Sword of Truth - Terry Goodkind

[King Lupid]

Any fans of this @ Qt3?

The new book hits stores on July 21st.

[balut]

No.

[dwinn]

I likes 'em when they focus on Richard and Kahlan. The last book in the series ran 800 pages, and 750 focused on a brand-new, just-introduced character. There were times when I thought it might be fan fiction.

[Dave Markell]

Goodkind has perfected the art of imitating Jordan. Start off strong, get your readers hooked with a plot that actually goes somewhere for a few books, then abandon your main characters and waste endless reams of paper on meaningless drivel.

Pisses me off to no end, since I once liked both Richard/Kahlan/Zed and Rand/Mat/Perrin quite a bit. Ah well

[Tyjenks]

All the accolades and top ten lists (at Amazon, for whatever that is worth) he is on led me to pick up the first one. Two words:

Yu uck! Could not get interested in the least.

Another series that I am fighting to get through the first book of is The Runelords by David Farland. Crazy premise and interesting only in spurts.

I think George R.R. Martin has ruined me for all other Fantasy genre writing.

[Gunmetal]

I liked the first few books, although I'd agree with the statement that he's really good at immitating Robert Jordan....
I picked up the last book and still haven't read it. I'm at the point where there's too many epic fantasy books going on. I've got Wheel of Time, Runelords and Sword of Truth all in progress.

[Tyjenks]

Gunmetal - Are you liking The Runelords? I assume you finished the first book. The whole premise of extracting "things" from other people and basing a series on it seems a bit crazy. Like an SNL skit stretched into a 90 min. long movie. The runes and endowments and then establishing those as the driving plot points is hard for me to digest. I am on page 320 or so of the first book. Do these items dominate the rest of the series or does Farland finally get their function and history established and move on to other storytelling?

[Gunmetal]

I really liked the first two Runelord books. I've got the third book, but at this point I've totally forgotten what's going on, so I haven't started it. This is an unfortunate theme with me and books :)
There's a definite feeling of "anything can happen" in the first two, anyway.

I actually like the premise of the runes, although the first few pages of the first book had me very confused since they're not explained at all.
The runes seem to be playing a pretty important part in the first two books, but Farland moves onto the runes and the Dedicates as strategic elements in later battles so that's good. The runes don't tend to dominate the story in the second book.

I seem to remember a GBA strategy game being made that was based in the Runelords world too.... I wonder what happened to it?

[Tyjenks]

I seem to remember a GBA strategy game being made that was based in the Runelords world too.... I wonder what happened to it?

Now as a vidoegame, that would be viable. I can see how the Dedicates and forcibles and runes and the like are just new pieces thrown in to spice up a run of the mill fantasy yarn. Maybe as much as I claim to want something new in my fantasy novels, I really do not. I want to say the premise is simply not believable, but, of course, neither are goblins, hobbits, and trolls. Maybe I just do not like his storytelling. I dunno. Thanks for the feedback. :)

Again, Martin tells kick-ass stories with little to no magic involved. Mmmmmmm Feast of Crows.......[drool]

[Gunmetal]

Yeah, I think the George RR Martin stuff will be the next series I start. I keep hearing good things about it

[Tyjenks]

Yeah, I think the George RR Martin stuff will be the next series I start. I keep hearing good things about it

There should be no thinking about it. I would advise you to drop everything you are reading, leave early from work, and buy all three books without hesitation.

If a certain Dr. Crypt tries to dissuade you here on these boards, avoid him as if he were a disease-ridden harlot*. Although, I have heard from my Irish spies that he is giving Martin a second chance, but wants to keep his position as Chairman of the George R.R. Martin haters club. So shhhhhhh.


*Which he is, BTW.

[DrCrypt]

Yeah, it is my bathroom book right now. I don't really know how far I am through it - I'm reading it on my PocketPC and I'm about 563 ebook pages into it, out of a maximum of about 8,000. Most of those 563 pages have been taken up by female characters talking about the "warm seed between their legs" and totally extraneous, uninteresting descriptions of the culinary properties of various vegetables ("He bit into a gravy-slathered onion. It crunched. <End paragraph>")

That said, no matter how far I am along in the book in real-life pages, I'm definitely further along than the last time I threw it away in disgust. So either my literary tastes have gone permanently slumming, or last time I read it I wasn't as willing to overlook its flaws because "of all the bad stuff that happens to cool characters!"

