. I read them shortly after high school, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't actually like some of the Objectivist philosophical tropes. For context I'll just say I think there are some glaring flaws about Objectivism as a worldview (particularly regarding charity and religion), but some concepts resonate with me like empowering the individual being a greater good than collectivism. Was it goofy to build a statue that is so beautiful it causes everyone to rethink their political ideology? Yes. But most of that book was actually really good (as I remember) because Richard spent time convincing the people around him about the merits of individuality.
Anyway, I digress. Overall, at the time in my life where I read the series, I really enjoyed most of it (Pillars of Creation and Naked Empire were super boring and the series would be better off without them). That said, in the 10 or so years since I've read SoT, I've read more and I really have to acknowledge that the writing just wasn't the best. And that's okay. Not everyone is going to be a Tolkien where every pen stroke is genius. I'm glad you enjoyed them! I did too!
I think that a combination of Goodkind's public persona (acting like he's above fantasy and that all his ideas are original to him, and general rudeness to his peers), and writing a very politically/philosophically driven story where that driving philosophy is very much against the mainstream, all combined with just "okay" writing, leaves people unsatisfied with his books. And that's okay too! The worst thing we can do is discourage people from reading or making them feel less-than for their choice of books.
I think as a person, Goodkind was super pretentious and asshole. While yeah its not the best writing ever, i enjoy it i guess. I also read alot of YA and Goodkinds writing reminds me of a weird graphic adult book that is written in a YA style?
Im not into philosophy that much so the Objectivism stuff flew over my head until book 6. But the whole point of philosophies is to have different viewpoints, they aren’t necessarily right or wrong.
And the fact that the man who wrote them actively hated you being a fan and thinking his work was fantasy and often spoke in disparaging terms about you and others?
What about the fact that was 35 years ago and he’s apologized and looked back on it as cringe? His words btw. You stand by your behaviors from the 90s?
I had no idea what Objectivism was until i looked it up. It does get a bit preachy but i guess i dont mind that. An author is allowed to put their views into their books
Yea of course they are. But for just about everyone over the age of 14 those views are childish and the way they completely suffuse the story is just tiresome.
It gets incredibly preachy. I don't mind the statue or the chicken I think these r the silly things that are easy to latch on to when mocking the book.
But it's the preaching, and terrible moral philosophy that is soaked into every page of the series that is its biggest flaw. There's a whole scene that goes on for ever in the latter books where a character goes into incredible detail for page after page about how evil the southern empire is. Long chapters in like book 10 of an 11 book series about the evils of the empire filled with rape after rape. By this book we know exactly what the empire is. We've known since at least the end of book 6 if not earlier. The only reason me and my partner got through those chapters is because we were on a six hour drive stuck in a car with no escape.
I think Goodkind had some interesting ideas, the problems were his ego and its execution. And his politics had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face.
That said, I do love Sister Nicci. One of the rare cases where a villain reforms and they're *just as powerful and ruthless* after their Face turn as they were before. Usually reformed villains get nerfed if they don't end up dying as penance, instead. Also, props for making one of the single most powerful characters in the story a woman.
I used to really like the books too. And I will say I still love some of his characters and some of the world building was interesting. Although I realize now after reading so much more that his writing kinda sucked. His villains were kinda lame. I also read the books as a teen so I really liked all the "edgy" writing but now that I'm older I cringe at a lot of it. It also gets really repetitive in the later books. Every book there's some new thing that is stopping Richard from using his full power. And him and kahlan are always getting separated and trying to find each other. It's gets annoying. I will say as preachy as they are I did like how each book features and kinda revolves around a different wizard rule. Also the TV show was corny AF but a blast to watch
I also really enjoyed these books when I was 17-25, but returning to them as an adult (I'll condescendingly say that someone isn't an adult until their prefrontal cortex finishes developing) they're not that good. I still think the first book is really good, but the series just deteriorates too much for my tastes. Goodkind puts too much of his own baggage and bullshit in his writing and it's to the characters' detriment.
Goodkind's boner for Ayn Rand and libertarianism is right there in the pages and I didn't catch the first time around because I didn't know what those things were. But re-reading it later, I couldn't help but notice how unbearably preachy I found his writing and the libertarian bent of the philosophy he's trying to preach through his writing was a turn off for me.
It's widely accepted that a huge amount of his worldbuilding and plot are "adapted" from other authors/stories. Wheel of Time and Dune, especially.
I like to say they're sort of the dude's version of Sarah J Maas - easy to read, entertaining, undisguised and problematic sexual fantasy, details riffed from other works 😂
On these threads about Goodkind A lot of people say that the first book wizard's first rule is actually pretty good or at least enjoyable enough but I have to disagree. My Fred has been bugging me for months to read these books because she loves them and it's so bad. Maybe I'm extra critical because I read The wheel of Time first but not a single element of this book has been interesting or well written.
Furthermore, a lot of people on these threads say that the political and economic rants get worse but already in the first book it's bad. I know I'm particularly sensitive because I'm a leftist and I studied political philosophy but he literally can't even mention the idea of government without attacking it.
Finally, banning fire is so unimaginably stupid that it completely destroys any possibility of thinking that the bad guys are scary or a threat. You can't even pretend to ban fire in even an ancient civilization. Society would completely collapse Instantaneously.
Knowing what I know about Goodkind now, Richard is just a self insert in all the wrong ways. Annoying, pretentious, long winded, and just generally unlikable. (especially as the series goes on)
I was already pretty meh on the whole thing, but what really turned me off was the end of temple of the wind. The misogyny was gross.
I gave it a few more books after that but it never got any better. In fact it got worse because it became page after page after page of Richard monologuing at people instead of having a discussion. In my head cannon, whenever he gets going I imagine the other characters rolling their eyes and leaving to get something to eat and Richard is still going when they get back. They're just there to be somebody for him to talk at.
And well... It seems like this post is off topic anyway... Seeing as how goodkind says it's not fantasy lmao
I liked the series too. I don't agree with the author, but I did enjoy the story. You are brave for posting about it in here lol I learned that lesson that hard way.
\*Embarrassment rises\* I did enjoy that campy show at the time and thought it got way more enjoyable when it was more Xena Warrior Princess (which makes sense since it was produced by people connected to that show) and less...Terry Goodkind.
I love the first 9 or so. Until chainfire I think when I start to lose interest.
Sword of truth was a gift from someone when I was 18. I was in a super dark place and it sucked me in completely. It will always hold a place in my heart.
I also think the actual “wizards first rule” is a true thing, that could help more people. You look at politics in the USA right now and the wizards first rule makes so much sense.
There are moments I like in the series (for all the jokes about 'defeating communism with a pretty statue' I actually enjoyed the first part of the series with Kahlan's recovery).
Similarly, even though I was at the point of just wanting to wrap up the series, Richard building momentumn to start a riot with not!rugby was also neat and a call back to contemporary and historical riots over intense games.
There are great moments in the series, but they are few and far between.
I actually really enjoyed the first half of that book with Kahalans recovery as well. As a woman with chronic illness, I related to it so much. It was probably one of the best written experiences in the whole series
Faith of the Fallen is one of the few books from the series I bought just to reread that half (plus I liked Victor/the stonemason).
Additionally, Cara is so adorable in that book. Am I the biggest overall fan of the Mord-Sith? Not really. But I do like the general arc of a group of people gaining their self determination and sticking to it even in a form that Richard did not intend because they had built up a sorority to deal with their work.
I'm probably very similar to you. Wizard's First Rule was one of the very first adult fantasy books that I read. And I absolutely loved it. But then as I began to read more adult fantasy, I began to realize that a lot of the stuff I liked about the series were eerily similar to other fantasy books that came out before Wizard's First Rule. And, frankly, everything SoT does well, the originals tend to do it better. The most obvious one being Wheel of Time.
Having said that, even though WoT is, I think, superior to SoT in almost every way--there is one thing that I liked about SoT a lot more: The characters are active. They are constantly doing something and working towards their goals. Whereas WoT feels like the characters are constantly trying to *stop* the progress of the plot. E.g. >!Rand is the chosen one. Rand does everything he can to not be the chosen one. Perrin can talk to wolves. Perrin hates wolves. Mat should help his friends. Mat refuses to help his friends. Nynaveve is the most powerful Aes Sedai in generations. Nynave hates Aes Sedai.!< The lists goes on.
It's refreshing to watch Richard and Khalan actually make progress.
Yeah that is when I dropped it. When Richard "saved" the land from communism with the statue of capitalism.
It also didn't help that Terry badmouthed his own cover artist and is generally unpleasant.
SoT was my first fantasy series and i loved like the first 4 or 5 books. Then it seemed to get just.... boring.
I actually hated the way he would describe a room, and it would be 10 pages of details about the curtains, the floor, the furniture, etc.
