Has anyone ever read the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind? There are 12 books total in the series, and they're all fairly large. They are by far my most favorite book series, though I am only halfway through currently. If you have read it or even part of it, who is/are your favorite character(s)? If you could take out any of them and be one for a day or so, who/what would you pick? Personally, my favorite character is Kahlan. My favorite "group" of characters, though, are the Mord-Sith. Honestly, I would love to be a Mord-Sith. Not because of what they do or what they have gone through, but because of what they represent. They are filled with so much honor and loyalty, and they take no crap from anyone. They're so tough, and I am very fond of them. Plus, running around in either brown or red leather sounds fun, doesn't it? (I'd always wear the red.)
I read the books. I kinda got bored of them after a while, but they do have some good scenes and characters. My personal favorite is Nathan because of his silly antics but big heart. He throws in some levity to some really hard storylines. I haven't been into them much anymore so I don't know what's happened in the last few books.
I read the Sword of Shanarra in the 8th grade and never had the urge to read one of his books ever again. I can't say that I even really remember what it was about. I guess it didn't make much of an impression.
I've only read the first one Wizard's First Rule, and I have to say that I did enjoy it. I really liked the fairly descriptive and unbounded writing style that Terry Goodkind employed. I don't know if I exactly cared for the world as much though. And the, I think, eighty straight pages of torture seemed to get a little painful (pun totally intended). But on the side, I really did like that one as a fantasy read on the side for a short hour break or what-have-you. I may read the others if I find the time and get copies. They're quite cheap if I remember... And you are seriously mental if you aspire to be a Mord-sith...just sayin'...haha (I enjoyed their whole concept too. =])
I've read the entire series and thought it was okay. Not great, not terrible. It doesn't impress everyone by any means, and readers are apparently pretty divided on the topic. By the eighth or ninth book I realized there was about a hundred pages of plot and five hundred pages of filler, which lowered my opinion of it a great deal. Of course, by that time I had also started to focus on character power balance in my own writing, and the fact that Richard was a raging Mary Sue bothered me. The world could never convince me that it was real. I mean, it worked okay for the first book. By the second, the edges were fraying, like a historical fiction movie where you suddenly realize the main character is wearing tennis shoes and the sidekick has a wristwatch and a battery-powered calculator. There wasn't a map and travel time was inconsistent. The magic system was arbitrary and designed for Coolness as its main factor -- so never mind how rare this kind of magic is, Richard gets it anyway. In one book, he is poisoned, and uses magic to identify the antidote at the last minute. That's not only a deus ex machina (contrived coincidence or situation), it's an asspull (where you cannot actually believe it at all). It would be like Frodo discovering halfway through that the Ring doesn't just turn him invisible, it also lets him shapeshift and conjure snow around him and speak to butterflies -- and he finds out right when he needs to shapeshift and hide himself in snow and learn of the evil plan by talking to an insect. It's unbelieveable and it hurts the story. Now. Setting aside the observation that Richard is less a neat character and more a bundle of I-can-do-anything. (Or that Jagang, the archnemisis, somehow magically manages to feed and clothe and house and deal with a huge army, the logistics of which still make me shake my head.) The books were still fun, because they built up to huge awesome climactic scenes at the end. You had to slog through a lot of muck to get there, and for most people I know it just wasn't worth the effort -- after all, why waste your time for the payoff when books like "Lies of Locke Lamora," Berg's "Transformation," "The Atrocity Archives," Powers's "Last Call," "Name of the Wind," "The Blade Itself," Niven & Pournelle's "Inferno" and Sanderson's "Mistborn" and "Elantris" are out there waiting to give you more awesome-stuff-per-page? I think my favorite character was either Nathan or Shota. But if I could be a one for a day, I'd probably be Richard; the ridiculous magic level would be fun to play with.
Oops, wrong Terry. I was thinking Terry Brooks, not Terry Goodkind. But I did try and read Wizards First Rule and I just couldn't get into it.
I couldn't get past Wizard's First Rule. I couldn't even get that far into it. The dialogue and characters seemed so hard to believe in. They FELT like fictional characters, not like people. And worse, I did not care for his writing style. It never flowed well for me, and I always found myself re-wording his sentences in my head as I read them.
I read all twelve books and enjoyed them. When I found out they were making a live action television series from the books, I thought it would be great, since Terry himself was to be a producer. What a letdown. The show is loosely based on the books and never follows the storyline at all. Terry wasn't allowed to give any direction to the show since he'd sold the rights away. The funny part of it all; my wife started to watch the show with me and she thought it was great. Then, I started reading the books to her, and she couldn't believe how they'd destroyed the story. Yes, 'tis true. I sat and read all twleve Goodkind books out loud to my wife. Now we're on the Runelord series.
Nah, just under a year to do so. We never watch TV anymore. All we do for two to three hours a night is read. Quality time with the wife, ya know.
The Sword of Truth Books are excellent. Well at least 9 out of the 12 books are, which is not a bad ratio for such a long running series. The thing I love about Goodkind is his ability to create so many amazing characters, whether they are main characters or just supporting ones. If Goodkind wanted he could wrote entire books centered on just his supporting cast, like Cara, Nicci, Zedd, Verna and even Denna and Rachel, both of whom have very tiny roles in the series, but no less compelling. He forces you to be emotionally invested in all his characters. I don't know about anyone else, but this is not as common as one might think. You'd be hard pressed to find more than one character to connect to in a book and sometimes not even that.
