Author: Terry Goodkind
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Rating: WARTY!
I don’t know if Goodkind should be pronounced 'kind' as in, "This book might make good kindling," or 'kind' as in "Kindly tell me why I'm wasting my time with this?"
Yes, it’s that bad, but I hadn't given up on it as I started this review (I have now!). It’s 756 pages of which I'd gamely (yes, that deodorant didn't quite cut it) plowed through some 200, and it had thus far failed to ignite me. I kept thinking that with this many pages, there had to be something good in there. Usually I'm excellent at choosing books which I find enthralling when I read them, but once in a while…well there but for the grace of Google go I.
It didn’t help that when I picked up this book (fortunately at a discount bookstore, and even more fortunately on an Xmas gift card so I didn't fork out the cash myself), I didn’t realize that it was book ~10 in the "Sword of Truth" series, nor that the sequel to it, which I picked up at the same time, was the next book in that same series.
Sword of Truth? Seriously? I'm not a fantasy fan, and that right there should have taught me a lesson, but you must know how passion blinds you to the truth. Had I realized that it was that far along in a series, I would never have started on it, and knowing what I know now, I'm beginning to wish that I hadn't (started on it), or had (realized it). But I saw nothing to indicate this on the book cover!
Unfortunately, in my ignorance, I had access only to the back-cover blurb, that dark cassock over so many venal sins. It went on about some guy waking up after an injury and discovering that the love of his life was not only missing, but also missing from the memories of all of his friends. C'mon, what's not to like about a premise like that? I was hooked and shamelessly so, I admit it!
Then I started reading it.
It was tedious. There are brief spurts of conversation, but these are interspersed with abysmally tedious and unnecessarily lavish quantities of exposition (unnecessary especially since this is book ~10 for goodness sakes!). If the exposition was interesting that would be one thing, but it isn’t. Not to me, anyway! As Goodkind writes at one point: “Ann wanted to hurry him along and get to the meat...” Well, so did I!
As I've read more about Goodkind I've seen that I'm not the only one who shares this view of his "writing", although many people have favorably reviewed his work. OTOH , even some of those do snark about his tediousness and complain that his writing has gone off somewhat after the first novel or two.
Goodkind is evidently one of those Americans who thinks the USA is the only country in the world - certainly the only one with decent moral values. His whole Sword of Truth mess repeatedly pits the Old World Against the New and depicts the New as wholly good (despite unconscionable acts perpetrated by Richard, Kahlen, Nicci, and Cara) and the Old as holy mother of terror. Again, if I'd known this about him in that bookstore, I'd never have picked up the books to begin with, but we live and learn. Hopefully.
As I've indicated, Goodkind's writing consists of huge amounts of exposition sparsely sprinkled with conversation. The conversation is occasionally quite engrossing, especially given that Richard is some sort of savior, the bearer of the Sword of Truth and accompanied by two interesting women, one of whom is a wizard, and both of whom were once his enemies, but who are now sworn to protect him. He’s involved with neither one of them since he's searching for the love of his life, Kahlan. The second book, Phantom, tells the story from her perspective, which is why I also bought that at the same time. Maybe in other books we find out more about his companions, but not in this one. Not in the first two hundred pages, anyway.
I have a really hard time with books that feature wizards, dragons, “fae” (c’mon, they’re fairies, and you actually push me further away by employing euphemistic and pretentious names for them), goblins, trolls, dwarfs, elves, etc., ad infinitum ad nauseam. Maybe they should term the goblins ‘gobs’ to put them on the same footing as the fae? The trolls would be tro, then come the dwa and the elven? Seriously, I just can't get into books which have bizarre names featuring apostrophes in unlikely places.
Those tropes are at best lame jokes to me, and at worst why I don’t read much fantasy. The stories are too much like the Bible; these wizards, like Yahweh, are supposed to be very powerful and able to perform wonderful, magical deeds, but when it comes right down to it, it’s the common folks wielding swords who are required to actually get things done. The wizards and gods turn out to be effectively useless; certainly useless enough that they contribute nothing but a humorous line here and there. I agree that humor is magical, but I doubt that this was the impress which the authors wished to convey as to the power of their magical creations! This same lack of verve has plagued wizards in the Tolkien books and in every other story I’ve ever read involving wizards and witches, including the Harry Potter heptalogy.
Of course, having written this review so far, I took the book to work the next day to read on my lunch break and I read chapter nineteen, which made a really good impression on me, so I was encouraged to read some more, although having read it that far and been underwhelmed, I had no faith that it will really turn around.
My lack of faith was to be suitably rewarded. After lunch time on Friday, I read no more of it until Sunday night, when I read a little before going to sleep. It sucked. Majorly. In fact, it went beyond that rank right to the kernel, so it sucked in general (and five star at that)! The selfsame two characters in whom I was most interested had a conversation right after the life of one of them had been saved by the main protagonist (the part I really enjoyed), and their conversation was of a quality that made me think of something my eldest son might come up with. Right then and there I dropped the book. Enough is enough.
I’m done with this series. This weekend I began watching the TV series based on the books, which is much more entertaining and engrossing. Yes, it still has a lot of the weaknesses of the books, like the wizard being pretty much useless, but I can put up with that for a good mindless romp which doesn't have tedious harangues and endless bullshit speeches and descriptions. Episode two, which I saw last night, was kick-ass, and the relationship between Richard and Kahlan (which they pronounce kay-lenn - I’d been thinking of it as Kahh-lahhn) is actually not bad so far. No sign yet of my two fave characters.
I have mixed feelings about series books. I can’t ever see myself writing a series, but I do read series, and I’ll review the ones I’ve enjoyed as time permits, starting with Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera, but although a series offers the comfort of established characters and premises, it can become rather tedious and stagnant. You always know the protagonist is going to escape because you know they’ll be needed in the next book!
I started reading the Honor Harrington series by David Weber and was very favorably impressed, but after about eight volumes, it became truly boring and I abruptly quit reading it. On the other side of that coin is Jim Butcher's Codex Alera hexalogy. This is a fantasy series with wizards (kinda) which I began to read, became distanced from, but later read again and fell in love with. Indeed, Kitai, the female protagonist in that series has become my favorite female character, replacing Molly Millions of Neuromancer.
There's a great Terry Goodkind Parody site!