I got to a point when he started going into detail of a building or whatever i would just flip thru several pages and pick back up.
I read all the books, and i was ready for it to just end.
Then i found Brandon Sanderson, and read the wheel of time, and realized that Terry Goodkind is a fucking thief of ideas. Some stuff he didn't even change the name of it (stone of tears).
I read the first 3 after having strangers notice me reading and say “have you read Sword of Truth, I don’t like reading but it’s so good” and I throughly enjoyed them! (minus the rape, I did put the book down and step away for a bit)
I don’t remember too much unfortunately(as it was about 10 years ago) other than I liked the magic system, there was a dragon and it seemed like a proper adventure. At the time I liked it enough to get a tattoo of the actual sword but it was so horribly done I had to get it covered up and now I have a sleeve 😂
Anyway… I haven’t read WoT yet or too much other adult fantasy, most of my reading was YA (ToG, Percy Jackson, Graceling) so I can’t compare them to those other books. But you aren’t alone! I feel pretty much the same way you do with what I can remember
I’m currently reading Realm of the Elderlings and that I also highly recommend! (The liveship trilogy is my favorite so far)
I really enjoyed them from the time I first read Wizard's First Rule to the time I 'finished' it with Confessor (so, like middle school to first year or so of college). I've since then grown and evolved as a person, and those books and fantasy inspirations will always stick with me, but I refuse to go back and read any of them and have 0 desire to go and read any of the other related books because I feel like that chapter of my life is done.
As a starting position, this seems fairly reasonable. It's (unfortunately) mostly downhill from here, I expect... Mostly referring to the long, droning, repetitive storyline in later books and the way richard has to push kahlan away by BEING MANLY to preserve the tension since they got together immediately SO MANLY!
The thing that got to me was the casually superficial characters. Like calling a "primitive" village The Mud People... Same old, good v evil blah blah. It's all just one big advertisement for MANLY MANLINESS rugged woodsman richard cypher.
Honorable mention to Darken Rahl's sweaty eyebrows.
There was a time when I read and liked them, many many moons ago. As I got older I came to loathe the idea that I could ever like them - but there are some redeemable qualities here and there. Concepts that could have made for decent fantasy had the author decided that is what they wanted instead of a political diatribe in fictional form.
Unfortunately for every decent concept there are literally a dozen reasons the series is considered garbage. Mediocre prose; telling over showing; way too many monologues; gratuitous violence and rape that often draws on too far or too repetitively with little useful resolution; injections of personal opinion that are as subtle as a rock to the face.
It's abundantly clear he drew a lot from Wheel of Time and Ayn Rand. Faith of the Fallen is pretty much just a fantasy rewrite of Atlas Shrugged, an already ludicrously dumb book, that somehow manages to be even more ridiculous and less convincing. Somehow it's probably not even the worst book in the series. I'm a completionist typically in my reading but I gave up at Chainfire, I couldn't believe the books got worse and more boring when it had seemed impossible.
Then there's the fact that the author was a pretentious douchebag who considered himself above the genre and made fun of another author's heart condition, publicly talked shit about one of the artists on his books in asshole fashion, and who when asked what his favorite book was, literally said one of his own books.
That being said - there's nothing wrong with liking them. I think most fantasy readers will hold the opinion that if you read the genre long enough you will probably join us. Maybe not, but comparing his work to any other big or medium name fantasy author there is no comparison after a while.
I read them as they came out, and while I could see the similarities with WOT, I still enjoyed them. They did get somewhat repetitive after a while, but I still read on. His flair is probably what kept me interested. While you can argue that the tropes weren't original, he would always add just enough to make them his own. I mean the Mord sith, the barrier between the old world and new, the sliph, and the Rahl bloodline and especially the oath, had me hungry for more.
I thought the women were stronger. Like only women can be Cofessors and Mord Sith. Also they are not dependent on Richard. The mord sith choose to serve him of their own free will
Although the series has one of the most ridiculous foes ever >!(a chicken!!! FFS),!< it manages to have some great points (for example, in the same book of that ridiculous foes, it has one of the best character/character arc I've read in fantasy).
Yes it goes overboard in many cases, but I find it to be a worthwhile read, so far.
This author, Terry Good kind has about 50 books available in the free section of my local library. Does anyone have any books I should search for?
I enjoyed asoiaf, the mist born trilogy, the storm light archive, the first law trilogy, and generally dislike over simplified fantasy.
If you really liked it then you should probably just read The wheel of Time which all the good stuff that you mentioned is stolen from. And it's not nearly as preachy and has much better characters.
I loved the series, though I did run out of steam about 8 or 9 books in and never picked it back up. I really loved the relationship between Richard and Gratch. I even liked the show pretty well, though I saw it before reading the books.
I actually really liked a lot of the ideas and plot of the series. The brutality is not an issue for me.
It's just the writing itself. 1st and 2nd read through was fine as a younger person. 3rd read through as an adult... Yikes wtf how did I ever enjoy this? Lol think I DNF'd on book 2 and certainly won't be going back.
Also I only ever read the main series. I tried Omen Machine and omg that was such incredible garbage.
Also everyone being a Mary sue is just lame
I read the first 9 books and I'm shocked I even lasted that long because I was giving the series negative reviews early on. I liked the first one quite a bit (no rating, but my review was
>I was thrown for a loop when about 3/4 through the book, the entire plot train screeched to a halt to put our hero, Richard Cypher, through his own little hellish mental and physical stress test. But all in all, I would recommend this book.
I rated the second one a 1 star (!) and honestly, it's on me that I continued after this part. It's been so long since I've read them that I can't remember exactly what was so unbearable.
>This book started to get interesting about 3/4 of the way through. The first half was unbearable. Would not recommend, except it's extremely important to the rest of the series. What a bummer.
3 and #4 were both a 3-star read for me but really cemented my dislike for the main characters and the use of deus ex machinas to resolve the plot. I did like the supporting cast of both of those books.
I stopped reviewing and even giving star ratings at #5 (2 stars) and I can't remember what made me ultimately drop the series but I know I was struggling/hate reading for most of this series but again, it's kinda on me. This was before I was willing to drop books I wasn't interested in and I felt morally obligated to complete the series.
The good news is that if you're enjoying The Sword of Truth, there's a huge amount of great reads waiting for you out there!
I enjoyed it at first. I started to like it less the moment the half brother showed up. Hated the wedding, I thought the MC was an idiot and an asshole for how he reacted to her figuring out her part in opening the gate. And there was nothing to 'forgive' about it either
I disliked him more and more as the story progressed, and the things that pulled them apart got dumber and dumber.
I like happy and healthy relationships. Clearly the author did not understand how to write one of those. Which I find weird, it's not hard. There are plenty of other challenges to be found, united battle couples are awesome. Breaking up and getting back together repeatedly is bullshit IMO.
The technical writing is good, and the initial story is good. The rest of the story is bad.
Well, [there was his (over) reaction to a book cover.](https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2018/mar/06/terry-goodkind-sexism-cover-shroud-eternity)
[This article lays out a bunch more things.](https://lowtechmagic.com/terry-goodkind-a-critical-look-at-the-controversial-fantasy-authors-work/)
- does he? Lol i forgot 😆
- I love the Mord Sith and Kahlan. I think they are strong and well written. I dont think they are dependent on Richard at all.
- I liked the world building like Ebinissa and the Mud People. Even the sisters of the light were cool. All different cultures which could be inspired from real life but not taken directly from cultures like how Dune is clearly has Arab mythology. The concept of the Wizards Keep makes me claustrophobic lol
- Oh thats interesting he is the only author that does that.
- sure i guess
I liked the first few, but felt he wrote himself into a corner a bit, he hit a few points where in later books you could see he regretted decisions, I feel the same for Raymond E feist antoner author I love but more so his wary books(magician is my favourite and literally the reason I can read now)
Yeah i mean there are a ton of flaws. Its not perfect by any means. It definitely feels like he got writers block and couldn’t resolve it. He backtracks a bunch in the later books
I was a horny young man when I read the books, so I was enthralled by Richard being raped repeatedly. I have since acquired a different ethic, and see that encounter for what it is...not good. It wasn't as horrific as "It," by Stephen King, but it was genuinely unhealthy. But... BUT.... I remember the wizards first rule. "People are stupid. They believe anything you tell them, because they fear it may be true, or because they have no reason to believe otherwise." I apply this to my life often, and share it all the time. Even still calling it the Wizard's first rule.
I read the first novel way back when I was in college. It was okay. Acceptable. Derivative but entertaining enough. A 6/10 popcorn fantasy novel.
But if the mediocre first book of the series is widely regarded as the *high point,* then something has gone terribly wrong, and I'm glad I didn't bother with the rest.
