obediah

I've seen a bit of conversation about this series in a few other threads, but rather than try to take them off-topic, I figured I'd start a dedicated thread to see what people think.

To start with, I'm the kind of person that generally finishes a book/series if I make it past the first few chapters. Sometimes I end up involved in a series that I just want to die, and SoT is getting to be that way.

I enjoyed the first book quite a bit, it wasn't the most original, but it seemed to be a good , mature take on a fantasy world that had some good ideas and was willing to break rules to make a good read (something George RR Martin went on to du much better at).

I grabbed the next few books and although not as good, they were still interesting. Over the course of these books a lot of fantasy cliches and motifs were woven in, and the situations our romantic leads fell into touched on every grade school fantasy a boy could have about saving and impressing the girl.

As our heroes managed to work themselves into deeper and darker and less interesting pits, Goodkind starting working more and more modern moralistic ideals into the novels. Luckily I can't remember all of it, but he's gone after communism and socialism in a big way. Pacifism, cowardice, blah, blah, blah he hits on them all.

It was like Goodkind died and then all of the sudden Tom Clancy and the ghost of Ayn Rand were writing the books. The "bad" guyes all became very heavy-handed exagerated straw-men of modern ideals. Of course a communist is bad when his other hobbies are butchering babies, torture, raping women and boys, and trying to kill the heroes.

Much like Atlas Shrugged extremely exagerated and clearly "good or evil or evil-now-good or good-now-evil" characters and page upon page of in-chracter lecturing really start to drag on.

At the motif picking is only getting worse. It's like if you watch sitcoms after awhile you can tell what's going to happen in an epsidode of one series based on other series.."uh oh kid A wrecks the car and kid B knows and even though A and B fight all the time B covers for them", etc..

I was wondering if others feel the same way, or more interestingly what people that like where the series is going think?

Does anyone know of fantasy series where the left is crammed down our throats? I'd be interested in seeing if my objection is the slant of the moralistic lesson or that it exists at all (or at least it's implementation).

GunslingerCold

I agree that SOT is basically Goodkinds opinions on communism since a few books ago. I didnt think the first books were great but they were readable. You could read them while waiting for George RR Martins new book or The Dark Tower but I cant even read the new books.

StormBerlin

I am totally devoted to the series (about done with Naked Empire) and I totally am hooked. Even though we don't share the same opinion on this series, I'm just glad someone else has heard of it. I don't know how far you have gotten, but I personally am very impressed with where Terry Goodkind has taken the characters and the plot. Every author incorporates their own ideals and beliefs into what they write, so I don't see why you are so surprised that Sword of Truth is the same way. I like where the series went and is going, but I'm going to take into account your opinion and go from there. Thanks for your input.

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obediah

Goodkings morality stands out a lot more to me than any other fantasy I have read. I'm not sure if it's because most fantasy writers have leanings more in tune with mine, or if most of them are just more subtle. I'd like to think the latter, but may be less subjective than I'd like to think. I really do think that Goodkind goes overboard in making the bad people "bad", which undermines the message he is shooting for.

Even though I don't agree with the messages in his later books, I'm come to enjoy his books more than Jordans lately...at least things do happen.

Of the currently progressing fantasy series I am most happy with the Robin Hobb and George R.R. Martin. , and am waiting for Tad Williams to get back to real fantasy. As much as I'm not religious, I still loved the dragon-bone chair series with it's heavy religous overtones.

almostaugust

Yeah, i loved the first book. When i picked it up a couple of years ago, i couldnt put it down. Thats really as far as it went. I wasnt much taken with Goodkind's political ideaologies i guess, but moreso, it was the deteriation of the story. Just my opinion.
I am right into George RR Martin's series at the moment. Its some of the best and most gritty fantasy ive ever read. This guy breaks alot of fantasy rules, so if you havent read it be prepared for a suprise.

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WhoaitsZ

i don't want to upset anyone, especially since i'd be upset myself if someone went to the wheel of time thread and said 'this sucks!'

buuuuuuuuut

the sword of truth sucks

wizard's first rule was dull...... i forgget the names, but book 2 was enjoyable.. parts of three..... then i realized i'd rather reread war and peace before book 4. i hated war and peace.

i gave up

FunHater

I've read the first three in the series. I thought the first two were quite good, the third was alright. I'm curious to know what happens with the characters, but at the same time I just don't feel like reading that many books when I've heard the quality is only going down.

obediah

I finished up the Sword of Truth Saturday ( and read Lucifer's Hammer yesterday, but that's another thread). All in all I think it was better than the one or two before it. Especially the one about Richard trying to get a job, and buy a house but the goverrment took all his money away for social programs.

There was still too much lecturing, and it was nice to pick on passive people instead of communists (and Richards response to the peace rally was - different). At least some stuff happened.

I guess I'll keep reading, the time investment isn't that much, and I can always get the book at the library if I don't want to pay for it anymore.

Pellaz

I really enjoyed the first book in this series. After that...the books got hit and miss for me. My big issue with the latest book is that I feel he's started the WOT route here...we just had a whole book that will have little to no impact of the overall story. Plus, the same speech once every fifteen pages got old very fast. I'll keep reading though.

I've never read another fantasy series that approches the moral high handedness that SOT does, although modisett's sci fi is almost equaly so, from a different stance.

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twister002

So far I've read all of this series. I enjoyed the first three, the rest have been pretty bad. The latest one was horrible.

Some of the ideas and the background are well developed, I just wish he would do more with it instead of constantly going off on some romance novel tangent.

WhoaitsZ: You read the first book, thought it was dull and then read the next two books? Your optimism lightens my heart. I would have stopped before I finished the first one if I was bored.