If you are going to read any of this embarassing, twenty-thousand page fantasy pap, you could probably do worse than Fire and Ice.

[Gunmetal]

have been taken up by female characters talking about the "warm seed between their legs"
If I can sit through 8 books of Egwene and Nynaeve blushing over the shape of men's calves, I think I can handle it :)

[balut]

have been taken up by female characters talking about the "warm seed between their legs"
If I can sit through 8 books of Egwene and Nynaeve blushing over the shape of men's calves, I think I can handle it :)

Arrrrghghghg!! Just when I thought I had bludgeoned the Jordan out of my skull, someone makes a reference! Gah! Now I have to find another way to forget that series!

[Tyjenks]

If you are going to read any of this embarassing, twenty-thousand page fantasy pap, you could probably do worse than Fire and Ice.

I will take that as a ringing endorsement. Oh, and your welcome.


To bring this back on topic....

Goodkind sucks.

[Kevin Grey]

I've read Goodkind through book five and have really enjoyed them, with the second book being my favorite.

One thing I like about his work is that while there is an over-arching plot, each book is fairly self contained. It makes him one of the few fantasy authors where I feel like I can read the latest book without having to reread the rest of the series. One of the reasons that the delay on Martin's next book doesn't bother me is that it will give me time to reread the first three.

[DrCrypt]

Hey, could anyone find me a geneaology/character relationship tree for this Game of Thrones book? My ebook version doesn't have it.

[Dirt]

Anyone read Gemmell?

[Tyjenks]

Here ya go Crypt. (http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Park/1043/houses.html)

[DrCrypt]

Since George R.R. Martin really needs to go on a diet before nomadic aliens settle outposts on his stomach and begin planning their fertility sacrifices by the phase of the Earth in the sky, I will happily "lend" my ebook copies of the Martin books to anyone who is interested.

[Mark Asher]

I've read all but the last two Goodkind books. I enjoyed them, but consider them something of a guilty pleasure.

I am convinced that they're basically romance novels with a fantasy backdrop. I like the backdrop, but find myself skipping the parts where Richard and Khalen are longing for one another or having interior monologs about their relationship.

I'm also convinced that Goodkind has aimed these books right at female readers. There are strong female characters throughout, and for every prominent male character, there seems to be an equally prominent female character serving as a foil. I also remember one scene that went about 40-50 pages that descripted a royal banquet. Goodkind went over what each character was wearing in detail and described the decorations and each course of the meal in detail. Tell me that wasn't aimed at female readers!

Goodkind has a knack for spinning a good story out over 700 pages and a good eye for detail. I don't think he's in Martin's league, though.

[Mark Asher]

Since George R.R. Martin really needs to go on a diet before nomadic aliens settle outposts on his stomach and begin planning their fertility sacrifices by the phase of the Earth in the sky, I will happily "lend" my ebook copies of the Martin books to anyone who is interested.

Do you have a reader or do you just read online? I just don't enjoy lengthy online reading sessions.

[DrCrypt]

I don't think he's in Martin's league, though.
Martin is a league:

http://www.georgerrmartin.com/images/gm-cub.jpg

That's actually a full grown tiger he's holding.

[DrCrypt]

Mark, I have a PocketPC and I'm reading the George R.R. Martin books with a program called µBook (http://www.gowerpoint.com) (pronounced "microbook") that is an incredibly quick, intelligent real-time parser of plain text documents into sexy, ultra-readable ebook format. There is a windows version which is also very good and which I use to read on the job, but it doesn't have the same appeal to me for real reading as the PPC version.