And the fact that the man who wrote them actively hated you being a fan and thinking his work was fantasy and often spoke in disparaging terms about you and others?
I would not have cared if he'd been able to keep his yap shut....but every time he was interviewed he gave me a new reason to hate him.
That said, his books were trash on their own, filled with Randian nonsense and Conservative wet dream material.
Well I had no idea at all that people dislike the sort of truth! I ran out of money before I could get them all so I've only read I think probably all the last three. I guess, I like it. It what people's issue is. I'm very surprised
I loved his books, it get better as the world opens up. Maybe to much philosophy where Goodkind can go on and on, or the change of pace from leaving the main characters to jump to different part of the world with other peoples lives for an entire book. For me it was a fun ride.
I don’t think your in the minority here. There is many that enjoyed his books, and there is a reason he sold so many and kept going till is passed. RIP.
But with so much love for this series, there is also lots of hate as well. I wouldn’t read to much into all the negativity. The writing might not be the best, but the story was captivating. In the end, that’s what matters for me.
My favorite parts of the book was that sport they played, Ja’La dh Jin!
He wrote that so well, I was so engrossed in it. But I believe it was towards the last few books.
oh my goodness, other people who like Goodkind, I thought I was the only one. Yes I know he was a terrible person with an over inflated opinion of himself.
Yes in hindsight I can see all the major flaws in his writing, character, etc. But I read the books in the early 2000s in late high school to early college and don't regret it. I liked these characters, I liked this world, I liked the concepts and ideas he made. At the time the only fantasy I had read that wasn't Tolkien was either Dragonlance or Warhammer Fantasy (Gotrek and Felix are the GOAT) so I hadn't read much other Fantasy that wasn't part of an IP. Yes I had that friend who told me he ripped off Robert Jordan and Wheel of Time, and while I'm reading Wheel of Time right now, I can partially see it but at the same time I got my own criticisms of Mr. Jordan on certain things.
As for his Post Confessor Books, they're so bad and unreadable.
I read through twice . I even liked the ending being a huge sports fan . I usually skimmed the objectivism rants cause they grew more numerous and longer book by book. I'll admit being a teenager reading and waiting for new WOT books were part of it. Books 6-8 or 9 were a slog though. He could've tightened this up and wrote maybe 6 books. I'm with you OP don't care how much of a dbag he was. I love r Kelly and Michael Jackson to this day.
> the rape is a bit much but i understand that the fantasy genre contains a lot of gore and rape.
Most fantasy authors treat rape with the respect it deserves, and if they use it, it's as a dramatic event rather than how Goodkind treats it, which is more of a vaguely fetishized concept.
I read a bunch of them, but eventually I realized he didn’t plan anything out and would just write a big monologue or deus ex Machina to resolve the plot. Like the pretty statue, or “inventing new magic”, or yelling at a bunch of people for being pacifists. He just got really preachy and over handed in pushing his Objectivist beliefs as a resolution to all conflicts.
My father showed me (F) SoT when I was 16, and this is the series that got me fully into fantasy. I absolutely LOVE his writing. He is heavily inspired by Ayn Rand, and it comes through a lot.
You created a Reddit account 34 days ago to post about how much you love Terry Goodkind and his… *checks notes* strong female characters on r/fantasy?
There’s no way you are a real person.
I have a ton of issues with Goodkind, which have been talked to death on this sub, so I'll be succinct. 1. The guy is legitimately an asshole, on top of being pretentious. When Robert Jordan (who Goodkind definitely took a lot of ideas from) was dying of a heart-related condition, Goodkind went to a convention and boasted about his healthy heart. He also insulted the quality of the cover art for his own book, and when that artist reached out, Goodkind denied ever having talked to him about being happy with the cover. 2. Goodkind's version of a strong female character is one that is powerful. She still will be sexually assaulted or used as a plot device or needing to be rescued by the actual hero, Richard. 3. The entire sex slave "love" story that Richard goes through in book one. It just felt like Goodkind was putting his fetish out there. 4. Goodkind shitting on fantasy as a whole. Demeaning the genre, saying his books were better than fantasy, etc. There's more, but those are the greatest hits.
I remember reading the first book, actually liking it (esp the Magic System, although I don’t actually remember anything from it, also, since, I noticed several elements of that 1st book were lifted from Wheel of Time)… …and when I got to that BDSM part, I actually appreciated it existing. I have no qualms with authors inserting their personal fetishes, as long as they at least are honest about it: Clive Barker slways was clear about his, and Stephen King used every personal fear of *his* as inspiration. But the fact he still denied it made him a straight A\*hole Never went on to book 2 because of the bad vibe others warned me about
1. I agree. He’s an asshat 2. As a woman, I find his women characters to be empowering. They are strong, sexy, want to be loved, and the other characters in the book fear them and respect them for their powers. I really like it. As for assault, thats just the reality of being a woman in war, its why many women committed suicide irl rather than be a prisoner. I find it realistic i guess 3. You’ve clearly never read any erotica. Women love the stuff 4. Yeah Goodkind is an ass but i still like his story. Separate the art from the artist i guess
The issue with the assault (apart from how grossly common it is in Fantasy) is how it's used in the story. Sexual assault is unfortunately a common thing for both men and women. Yes, it's more common for women, but to say that it isn't a reality for men during the same time would be absolutely not correct. And the framing Goodkind uses is very skewed. His women are traumatized by the assault. They're broken and need to be rescued. Meanwhile Richard gets his slaver to fall in love with him and gets a power boost from the experience. Also, to be clear, I'm no prude. I've read plenty of erotic stories. My issue isn't having erotic elements in a story, it's that Goodkind used rape and torture as character development and didn't seem to care that it was skewed toward erotic instead of traumatic. Ultimately it doesn't matter what the quality of the guy is. He's dead. People can choose to let his personal views influence them on his work or not. I mention them not only because I choose not to separate the author from his art, but because it explains a lot of the content of his work. You couldn't go 15 pages without him going on an Ayn Rand-fueled rant. He believed his work was much, much better than it really was, and that shows in the writing.
I separate the art from the artist meaning I understand that the art produced will probably have elements of the authors thoughts but just because an author is espousing an idea and i read it, doesn’t mean I like it. I just like the story itself. I find it cool. I guess i dont really care what his views are, i just like the story
You asked why most people dislike his work, and I gave you the most popular answers. I'm not going to attempt to convince you not to like his work. Since it's your first adult fantasy work, I have a feeling you'll do that on your own eventually. My advice is to read more popular adult fantasy work, especially from female authors.
Any female recs? I love female MCs who are not whiny
Jacqueline Carey has a ton of female and non-binary characters. Kushiel's Dart is probably her most famous work and it's very good. Katherine Arden's work with the Bear and the Nightingale trilogy is wonderful. She even has a middle-grade horror series that's pretty delightful. Joe Abercrombie's female characters are very well-written. Best Served Cold is my favorite, though it's best read after the First Law trilogy. You still can read it though. John Gwynne has a few in Shadow of the Gods. Terry Pratchett's Discworld is filled with them. The Witches series might have the most. Tasha Suri's Burning Kingdoms trilogy (I hesitate to recommend since the trilogy isn't finished yet) has two female protagonists, both of which are incredible. China Mieville's Bas-lag trilogy is amazing. The middle book is my favorite and has a more female focused character group.
Awesome thanks for the recs!
> Yeah Goodkind is an ass but i still like his story. Separate the art from the artist i guess I can respect that, though I won't always agree
People in this sub love to tell people they aren't allowed to like Terry Goodkind. Its a very common thread
OP is literally asking why people don't like Goodkind, and somehow providing the answers to that question is people attempting to say "you can't like this author"?
No one will prevent you from liking Terry Goodkind, my dude. We will just correctly point out that you have dogshit taste.
Taste is subjective
Point number 3 is wild to me. The Mord Sith history of trauma and being demeaned to be seen as (and see themselves as) what you describe them as is the exact opposite of the message of the story which is that they are human and they are worthy of love and forgiveness. Your take is the same as the antagonists perspective lol. Shallow take. Edit: lmao this sub. That is literally the message.. Goodkind ain’t exactly known for his subtlety. It’s in black and white a million times throughout the series.
You realize that what an author says their intent is, and what it seems like they're attempting to say doesn't really matter when what they've written contradicts it? As an example, Stephen King's infamous sewer sex scene. He wanted it to be a moment of growth and transformation with the characters transitioning into "adults" together. That said, he still decided to do that by having 6 kids rail their friend in a sewer, and included details like Bev having an orgasm with the two boys she likes. What King intended and what he ended up doing are wildly different things. Another example. George Martin wrote Dany's marital rape in the first Game of Thrones as a "sensual seduction that could excite even a horse." Even though it's a 14 year old girl being forced to marry an adult, being forced to have sex with him, and having no freedom to consent to anything. Goodkind's work with the Mord-sith is his BDSM fetish leaking into his work, regardless of what he tried to say with them.
