Amph Terry Goodkind

I've really enjoyed his series about Richard Rahl, especally the connection between all of the books about the Wizards's Rules. The first book, Wizard's First Rule, was my favorite, and books 5-7 weren't that good.

What you do think of them?

 

I started reading these last year and got through books 1-4, I think. I thought the first few books were brilliant. Then the whole dream king came into being and everyone started losing their abilities, and I lost complete interest in the story. Course that could also do w/ the fact that I rapidly blasted through 4-5 giant books and was just exhausted from reading them

Let's see the books are:

Wizard's First Rule
Stone of Tears
Blood of the Fold
Temple of the Winds
Soul of the Fire
Faith of the Fallen
The Pillars of Creations
Naked Empire
Chainfire

And coming soon Phantom

I recently picked up CHAINFIRE and am determined to hop back on and finish the series though. I think I gave up at FAITH OF THE FALLEN, so I've got a bunch of catching up to do.

I think as a writer, Terry is an amazing author. His prose style and ability to beautifully weave different storylines together makes him a master storyteller. I also truly LOVE his characters. THat being said, even though it's been a year since I read the first books, I know that jumping back into the series won't be hard, the story is so rich and amazing that it's hard to forget.

Richard and Kahlan are fantastic characters, I've missed them.

 

Rumour has it in Wizard's First Rule he ate testicles under torture. 'Tis true?

 

I don't remember what happened in which book. Richard got seriously tortured but I don't remember him doing that particular thing.

 

It wasn't him, it was a different guy. He ater his own, and it wasn't really torture . . . but that was a minor part.


I was mad when Warren died He's my favorite character. I didn't like Soul of the Fire at all, and the next two were just okay. I can't wait for Phantom!!!

 

Oh. When I came across that in a review whilst investigating the series, it put me off from further explorations. I had the impression the Mord-Sith had Richard eating testicles. I know Korean mean eat sheep testicles for skin nutritional purposes---Laos does far worse---and on a culinary level I'm nonchalant, but that's not something I was keen to read in leisure time, as was the child torture reviews were saying.

A year ago, I had all the mental and physical torture I could tolerate from Ian Irvine's quadrilogy, plus Martin's trilogy beforehand, and it seemed authors were just competing to see what person can withstand the most unrelenting mental and bodily anguish and still pull through. It got to the stage where I read a woman tripping and bleeding her toe just because she hadn't suffered any greater harm for a chapter, and I thought, this is it, get stuff.

 

I read the first 3 books as well, but quickly realized that he stuffed a 300 page book in between 500 or more pages of useless banter for a grand total of 800 pages

 

I actually liked these books, and have most of them, but I'd be lying if i said i thought they were an outstanding series. I do, however, find them highly entertaining. I like the characters and the idea of the world. Hardly anything annoys me, but they are also not anything that touched me profoundedly. Also, i really hated The Pillars of Creations. Boooooring. I liked the rest though, and just recently picked up chainfire and read that one. The scarcity of Kahlan in the book was sort of avragating, though as i liked her a lot. Some of those i finished in a single day.

 

Pillars wasn't any good Barely even had Richard in it . . .

 

Yeah i guess that is why i disliked it so much. The whole book, i was just waiting for him to appear and it just never happened. I just never got into the story.

 

"Hi. I'm Terry Goodkind. I don't write Fantasies. I write Novels. Whomsoever doesn't like my Novels about Important Things® is Evil and a Bad Person and, if he dares to criticize them, clearly Frothing at the Mouth. Also, from each according to his abilities, and to each according to his needs. Thank you."

 

ha Mastadge

Vintage Goodkind, needs a book to say a sentence...

 

Richard does seem to get more holier-than-thou in later books . . .

 

I've read the books, although I didn't enjoy them as much the last time I read them (this past November). It might have had something to do with reading them immediately after Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, because there are a lot of similarities between the two (more so than the standard fantasy similarities, IMO).

Regardless, its a fairly good series that can get overly lengthy at times but is still a decent read. I'm looking forward to the last couple books (I think there are 2 more coming, IIRC)

 

Yes. The next one comes out in Feb or March, and i assume the last one will be out about a year after that.

 

I'm finally going back and rereading the series now that all 11 books have been published... and somehow they still fall short, IMO. Definitely uses more words than necessary - I was 600 pages or so into Stone of Tears and decided that all that could have been condensed into 200 pages without actually losing anything. Its like they're long for the sake of being long rather than long with extra content. Jordan's Wheel of Time is similarly long... but without the impression of "man, this needs to be condensed", at least IMO.

Still, its interesting going back through them (I'm almost finished with Blood of the Fold right now, so still a long ways to go) and I'm glad I'm doing it. Probably also good that I waited until Confessor was out in paperback, since I know I didn't like how Chainfire ended, on a cliffhanger, as I recall.

Also, what the heck is up with the size of the Confessor paperback? Its about half an inch taller than normal mass market books, making it look silly on the shelf.

 

Ew. I just got the last 4 from the library.

I haven't read the earlier ones in a while, but in the later ones, at least, the monologing was getting annoying. A couple pages of one person speaking? Please.

 

Especially when a lot of it is recap of what happened?

Also, even though I haven't read Wheel of Time in a while, the similarities are definitely standing out again. And between the two, WoT wins easily.

 

I'd like to go back and reread WoT. But the difference is while I think there are too many characters (with too similar names) in WoT, the length of the books and of the series was necessary, while Goodkind dragged his out too long - especially since in the end, Richard was very easily able to shove the army off into another world.

 

I actually love all of Jordan's extra characters and subplots... Goodkind's aren't nearly as addicting for me, unfortunately

Some are good, though. I like Verna and Warren, for example. Brogan and Lunetta (prominent in BotF), on the other hand... well, not so much.

 

Verna and Warren I loved (RIP Warren ) but the rest of them, not so much.

 

I'm currently being reminded why I stopped reading temporarily after Chainfire came out. Just plain don't like the whole idea behind the book.

Also, Richard and Kahlan spend a TON of time split up or separated from each other.. it seems like its nearly a constant thing.

 

I hadn't thought about it much, but yeah, you're right.

I just think they should have been done with those boxes of Orden already.

 

Phantom and Confessor certainly do everything they can to utterly ruin Wizard's First Rule. The only thing that comes out of that book now that means something to the series is Richard being able to withstand Kahlan's power. The whole Darken Rahl thing? Now utterly pointless.

Way to ruin your own book.

On the Richard and Kahlan note:

1: separated when Denna captures Richard and for the remainder of the book until the very end
2: Richard taken to Palace of the Prophets, they're split up for most of the book
3: apart pretty much the entire time
4: Sure, they're in the same place physically now, but the whole book hinges on them marrying other people. I think that counts.
5: They're actually... together? Imagine that!
6: Richard captured and taken to Old World by Nicci, split up for most of the book
7: THEY AREN'T EVEN IN THIS BOOK UNTIL THE VERY END!!
8: Wow, they're actually mostly together... amazing! Until Kahlan goes and turns herself in, but that's really minor compared to most of the other books
9: Richard is the only person who knows who Kahlan is. The others refuse to believe she exists (I can't stand this premise, for the record)
10: Well, they finally accept that she exists... but thats about it.
11: Yep, Kahlan's still under the dang Chainfire spell...

Finally, the Chainfire trilogy is not a trilogy. It's one book, cut into pieces. The ending points in the middle? Relatively meaningless. I'm just not sure whether to call it Chantor (Chantosor?) or Chain-anto-essor or what.

 

To to be fair he doesn't really write books as so much as rants on how objectivism is awesome and liberals are all bad people.