I never enjoyed reading anything serious off of a screen either, but my Pocket PC has completely turned that around. I still have an emotional, aesthetic attachment to read real books, but I will say that Microsoft Reader, µBook and Cleartype have completely changed the way I look at ebooks: from bastard monstrosities of a senselessly over-technological age to one of the easiest and most convenient ways to read. You can read in any lighting condition, store dozens of books on your device, lookup words simply by highlighting it, scribble deletable notes in the margin, insert unlimited bookmarks, search for words or phrases in the book, change fonts, assign book skins, etc. Everytime you open your device, the reader automatically opens to last page you looked at. While I still prefer real books on things that I will mull over, contemplate and constantly flick back through as I'm reading it (literature, history, philosophy) I'd say a PocketPC is the ultimate pulp reader. I even use it to save online articles I want to read later and then use µBook to format the HTML into an immensely readable format. I even tend to read when walking to work in the morning, since I can thumb through a novel or the morning news with one hand while I use the other to drink a cappucino. I have to say, the PocketPC has completely sold me on the ebook idea, and I had villified the concept totally before.

[Bub, Andrew]

Is that really him? It looks like Harry Knowles and Bruce Villanch mated.

[Tyjenks]

Is that really him? It looks like Harry Knowles and Bruce Villanch mated.

Yep. You read some books, get an idea of what the author might look like, and then you visit the website. Shocking, but true. Good call on Villanche. He wrote for the Beauty and the Beast TV series for a while and I think they based the Beast off of him somewhat.

[Gunmetal]

I'm new to this ebook deal - at this point in time, are there a lot of legitimate copies of books available?

[DrCrypt]

Gunmetal, I'd say you could get about almost any book printed in the last five years by a major publishing house in ebook format. They cost almost nothing to produce, yet you are charged full price for them - a price which is almost all profit.

There are not shortage of free ebooks either. If you like reading older literature, and I do, you can find almost major or minor work written with an expired copyright from a number of sources. These would also fall under "legit".

http://etext.virginia.edu/ebooks/ebooklist.html
http://www.gutenberg.net
http://www.blackmask.com

If you have a PocketPC, I'd give ebooks a try.

[Gunmetal]

Cool. Thanks DrCrypt.... A Tablet PC and an ebook sounds like a pretty sweet combination. My previous barrier to ebooks was having to read them while sitting at a computer screen and concern over lack of titles.

[Lloyd Heilbrunn]

Anyone read Gemmell?

Yep, great stuff.I think I've enjoyed every one I picked up.......

[Armando Penblade]

Necromancy at its finest. . . perhaps I am of the Rahl line.

I recently blew through Wizard's First Rule and really, really enjoyed myself. I'm something over an overly sentimental sucker for highly traditional, well-told fantasy, though, so I think I "get" most of the criticisms lobbed Goodkind's way.

Anyways, just wondering; does he start to get around the rather annoying habit of telling, rather than showing, extremely dramatic scenes/events?

I can't exactly conjure up an example off the top of my head, but Goodkind just struck me as unwilling to let actions and dialogue do the talking for him most of the time. . . despite this fact, I got sucked into some scenes pretty hardcore. . . the first book definitely caused me to lose about 8 hours of sleep between two nights :)

Anyways, I'll be starting Book 2 as soon as I get off my lazy ass enough to go to my car and retrieve it.

----

Odd that you guys seem to be saying that Goodkind's a Jordan imitator; I can't make it past the first 50 pages or so of WoT's first book, despite owning it for half a decade.

[Matt Perkins]

I don't want to ruin the Goodkind books for you...but just read the first two or three and you'll be fine.

[Dave Markell]

Yeah, he's just like Robert Jordan in that regard. Characters you like, an interesting world, and then 9 books of worthless filler. My problem--and it's a big one--is that when I get attached to a character or setting, I have to finish their story, even when it turns to garbage...

[Kevin Grey]

Odd that you guys seem to be saying that Goodkind's a Jordan imitator; I can't make it past the first 50 pages or so of WoT's first book, despite owning it for half a decade.

It's more plot things that he takes so if you haven't actually read at least one or two WoT books then you probably won't pick up on them. It's actually a bit more egregious in Stone of Tears.

[Reldan]

Goodkind gets very, very boring. The plot of both the second and third books are a rehash of the plot of the first (OMG it's forbidden, possibly unrequited love! However will it work out!?) between the same damn characters.

After that he falls off the rails completely. You can recreate the rest of the "series" by shitting between sheets of blank paper and pressing them together. I'd suggest doing this in the bathroom, as you wouldn't want to get any "prose" on the carpet.