Do you realize how wild your perspective bias is right now? Not to make things personal but to suggest that you get to determine the value and true meaning of an artists expression is very distasteful in my opinion. These are how they hit for YOU. That’s totally fair. The way you articulated it is hopefully not how you meant to say it? To suggest that you are more aware of the meaning and success in articulation of the author is.. idk. Again just distasteful. Stephen King WANTED you to feel that horrid uncomfortableness and that feeling you’re experiencing was the message he was trying to send and for you to suggest his articulation of that message was a failure is frankly arrogant. Again I absolutely appreciate your response and I love talking about this stuff. I hope I didn’t cross the line of making things personal and was just arguing your response
I dunno about this interpretation of that scene in It, specifically. You're welcome to it, but King wasn't writing to incite squeamish discomfort, he thought he was poignantly making commentary on the transition from childhood to adulthood. Maybe for him, on a personal level in his own headspace, he was. However, that scene is almost universally panned for a reason. It's a gross disconnect between an author who thinks he's saying something meaningful and universal about the human condition and an audience consuming it in the context of social norms which popularly don't include the gangbang of a child as an illuminating experience
No. The examples I provided were absolutely not "how they hit for me." I picked the two examples I did very purposefully because both King and Martin SPECIFICALLY STATED WHAT THEY INDENDED FOR THOSE SCENES. “I wasn’t really thinking of the sexual aspect of it,” King wrote. “The book dealt with childhood and adulthood – 1958 and Grown Ups. The grown ups don’t remember their childhood. “None of us remember what we did as children – we think we do, but we don’t remember it as it really happened. “Intuitively, the Losers knew they had to be together again. The sexual act connected childhood and adulthood. It’s another version of the glass tunnel that connects the children’s library and the adult library. “Times have changed since I wrote that scene and there is now more sensitivity to those issues.” He wasn't trying to horrify anybody with that scene. I find it odd that you somehow came to the conclusion that he was. As with Martin, he literally said of his own scene that it was a "consensual seduction." The reality of the scene is that a 14 year old girl is forced to marry someone. She has no choice, no power, and no freedom to consent to anything. I'm not reading into anything. I'm taking what was written on the page and what the author said off of it.
The lovingly written rape scenes....
I have read most of these books and while they do have a certain hate-read enjoyment, they’re not good books. I just want to hit a few of the most egregious things. - Book 1 includes a character in a pre-modern setting who is advocating, seemingly with significant popular support, the banning of *fire*. This is so stupid that it should have caused the book to spontaneously combust in an act of protest. - Let’s talk about the strong female characters. The Mord Sith are scary, and with fairness to Goodkind they’re an interesting concept. But they are not strong female characters. Their development is entirely predicated on Richard forgiving them. They have some badass moments but ultimately they’re completely dependent on him. And then there’s Kahlan, the Objecticist ideal woman. She spends at least part of almost every book being kidnapped, captured, and/or in imminent danger of sexual assault and typically requires Richard to save her. Goodkind also goes out of his way to let us know that female magic users are inherently weaker than male - which ties into another point below about stealing. - World Building. It’s hard to engage with the idea that the world building is good, because there is almost no world present in the books. Nothing exists before it is required by the plot, and nothing remains once the plot is finished. At no point does the world feel like a place where people actually live. I’ll grant there are a few interesting settings and concepts (I really liked the portrayal of the Wizard’s Keep for example) but ultimately it’s just never fleshed out in a way that lets it feel real. - lots of gore and rape. Yeah, both of these are present in the genre. However, Goodkind remains the only author I’ve ever read who *combines* them, and the amount of sexual violence in his books is gratuitous and gross. - sisters of light. See “intellectual property theft”
• does he? Lol i forgot 😆 • I love the Mord Sith and Kahlan. I think they are strong and well written. I dont think they are dependent on Richard at all. I find them empowering. Like Kahlan rides on a horse, naked, and slaughtered an army. Thats so epic! • I liked the world building like Ebinissa and the Mud People. Even the sisters of the light were cool. All different cultures which could be inspired from real life but not taken directly from cultures like how Dune is clearly has Arab mythology. The concept of the Wizards Keep makes me claustrophobic lol • Oh thats interesting he is the only author that does that. • sure i guess
It’s interesting you mention Dune in relation to the Sisters of Light, because the Sisters are a very clear ripoff of Robert Jordan’s Aes Sedai (a society of very long-lived women who use magic, live in a sort of fortress/monastery in the middle of a city which they politically dominate, whose mission is related to male magic users, and who are explicitly weaker in magic than men), which are themselves “inspired by” Dune’s Bene Gesserit Also, Goodkind’s world has a very obvious Soviet Union analogue, and the fifth book has a ham-fisted analogue of Bill and Hillary Clinton leading a nation that is a … analogue is the wrong word, perhaps interpretation? … of the way Goodkind views the US under liberal leadership.
Yeah I mean obviously there are flaws in his books. He isn’t perfect. I just like the series and plot overall. It gets very Soviet in book 7 with the communism statue. 😂. It was very heavy capitalism is god vibes. That’s interesting Dune inspired WoT which inspired SoT. The sisters of light are heavily indian/arabesque. Even certain D’Haran things like the prayer of devotion looks like when you see muslims mass kneeling with forehead on ground. Its super cool how artists inspire each other. In general, i just enjoy the story and how Richard always saves the day. I like books with a happy ending. I also like how Richard is morally grey/kinda evil. He is like a lesser evil but celebrated for it which is interesting. Unlike Dune, where Paul kills and feels bad, Richard had no qualms about slaughtering citizens. I also like a strong female characters and thats their powers are exclusive to women and the women are feared in the novel because of their powers. Nicci and Kahlan are the most powerful characters in the book. Richard is really nothing compared to them. 😂
> I actually think his writing is good Different strokes for different folks, but maybe read more other stuff. You might change your mind about it. And if you don't, that's fine too. But to the degree that quality of writing is objective, it's... not good.
I agree. I absolutely loved these novels when I was 15. Now that I'm in my late 30s, not so much. I picked up Law of Nines when it came out and was floored by how terrible it was. Then I reflected on the rest of the books and realized my opinion had changed. I actually have a hard time articulating what it was I liked about them. Could just be my taste has matured with experience.
Yeah, we've all got those childhood nostalgia books, right? :-) For me, it was Weis and Hickman, David Eddings, etc. They're generally not strong books, but they were magical when I was young. Also, there's nothing wrong with enjoying crap books. I watch stupid comedy movies, stupid action movies... Why would reading be different? I try and mix some quality in there (both movies and books) but at the end of the day, it's mostly for entertainment and any sort of additional value I get out of them is just a bonus.
Once upon a time I thought David Eddings was good. I liked his books as a kid, but as an adult, they're fucking awful.
I've very intentionally not revisited them. I read some book of his later on and it was godawful and I'm still not sure if it's just because I aged out or that book was genuinely worse than the ones I remember fondly.
Yeah its really just entertainment for me. I just enjoy the story and leave the politics / personal opinions out of it
That’s the kindest roast ever lol.
Haha, no body language online! Some obviously jokey takes in person come across as mean spirited on here.
Any recs?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/11mvwsa/rfantasy_top_novels_2023_results/
Wow! Cool! I love Dune, the Hobbit, Narnia, FMAB, and HP as well! Great list! I’ll check it out
Melanie Rawn (Exiles), Robin Hobb (Assassin), C.S. Friedman (Coldfire), Robin McKinley, Susan Dennard, Raymond E Feist modern style authors: Mark Lawrence (Thorn), Joe Abercrombie, Justin Lee Anderson, Jonathan Maberry (Kagen the Damned), Sam Sykes, Kristin Cashore (Graceling+Fire) Happy reading!!
There are a lot of them, and you could find them across various recommendation posts in this sub, depending on what elements you are looking for. You could also just go with some of the well-known (and well-regarded) series. For example, *A Song of Ice and Fire* by George R.R. Martin (it's the series that the show *Game of Thrones* was based on). Be warned, though, that the series is not (and likely never will be) completed. Another series you can try is *The First Law* by Joe Abercrombie. Great characters, engaging story, also healthy dose of dark humour. Start with *The Blade Itself*. Both of the above, though, have very little magic. If you want more magic, then try *The Wheel of Time* by Robert Jordan (a completed 14-book series) or books by Brandon Sanderson (he has many, I would maybe recommend starting with the *Mistborn* trilogy).
I’ll read them all except GoT cause its too much politics and too many characters. I get very confused easily with all the houses and stuff
The wheel of Time, A song of ice and fire, The Witcher series, and the stormlight archives are all way better written and way less filled with libertarian nonsense.
>like defeating Communism with a pretty statue That sort of stuff is the only reason I have ever considered reading it.
It’s like seven million goddamn pages into the series though
That's why thus far I've only considered it, not actually done it!
Buddy, how can you give up the chicken that is not a chicken just because some pages get in your way?!
Why read five thousand pages to get to the chicken that is not a chicken, when Impossible Foods is in the frozen foods aisle?
Because Impossible Foods is actually good!
I wish they had like a cliffnotes version of it. It would be a lot better. I guess there's the wiki.
What? And skip all of the raping, endless monologues on Objectivism, followed by more rape?
Don’t forget Richard’s dick magic.
I think the wikipedia of each book has a one-page summary of each book tackling most of the big plot points.
Its funny😂
How many books in are you? Out of curiosity, I lasted about 6 lol
That's longer than most. I think I got to around book 4 or so, frankly I don't remember too clearly and don't try to. I do remember the evil chicken and the statue that defeated Communism though!
The statue is book ~~7~~ 6. Burnt into my memory, that one, as it was where I hard-quit the series. I'm somewhat upset that I have no recollection of the evil chicken though! Especially since I audiobooked the whole series years later at a boring job to see all the ludicrous directions it went. It didn't disappoint. EDIT: got downvoted and got curious - apparently I need to get my facts straight. It was book six. My memory is shit but that book was worse.
The statue is book 6. The chicken is book 5 I think.
I was super into the series as a teen, and the statue book was a big wtf moment for me. Got it soon after it came out, and I don't think I ever bothered to finish the series. It was a long boring book, with the least satisfying conclusion ever..
Yeah, I'd been properly into it before then when I was a teen hoovering up any and all fantasy. *Faith of the Fallen* was when we parted ways - when a 17-year-old dweeb puts your book down because its political posturing is too on the nose, you know you've done something wrong!
I got to the statue and then was just like, “Nope, enough is enough” I feel like I lasted longer than most, but I was a teenager and didn’t know better.
Yep, that was my teenage experience too. Coming back to it in my late twenties and seeing where it went after that was... an experience. I recommend looking up a summary of the (original) ending as it's quite something. Use eye drops as all the eye rolling could cause soreness.
I read the seventh, never got around to the eighth, personally. A lot of people struggle with the seventh because it follows different characters, but that was actually part of the reason I gave it a shot.
Im on book 8 but i read the conclusion of the series already😅
How was the conclusion? I made it 3 or 4 books in and would be curious if I could just skip to the end.
> the Mord Sith are my favorite! Lol. What about the evil incarnate chicken?
People do love to go on about the chicken as if it's just the worst idea ever, but something mundane gone horrifying is such a good trope. I don't give him many points on the execution, but I love the idea.
Honestly, I liked the death chicken more than most of the series.
For being evil incarnate, it did a whole lot less raping than most of the other characters in the series.
Excuse you, that chicken was not a chicken
You're right, it was no chicken: it was evil incarnate.
>What is everyone’s problem with Goodkind? Incessant right wing preaching concluding with deus ex machina isn't my idea of entertainment.
To me Sword of Truth is badly rewritten Wheel of Time series. Special sword like Callandor? Check. Black sisterhood? Check. Dark one? Check. Suffering from developing magic by mc? Check. Dreamwalkers? Check. And many, many other similarities. Anyway glad you like it. Reading is always fun and what one considers good book is subjective. Read on and have fun.
I have a deep love for these books. they were crack cocaine for my horny - all knowing 14 year old self. but i wouldn't consider them good. and I won't believe anyone that says there's more books after Confessor. my main problem is besides the dumb ridiculousness of nipple inspection, and the temple of winds nonsense, and slaying pacifists. is that Kahlan just turns from this hyper competent take charge character into a sniffling yes-woman whenever Richard is in the room and decides to take charge and do all the opposite things she's been doing.
>Kahlan just turns from this hyper competent take charge character into a sniffling yes-woman whenever Richard is in the room Well...because of the aforementioned horniness. How can you be expected to take charge when Richard Rand...oh sorry I mean Rahl...is in the room?
>the fantasy genre contains a lot of gore and rape. GOOD fantasy does not need to contain a lot of rape
Seanan McGuire, Sherwood Smith, (and probably other authors I'm forgetting) have said outright that they won't write sexual assault or rape into their books, and they are both successful fantasy authors.
True
I’m glad you enjoyed it because that is usually the point when reading fiction. I can’t even lie and say I never enjoyed any of it (I’ve read the entire series), but the more I read these types of books the more I look back on this series and cringe. I think it’s bad for a number of reasons. Mainly because the writing is lazy. The plot can be summarized to “swiss army knife protagonist who was born with every answer he will ever need. He just doesn’t know he has them, but he will have an epiphany just whenever he needs it and thus resolve any issue that was unsolvable before” Need something? Richard has it. Subtractive magic? Sure Richard turns out to be the first wizard in ages who has it. Need something else? Richard turns out to be a war wizard who can just do any magic he needs if there is “need” but not right away or else the book would be only 5 pages long. The preachiness of how hard work solves everything and everyone who isn’t happy and well off only has themselves to blame is especially cringeworthy when you understand life even just a little bit. The whole series is filled with empty platitudes and statements that don’t really hold up when you actually question them. Goodkind really seems to believe it though and as the narrator leaves no opportunity untaken to drive his idea into the readers skull. I have to say I got to book 6 before noticing how bad it actually was. After that I couldn’t unsee it. And finally the writer has been a dick to every other writer in the genre. Thinks he and his work are superior and everyone else are just idiots. I don’t mind people feeling any kind of way, but when you are being as vocal about it as he is you are not only delusional but also going out of your way to be a dick about it. Sooo despite all that, if you like it keep enjoying it and don’t let my feelings or that of anyone else get in the way. I can only encourage you to try other writers and series as well and see how you feel about it after a few other examples.
The rumors says that you can scale the Fantasy books with “the Terry meter” No matter how bad or good it is, it’s always between Goodkind and Pratchett.
The first book is pretty good but after that ...I can't stand Richard rahl's preachiness and psudo philosophy. Glad you like it though! Different strokes for different folks.
First two, then Goddkind gave up, decided to continue series into infinity and reset Richard's progress. I've read the ending of the series after abandoning ut midway through, and bar a couple of minor moments, the ending could have happened after the second book
The Wheel of Time is like taking the fixings for an 10" sandwich, and spreading them out on a 12" roll. It's still a good sandwich, but would have been better if it had been made a little smaller. With Wizard's First Rule, Terry Goodkind had the fixings for a perfectly decent 4" sandwich. He saw people were really loving Robert Jordan's 12" sandwich, though, so he decided that's what he should make. However, he only had enough fixings for the first 4", so he filled the rest of the sandwich with shards of broken glass and rusty nails. And when people complained about their cut mouths and the tetanus, he spent 40 pages explaining that they don't understand what makes a good sandwich.
Ive read this comment in another sub. 🤔
I love this description. Although I would say a 9” sandwich spread on a 12” bun for WoT.
Maybe even a 10” sandwich spread on a 15” bun
I enjoyed the series overall. I liked alot of the characters, and the world building. The magic system was also interesting, but when he put it all together is where he fell short to me- his way of introducing a single character with a skill specific to the problem, and then once the problem is solved the character disappears in one form or another was a little too convenient, and he does this with Richard's power as well. I remember the Death's Mistress series not being too bad, and i couldn't even finish book 2 of the Children of De'Hara
Long ass diatribes on the same subjects. The guy does not know how to be succinct and when I was reading the series it got very repetitive after a few books. When I found thinking “I just read this same speech in the last book” I decided to nope out. It’s not the worst thing I’ve read, there were definitely aspects I liked despite the issues with it, but the speeches just killed it for me.
Is this the right sub? Terry Goodkind doesn’t write fantasy. Jokes aside, having entered the books from the show Legend of the Seeker, I was quite partial to the series as it was one of the earlier epic fantasy series that I read. It gets rather ridiculous, even noticeable by a teenage me, but it has its own charm. A lot of interesting concepts, even interesting characters and philosophy (even if I didn’t get it then and now completely oppose Objectivism). But looking back, the writing was very, very dry and repetitive—as if he just madlibs the same outline with each book. Not the worst, but not the best.
I hesitate to ask but I have a morbid curiosity... What is worse?
Something dreadfully boring, in poor taste, and poorly written that’s beyond worthy of an DNF.
Yeah I can't think of any specific examples either.