[nixon66]

Yeah, he's just like Robert Jordan in that regard. Characters you like, an interesting world, and then 9 books of worthless filler. My problem--and it's a big one--is that when I get attached to a character or setting, I have to finish their story, even when it turns to garbage...

I'm usually that way myself (i.e. I read every little book of Edding's Beligarad series, even the stand alone books... *shudder*), but I could not do that with Goodkind at all. I just gave up after about book 4 and all I've heard since is that I got out just in time. I gave up on Brooks too, though every once in a while I get an itch to try out the new trilogies that he's done and then I remember the pain and look and see if a new Erikson book is out.

[olaf]

Like a lot of people, I enjoyed the first few books. Aimed at females though? Maybe...but what is the deal with the leather clad hotties with the anti-magic, pain tool dildo things? That was fucking crazy.

[Angie Gallant]

The books are shit. Objectivist shit with evil not-chickens, big, barbed namble cocks, kicking 8 year old girls in the jaw for JUSTICE, and prose like:


After Richard picked up his pack and slipped his arms through the straps, Owen gripped Richard's hand. "Thank you, Lord Rahl, for showing me that my life is worth living."
Marilee stepped forward and hugged him. "Thank you for teaching Owen to be worthy of me."
Richard laughed. Owen laughed. Cara gave Marilee an approving clap on the back. And then all the men laughed.

If you like testicle-eating as punishment, pacifists getting indiscriminately slaughtered by the good guys, the main female character getting almost-raped 11 times, chapter-long objectivist rants, and a main character completely incapable of ever bing wrong then by all means, enjoy.

[Dean]

I read the first one and felt icky over the B&D stuff. It felt like a 13 year old's sick fantasies.

But apparently a lot of people like B&D fantasies and magic, pain-inducing dildos.

[Robert Sharp]

Yeah, the torture scenes were just unecessary. I never actually read these. Instead, I listened to them on cassette (through book 5 or so, I guess). Goodkind might when the award for worse overuse of the plot device that involves eliminating the best powers/advantages of your main characters in order to create drama. You know how improbable it is that so much Kryptonite would land on Earth to cause problems for Supes? Now imagine if instead, he had just ordered a transport ship full of such rocks and handed them out to random strangers as soon as they met. That's what it feels like.

[Jag]

I'm new to this ebook deal - at this point in time, are there a lot of legitimate copies of books available?

I only read ebooks as well. I also use ubook as my ereader of choice on my old Dell Axim. I don't miss regular books at all and have a massively portable library to take with me wherever I go.

As for Sword of Truth, I read them all but the combination of ideas stolen from WOT and the author's obnoxious attitude has turned me off the series.

Goodkind actually believes his books are not fantasy and goes out of his way to convince people that they are not fantasy books. He says being put in the fantasy genre was his editor's idea to sell books. Of course having the word "Wizard" in the title had nothing to do with it.
http://web.archive.org/web/20040831203534/http://www.terrygoodkind.com/chats/PIchat5.php

As far as Gemmel, I highly recommend him. I've read every book he wrote. I would start with Legend from the Drenai saga if you like simple, pulp like, hack-n-slash books.

[dwinn]

But apparently a lot of people like B&D fantasies and magic, pain-inducing dildos.

This explains Laurell K. Hamilton's last dozen books.

[malkav11]

I really enjoyed the first couple of books, but, yeah, way off the rails by this point and I was convinced pretty quickly that Goodkind hates his characters with a deep, psychotic loathing, the kind of shit he puts them through. (The alternative is too horrible to contemplate.)

And the raw political screed aspect got a bit too much, also. But seriously...how on earth could anyone peg those as not fantasy? Wizards aside there's also: necromancy, magical pain dildos, magical swords, magical chickens, magical barriers between lands, winged monkeys, etc, etc, etc.

[Ezdaar]

...when I get attached to a character or setting, I have to finish their story, even when it turns to garbage...

I have this same problem, however I seem to have been able to quit Goodkind and Jordan. I imagine at some point I'll go back and finish the series but there are so many things out there that are better that I want to read first.