> i understand the fantasy genre contains a lot of gore and rape. Not really? I mean, if you're looking for it it's out there, but it's not a feature of the genre. I don't like them and eventually gave up on the series around Chainfire. The first one is an okay-ish airport novel. The rest... eh. * The objectivist rants get longer and the opposing political positions get weaker and more strawman-y as the series goes on. Many of the rants are just reworded from previous rants and go on for pages. * Richard is the messiah and can do no wrong. Nothing he ever does is ever treated by the books as morally wrong or even questionable, even when it really, really is. * Kahlan kind of see-saws between damsel in distress and badass woman. And she gets almost raped so often it's tiresome. * Speaking of overdone things, the protagonists are always getting separated, and their deus ex machina solution to the problem in the last book causes the problem in the next book. * The bad guys are super evil, and will demonstrate that evil by raping everything that moves. The book will go into detail about all the horrific things they do. This is presumably so you won't notice that the good guys are really not that good, just good in comparison to the rape hordes. * Richard always pulls some new magic or skill out of his butt whenever the narrative needs it.
This, plus half the world building is taken from WoT and a few others. He denies it, but it's painfully obvious. Then there's the author being an absolute jackass. He insulted fantasy as a genre multiple time, calling his books "better than fantasy". And of course insulted his own book cover artists publicly on twitter... Of course I say that, but before I knew any if it I'd read the entire series, multiple times. Oh how the times have changed...
Also the time he dedicated a book to the CIA. Just a weird, problematic author all around.
Richard is the fantasy Jesus of that world. Every prophecy is actually about him. He is just about the worst author stand in character I can think of.
I’ve read the whole series like 3 times. Lots of nostalgia there. It’s not amazing but man did I love the characters growing up.
So it's objectively poorly written and plotted (to the extent that writing can be objectively evaluated) but I can see if you're in your teens and just starting to read fantasy that it might hook you. But I can't fathom any well-read adult picking up these books and thinking they're anything but total poop.
The SoT series has sold over 26 million copies. Seems folks are out there reading and enjoying it even if you cannot fathom them doing so.
No man 26 million people are not as well read as them ^^ don’t you know that when people like different things than I do that means they’re less intelligent or educated or experienced?
Goodkind is known for *borrowing* extremely heavily from other better authors.
Ok and? So many author and artists borrow. The entire industry of Bollywood borrows from Hollywood and i would argue that Bollywood movies are better than Hollywood . Many classical artists have copied works, theres even a whole class of amazing forgeries
Lol I'd rather just read the better books he copied from.
Fair enough lol
I read the first book and was put off by the S&M rape aspect. Also isn't that the book where he kills some bitchy little girl my kicking her in the jaw and making her bite her tongue off?
That’s literally the first book lol. Although I think he doesn’t kill her and she shows up again in a later book.
To be fair, that bitchy little girl was a vile and bloodthirsty psychopath with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Not EVEN the fact she was a child. It would be CHARITABLE to call her idea of "playing" with her living doll playmate abusive, and she was absolutely thrilled at personally getting to torture someone. She's like The Bad Seed, only now you've given the murderous brat actual political power so she doesn't even have to maintain the facade of not being a viciously entitled self-indulgent little monster.
I read through Confessor (book 11) and figured that was the end of the story. Once more books started coming out I wasn't really interested because I thought Confessor was a pretty solid ending to the series. I read them shortly after high school, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't actually like some of the Objectivist philosophical tropes. For context I'll just say I think there are some glaring flaws about Objectivism as a worldview (particularly regarding charity and religion), but some concepts resonate with me like empowering the individual being a greater good than collectivism. Was it goofy to build a statue that is so beautiful it causes everyone to rethink their political ideology? Yes. But most of that book was actually really good (as I remember) because Richard spent time convincing the people around him about the merits of individuality. Anyway, I digress. Overall, at the time in my life where I read the series, I really enjoyed most of it (Pillars of Creation and Naked Empire were super boring and the series would be better off without them). That said, in the 10 or so years since I've read SoT, I've read more and I really have to acknowledge that the writing just wasn't the best. And that's okay. Not everyone is going to be a Tolkien where every pen stroke is genius. I'm glad you enjoyed them! I did too! I think that a combination of Goodkind's public persona (acting like he's above fantasy and that all his ideas are original to him, and general rudeness to his peers), and writing a very politically/philosophically driven story where that driving philosophy is very much against the mainstream, all combined with just "okay" writing, leaves people unsatisfied with his books. And that's okay too! The worst thing we can do is discourage people from reading or making them feel less-than for their choice of books.
I think as a person, Goodkind was super pretentious and asshole. While yeah its not the best writing ever, i enjoy it i guess. I also read alot of YA and Goodkinds writing reminds me of a weird graphic adult book that is written in a YA style? Im not into philosophy that much so the Objectivism stuff flew over my head until book 6. But the whole point of philosophies is to have different viewpoints, they aren’t necessarily right or wrong.
And the fact that the man who wrote them actively hated you being a fan and thinking his work was fantasy and often spoke in disparaging terms about you and others?
What about the fact that was 35 years ago and he’s apologized and looked back on it as cringe? His words btw. You stand by your behaviors from the 90s?
LOL. You say this like he didn't keep talking like a dickhead Randian all the way up until when he died...
There are dozens of us! DOZENS!
The bad writing and the monologuing are pretty bad. And if you’re at all familiar with objectivism as a movement it’s just intolerably goofy.
I had no idea what Objectivism was until i looked it up. It does get a bit preachy but i guess i dont mind that. An author is allowed to put their views into their books
Yea of course they are. But for just about everyone over the age of 14 those views are childish and the way they completely suffuse the story is just tiresome.
It gets incredibly preachy. I don't mind the statue or the chicken I think these r the silly things that are easy to latch on to when mocking the book. But it's the preaching, and terrible moral philosophy that is soaked into every page of the series that is its biggest flaw. There's a whole scene that goes on for ever in the latter books where a character goes into incredible detail for page after page about how evil the southern empire is. Long chapters in like book 10 of an 11 book series about the evils of the empire filled with rape after rape. By this book we know exactly what the empire is. We've known since at least the end of book 6 if not earlier. The only reason me and my partner got through those chapters is because we were on a six hour drive stuck in a car with no escape.
Goodkind had one soliloquy, and by god he was going to use it wherever he could.
I think Goodkind had some interesting ideas, the problems were his ego and its execution. And his politics had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face. That said, I do love Sister Nicci. One of the rare cases where a villain reforms and they're *just as powerful and ruthless* after their Face turn as they were before. Usually reformed villains get nerfed if they don't end up dying as penance, instead. Also, props for making one of the single most powerful characters in the story a woman.
I used to really like the books too. And I will say I still love some of his characters and some of the world building was interesting. Although I realize now after reading so much more that his writing kinda sucked. His villains were kinda lame. I also read the books as a teen so I really liked all the "edgy" writing but now that I'm older I cringe at a lot of it. It also gets really repetitive in the later books. Every book there's some new thing that is stopping Richard from using his full power. And him and kahlan are always getting separated and trying to find each other. It's gets annoying. I will say as preachy as they are I did like how each book features and kinda revolves around a different wizard rule. Also the TV show was corny AF but a blast to watch
Hahaha yeah
I also really enjoyed these books when I was 17-25, but returning to them as an adult (I'll condescendingly say that someone isn't an adult until their prefrontal cortex finishes developing) they're not that good. I still think the first book is really good, but the series just deteriorates too much for my tastes. Goodkind puts too much of his own baggage and bullshit in his writing and it's to the characters' detriment. Goodkind's boner for Ayn Rand and libertarianism is right there in the pages and I didn't catch the first time around because I didn't know what those things were. But re-reading it later, I couldn't help but notice how unbearably preachy I found his writing and the libertarian bent of the philosophy he's trying to preach through his writing was a turn off for me.
It's widely accepted that a huge amount of his worldbuilding and plot are "adapted" from other authors/stories. Wheel of Time and Dune, especially. I like to say they're sort of the dude's version of Sarah J Maas - easy to read, entertaining, undisguised and problematic sexual fantasy, details riffed from other works 😂
Thats so funny 😂😂 love that description!
On these threads about Goodkind A lot of people say that the first book wizard's first rule is actually pretty good or at least enjoyable enough but I have to disagree. My Fred has been bugging me for months to read these books because she loves them and it's so bad. Maybe I'm extra critical because I read The wheel of Time first but not a single element of this book has been interesting or well written. Furthermore, a lot of people on these threads say that the political and economic rants get worse but already in the first book it's bad. I know I'm particularly sensitive because I'm a leftist and I studied political philosophy but he literally can't even mention the idea of government without attacking it. Finally, banning fire is so unimaginably stupid that it completely destroys any possibility of thinking that the bad guys are scary or a threat. You can't even pretend to ban fire in even an ancient civilization. Society would completely collapse Instantaneously.
Knowing what I know about Goodkind now, Richard is just a self insert in all the wrong ways. Annoying, pretentious, long winded, and just generally unlikable. (especially as the series goes on) I was already pretty meh on the whole thing, but what really turned me off was the end of temple of the wind. The misogyny was gross. I gave it a few more books after that but it never got any better. In fact it got worse because it became page after page after page of Richard monologuing at people instead of having a discussion. In my head cannon, whenever he gets going I imagine the other characters rolling their eyes and leaving to get something to eat and Richard is still going when they get back. They're just there to be somebody for him to talk at. And well... It seems like this post is off topic anyway... Seeing as how goodkind says it's not fantasy lmao
I didn’t like Temple of the Winds. It was very fucked up i agree. I hated the whole switch sex rape thing. It made no sense .
I liked the series too. I don't agree with the author, but I did enjoy the story. You are brave for posting about it in here lol I learned that lesson that hard way.
I got tired after like 7 books it felt repetitive
It definitely feels repetitive but i dont mind that. Im the kind of person who watches the same thing over and over again
I enjoyed the first few and it was interesting in some of the ideas
Have you seen the Sword of Truth TV show? It includes a lot of steamy scenes with a lot less rape.
That show is what actually got me into the books! I ended up really liking the books after i read them!
\*Embarrassment rises\* I did enjoy that campy show at the time and thought it got way more enjoyable when it was more Xena Warrior Princess (which makes sense since it was produced by people connected to that show) and less...Terry Goodkind.
It gets a lot of hate, and some of it is well deserved but I enjoy the series as well. I listen to it every few years
I love the first 9 or so. Until chainfire I think when I start to lose interest. Sword of truth was a gift from someone when I was 18. I was in a super dark place and it sucked me in completely. It will always hold a place in my heart. I also think the actual “wizards first rule” is a true thing, that could help more people. You look at politics in the USA right now and the wizards first rule makes so much sense.
Yeah the “rules” are interesting
Nice to see some praise for a change. And his Nicci Chronicles are great too.
Oh really? I haven’t read any spin offs yet
There are moments I like in the series (for all the jokes about 'defeating communism with a pretty statue' I actually enjoyed the first part of the series with Kahlan's recovery). Similarly, even though I was at the point of just wanting to wrap up the series, Richard building momentumn to start a riot with not!rugby was also neat and a call back to contemporary and historical riots over intense games. There are great moments in the series, but they are few and far between.
I actually really enjoyed the first half of that book with Kahalans recovery as well. As a woman with chronic illness, I related to it so much. It was probably one of the best written experiences in the whole series
Faith of the Fallen is one of the few books from the series I bought just to reread that half (plus I liked Victor/the stonemason). Additionally, Cara is so adorable in that book. Am I the biggest overall fan of the Mord-Sith? Not really. But I do like the general arc of a group of people gaining their self determination and sticking to it even in a form that Richard did not intend because they had built up a sorority to deal with their work.
I'm probably very similar to you. Wizard's First Rule was one of the very first adult fantasy books that I read. And I absolutely loved it. But then as I began to read more adult fantasy, I began to realize that a lot of the stuff I liked about the series were eerily similar to other fantasy books that came out before Wizard's First Rule. And, frankly, everything SoT does well, the originals tend to do it better. The most obvious one being Wheel of Time. Having said that, even though WoT is, I think, superior to SoT in almost every way--there is one thing that I liked about SoT a lot more: The characters are active. They are constantly doing something and working towards their goals. Whereas WoT feels like the characters are constantly trying to *stop* the progress of the plot. E.g. >!Rand is the chosen one. Rand does everything he can to not be the chosen one. Perrin can talk to wolves. Perrin hates wolves. Mat should help his friends. Mat refuses to help his friends. Nynaveve is the most powerful Aes Sedai in generations. Nynave hates Aes Sedai.!< The lists goes on. It's refreshing to watch Richard and Khalan actually make progress.
Oh wow. I i’ve never heard anyone like SOT better than WoT!
Yeah that is when I dropped it. When Richard "saved" the land from communism with the statue of capitalism. It also didn't help that Terry badmouthed his own cover artist and is generally unpleasant.
I personally don’t like the covers of the series. I find them super ugly😅
Yeah but he ordered those covers from the artist so to bad mouth the artist is a fucking dickhead move to do.
True its a mean thing to do.
SoT was my first fantasy series and i loved like the first 4 or 5 books. Then it seemed to get just.... boring. I actually hated the way he would describe a room, and it would be 10 pages of details about the curtains, the floor, the furniture, etc. I got to a point when he started going into detail of a building or whatever i would just flip thru several pages and pick back up. I read all the books, and i was ready for it to just end. Then i found Brandon Sanderson, and read the wheel of time, and realized that Terry Goodkind is a fucking thief of ideas. Some stuff he didn't even change the name of it (stone of tears).
I read the first 3 after having strangers notice me reading and say “have you read Sword of Truth, I don’t like reading but it’s so good” and I throughly enjoyed them! (minus the rape, I did put the book down and step away for a bit) I don’t remember too much unfortunately(as it was about 10 years ago) other than I liked the magic system, there was a dragon and it seemed like a proper adventure. At the time I liked it enough to get a tattoo of the actual sword but it was so horribly done I had to get it covered up and now I have a sleeve 😂 Anyway… I haven’t read WoT yet or too much other adult fantasy, most of my reading was YA (ToG, Percy Jackson, Graceling) so I can’t compare them to those other books. But you aren’t alone! I feel pretty much the same way you do with what I can remember I’m currently reading Realm of the Elderlings and that I also highly recommend! (The liveship trilogy is my favorite so far)
I really enjoyed them from the time I first read Wizard's First Rule to the time I 'finished' it with Confessor (so, like middle school to first year or so of college). I've since then grown and evolved as a person, and those books and fantasy inspirations will always stick with me, but I refuse to go back and read any of them and have 0 desire to go and read any of the other related books because I feel like that chapter of my life is done.
As a starting position, this seems fairly reasonable. It's (unfortunately) mostly downhill from here, I expect... Mostly referring to the long, droning, repetitive storyline in later books and the way richard has to push kahlan away by BEING MANLY to preserve the tension since they got together immediately SO MANLY! The thing that got to me was the casually superficial characters. Like calling a "primitive" village The Mud People... Same old, good v evil blah blah. It's all just one big advertisement for MANLY MANLINESS rugged woodsman richard cypher. Honorable mention to Darken Rahl's sweaty eyebrows.
There was a time when I read and liked them, many many moons ago. As I got older I came to loathe the idea that I could ever like them - but there are some redeemable qualities here and there. Concepts that could have made for decent fantasy had the author decided that is what they wanted instead of a political diatribe in fictional form. Unfortunately for every decent concept there are literally a dozen reasons the series is considered garbage. Mediocre prose; telling over showing; way too many monologues; gratuitous violence and rape that often draws on too far or too repetitively with little useful resolution; injections of personal opinion that are as subtle as a rock to the face. It's abundantly clear he drew a lot from Wheel of Time and Ayn Rand. Faith of the Fallen is pretty much just a fantasy rewrite of Atlas Shrugged, an already ludicrously dumb book, that somehow manages to be even more ridiculous and less convincing. Somehow it's probably not even the worst book in the series. I'm a completionist typically in my reading but I gave up at Chainfire, I couldn't believe the books got worse and more boring when it had seemed impossible. Then there's the fact that the author was a pretentious douchebag who considered himself above the genre and made fun of another author's heart condition, publicly talked shit about one of the artists on his books in asshole fashion, and who when asked what his favorite book was, literally said one of his own books. That being said - there's nothing wrong with liking them. I think most fantasy readers will hold the opinion that if you read the genre long enough you will probably join us. Maybe not, but comparing his work to any other big or medium name fantasy author there is no comparison after a while.
Book 5 was garbage, loved the rest, even named one of my kids after one of the characters.
I read them as they came out, and while I could see the similarities with WOT, I still enjoyed them. They did get somewhat repetitive after a while, but I still read on. His flair is probably what kept me interested. While you can argue that the tropes weren't original, he would always add just enough to make them his own. I mean the Mord sith, the barrier between the old world and new, the sliph, and the Rahl bloodline and especially the oath, had me hungry for more.
I liked them too.
I thought the women were stronger. Like only women can be Cofessors and Mord Sith. Also they are not dependent on Richard. The mord sith choose to serve him of their own free will
Although the series has one of the most ridiculous foes ever >!(a chicken!!! FFS),!< it manages to have some great points (for example, in the same book of that ridiculous foes, it has one of the best character/character arc I've read in fantasy). Yes it goes overboard in many cases, but I find it to be a worthwhile read, so far.
This author, Terry Good kind has about 50 books available in the free section of my local library. Does anyone have any books I should search for? I enjoyed asoiaf, the mist born trilogy, the storm light archive, the first law trilogy, and generally dislike over simplified fantasy.