[MikeSofaer]

Goodkind actually believes his books are not fantasy and goes out of his way to convince people that they are not fantasy books.
http://web.archive.org/web/20040831203534/http://www.terrygoodkind.com/chats/PIchat5.php
That reads disturbingly like Koontz

[Qmanol]

Goodkind is (as a whole) terrible. At least the series has the slight redeeming factor of being complete.

[Armando Penblade]

Yeah, I wa happy to hear it would actually end.

I am odd in the respect that I get *extremely* uncomfortable watching characters I like, even slightly, end up in painful or uncomfortable situation, especially when dramatic irony is used to clue the audience in before the chars.

Like, I mean, stop-enjoying-the-book/movie/episode uncomfortable. It's hard for me to watch some sitcoms that toss characters into doomed situations on a regular basis.

To read that Goodkind continues this ridiculous "SHE CANNOT LOVE" shite between Richard and Kahlan thus scares me. . . assuming he continues to come up w/ situations like the Mord Sith torture scene, I am pretty sure that I'll have to stop reading out of sheer empathetic pain =/

Also, so odd to hear the sheer amount of hate for Goodkind. . . is he basically the Dan Brown of hte fantasy world? (By that, I mean, popular in the mainstream sense, but vapid/bad/poorly-written/etc.)

Because reading through the two Steven Erikson threads got me somewhat interested, but it is very different from the sort of books I typically enjoy, and trying to slog through the shitty first book doesn't sound like my idea of fun--it borders to close to "appreciating" the books rather than "Enjoying" them, which is something I refuse to do with any artistic medium ;)

[Matt Perkins]

This explains Laurell K. Hamilton's last dozen books.
Nothing explains Hamilton's books after the first one or two. They weren't great to start, but somewhat interesting bubble gum reading with huge logic flaws. Then she got hit in the back of the head and fell down the rabbit hole something fierce.

[Matt Perkins]

Dear god man. I went back and read more of that interview with Goodkind. Not only does the man not write fantasy (he's just pigeonholed by publishers, it's his fault), he some horribly retarded opinions on drug users of any sort, thinks this of Ayn Rand, "I was shocked to discover someone who so articulately expressed my beliefs and views of life.", and anyone who didn't like his last four books didn't like them because they aren't fans and hate that the books exist at all.

I kid you the fuck not.

I'm glad I was already past being a fan of Goodkind, because you would have just ruined me on him forever, Angie.

[Reldan]

To read that Goodkind continues this ridiculous "SHE CANNOT LOVE" shite between Richard and Kahlan thus scares me. . . assuming he continues to come up w/ situations like the Mord Sith torture scene, I am pretty sure that I'll have to stop reading out of sheer empathetic pain


The best part is that despite having already overcome the "SHE CANNOT LOVE" plot in the first book and then having that love come into doubt but be once more solved in the second book, the third book yet again revolves around whether they're really in love. And those are widely considered the GOOD books in the series.

[nixon66]

Dear god man. I went back and read more of that interview with Goodkind. Not only does the man not write fantasy (he's just pigeonholed by publishers, it's his fault), he some horribly retarded opinions on drug users of any sort, thinks this of Ayn Rand, "I was shocked to discover someone who so articulately expressed my beliefs and views of life.", and anyone who didn't like his last four books didn't like them because they aren't fans and hate that the books exist at all.

I kid you the fuck not.

I'm glad I was already past being a fan of Goodkind, because you would have just ruined me on him forever, Angie.

I read the interview after seeing your quotes, and wow it does not dissapoint! He's truly amazing! Funniest thing I've read all day.

[Armando Penblade]

Quick question:

how many babes in burning houses did Terry's ancestors have to save to earn the Goodkind appellation?!

[malkav11]

Having read the whole (terribly formatted, slightly fragmentary) interview transcript, I am now firmly convinced that Goodkind is such a raving nutjob that I rescind my earlier recommendation of the first couple of books. I really don't think I could live with further feeding his o'erweening ego or his pocketbook.

[Reldan]

On the bright side, through my interactions with Goodkind's writing, I can now instantly surmise that anyone I run into online who puts the name "Rahl" in as part of their handle is most likely a gibbering fuckwit.

[Robert Sharp]

RAHLMAO!