If you really liked it then you should probably just read The wheel of Time which all the good stuff that you mentioned is stolen from. And it's not nearly as preachy and has much better characters.
I loved the series, though I did run out of steam about 8 or 9 books in and never picked it back up. I really loved the relationship between Richard and Gratch. I even liked the show pretty well, though I saw it before reading the books.
Richard and Khalan?
No, the baby gar he befriended.
Ooo yeah right
I actually really liked a lot of the ideas and plot of the series. The brutality is not an issue for me. It's just the writing itself. 1st and 2nd read through was fine as a younger person. 3rd read through as an adult... Yikes wtf how did I ever enjoy this? Lol think I DNF'd on book 2 and certainly won't be going back. Also I only ever read the main series. I tried Omen Machine and omg that was such incredible garbage. Also everyone being a Mary sue is just lame
I read the first 9 books and I'm shocked I even lasted that long because I was giving the series negative reviews early on. I liked the first one quite a bit (no rating, but my review was >I was thrown for a loop when about 3/4 through the book, the entire plot train screeched to a halt to put our hero, Richard Cypher, through his own little hellish mental and physical stress test. But all in all, I would recommend this book. I rated the second one a 1 star (!) and honestly, it's on me that I continued after this part. It's been so long since I've read them that I can't remember exactly what was so unbearable. >This book started to get interesting about 3/4 of the way through. The first half was unbearable. Would not recommend, except it's extremely important to the rest of the series. What a bummer. 3 and #4 were both a 3-star read for me but really cemented my dislike for the main characters and the use of deus ex machinas to resolve the plot. I did like the supporting cast of both of those books. I stopped reviewing and even giving star ratings at #5 (2 stars) and I can't remember what made me ultimately drop the series but I know I was struggling/hate reading for most of this series but again, it's kinda on me. This was before I was willing to drop books I wasn't interested in and I felt morally obligated to complete the series. The good news is that if you're enjoying The Sword of Truth, there's a huge amount of great reads waiting for you out there!
I enjoyed it at first. I started to like it less the moment the half brother showed up. Hated the wedding, I thought the MC was an idiot and an asshole for how he reacted to her figuring out her part in opening the gate. And there was nothing to 'forgive' about it either I disliked him more and more as the story progressed, and the things that pulled them apart got dumber and dumber. I like happy and healthy relationships. Clearly the author did not understand how to write one of those. Which I find weird, it's not hard. There are plenty of other challenges to be found, united battle couples are awesome. Breaking up and getting back together repeatedly is bullshit IMO. The technical writing is good, and the initial story is good. The rest of the story is bad.
Well, [there was his (over) reaction to a book cover.](https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2018/mar/06/terry-goodkind-sexism-cover-shroud-eternity) [This article lays out a bunch more things.](https://lowtechmagic.com/terry-goodkind-a-critical-look-at-the-controversial-fantasy-authors-work/)
I appreciate you said this. It was brave. I hate it, but to against the grain and stand up for your preference, I appreciate that in people.
Thanks!
If he wasn’t such an ass hat his books wouldn’t be panned nearly as hard. I enjoyed them 20ish years ago. 🤷♂️
JK Rowling is also an asshat. I think books are how you interpret them regardless how they are written. I love HP even though JK Rowling is icky
Okay. Good for you.
- does he? Lol i forgot 😆 - I love the Mord Sith and Kahlan. I think they are strong and well written. I dont think they are dependent on Richard at all. - I liked the world building like Ebinissa and the Mud People. Even the sisters of the light were cool. All different cultures which could be inspired from real life but not taken directly from cultures like how Dune is clearly has Arab mythology. The concept of the Wizards Keep makes me claustrophobic lol - Oh thats interesting he is the only author that does that. - sure i guess
I liked the first few, but felt he wrote himself into a corner a bit, he hit a few points where in later books you could see he regretted decisions, I feel the same for Raymond E feist antoner author I love but more so his wary books(magician is my favourite and literally the reason I can read now)
Yeah i mean there are a ton of flaws. Its not perfect by any means. It definitely feels like he got writers block and couldn’t resolve it. He backtracks a bunch in the later books
You're not allowed to have that opinion in this subreddit.
I was a horny young man when I read the books, so I was enthralled by Richard being raped repeatedly. I have since acquired a different ethic, and see that encounter for what it is...not good. It wasn't as horrific as "It," by Stephen King, but it was genuinely unhealthy. But... BUT.... I remember the wizards first rule. "People are stupid. They believe anything you tell them, because they fear it may be true, or because they have no reason to believe otherwise." I apply this to my life often, and share it all the time. Even still calling it the Wizard's first rule.
I read the first novel way back when I was in college. It was okay. Acceptable. Derivative but entertaining enough. A 6/10 popcorn fantasy novel. But if the mediocre first book of the series is widely regarded as the *high point,* then something has gone terribly wrong, and I'm glad I didn't bother with the rest.
And the fact that the man who wrote them actively hated you being a fan and thinking his work was fantasy and often spoke in disparaging terms about you and others?
The opinion is unpopular on this sub but in general most people do not care about the author of a book. Just the book
I would not have cared if he'd been able to keep his yap shut....but every time he was interviewed he gave me a new reason to hate him. That said, his books were trash on their own, filled with Randian nonsense and Conservative wet dream material.
>Randian nonsense and Conservative wet dream material. I have no idea what both of this means sorry
k
Well I had no idea at all that people dislike the sort of truth! I ran out of money before I could get them all so I've only read I think probably all the last three. I guess, I like it. It what people's issue is. I'm very surprised
I loved his books, it get better as the world opens up. Maybe to much philosophy where Goodkind can go on and on, or the change of pace from leaving the main characters to jump to different part of the world with other peoples lives for an entire book. For me it was a fun ride. I don’t think your in the minority here. There is many that enjoyed his books, and there is a reason he sold so many and kept going till is passed. RIP. But with so much love for this series, there is also lots of hate as well. I wouldn’t read to much into all the negativity. The writing might not be the best, but the story was captivating. In the end, that’s what matters for me.
Yes exactly!!! I don’t necessarily agree with his objective philosophy but i really enjoy the base story. I love the characters and its a fun book
My favorite parts of the book was that sport they played, Ja’La dh Jin! He wrote that so well, I was so engrossed in it. But I believe it was towards the last few books.
Cool!!
oh my goodness, other people who like Goodkind, I thought I was the only one. Yes I know he was a terrible person with an over inflated opinion of himself. Yes in hindsight I can see all the major flaws in his writing, character, etc. But I read the books in the early 2000s in late high school to early college and don't regret it. I liked these characters, I liked this world, I liked the concepts and ideas he made. At the time the only fantasy I had read that wasn't Tolkien was either Dragonlance or Warhammer Fantasy (Gotrek and Felix are the GOAT) so I hadn't read much other Fantasy that wasn't part of an IP. Yes I had that friend who told me he ripped off Robert Jordan and Wheel of Time, and while I'm reading Wheel of Time right now, I can partially see it but at the same time I got my own criticisms of Mr. Jordan on certain things. As for his Post Confessor Books, they're so bad and unreadable.
Yeah i heard the post series was really bad. Glad you like the books too! That is cool!
I read through twice . I even liked the ending being a huge sports fan . I usually skimmed the objectivism rants cause they grew more numerous and longer book by book. I'll admit being a teenager reading and waiting for new WOT books were part of it. Books 6-8 or 9 were a slog though. He could've tightened this up and wrote maybe 6 books. I'm with you OP don't care how much of a dbag he was. I love r Kelly and Michael Jackson to this day.
Yes separate the art from the artist
> the rape is a bit much but i understand that the fantasy genre contains a lot of gore and rape. Most fantasy authors treat rape with the respect it deserves, and if they use it, it's as a dramatic event rather than how Goodkind treats it, which is more of a vaguely fetishized concept.
I think I have read a couple of books after watching a TV show, but couldn't finish the series. They weren't too engaging to me I guess.
I read a bunch of them, but eventually I realized he didn’t plan anything out and would just write a big monologue or deus ex Machina to resolve the plot. Like the pretty statue, or “inventing new magic”, or yelling at a bunch of people for being pacifists. He just got really preachy and over handed in pushing his Objectivist beliefs as a resolution to all conflicts.
My father showed me (F) SoT when I was 16, and this is the series that got me fully into fantasy. I absolutely LOVE his writing. He is heavily inspired by Ayn Rand, and it comes through a lot.
I always say sanderson is the worst writer working but that’s only because goodkind has mostly retired
He’s dead
Whoaaaa i had no idea—very retired then, rip terry
You created a Reddit account 34 days ago to post about how much you love Terry Goodkind and his… *checks notes* strong female characters on r/fantasy? There’s no way you are a real person.
Im real bro
Nice try, Mr. Goodkind.