The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind

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Submitted by Anonymous 
(Feb 14, 2010)

I am amazed at how good some of these reviews are. Perhaps this is because I am an avid reader and tend to look for specifics in the books that I read. Like Characterization, Plot and Structure just to name a few. Wizards First Rule grabbed me with the overall concept and ideas. The first book was clunky at best. I would not go so far as to say Goodkind is a bad author but with some character cleanup and a few rewrites this series could have been fantastic.
Goodkind really needs to work on Structure. His sentence structure is some of the worst I have read. I will give leeway on the fact Wizards first rule was his first book. I would want to see some improvement over the course of the books. He did improve his writing a little, but not his structure. Every time I read the word “goodly” I want to throw the book in the trash. His structures are still awkward and hinder the reader from achieving their goal of finishing the book. When I have to stop reading a paragraph because the sentence is structured awkwardly, that is just plain bad writing. If you want great sentence structure and flow with no awkward moments, read Jacqueline Cary.
The side characters are more enjoyable then the main characters. Richard is a whiner who doesn’t want to do anything. He’s so “Good” all the time it just makes me want to push him off a cliff. Kahlan, in my opinion, is badass. That is right up until her and Richard come together and she turns into some love stricken school girl who cannot live without Richard Rahl. Love is powerful, but not everything. Zedd, Nathan and Cara are all great characters and it’s unfortunate that the reader gets hardly anything about them. I flew through Tower of the Winds because I wanted to know what NATHAN was going to do next! I was never emotionally involved with Richard and Kahlan. Their Depth of character is just not on the pages of the book. I felt worse about Raina then I have ever felt for Richard or Kahlan. I want to be emotionally involved with the characters. Goodkind doesn’t give me the vehicle needed to get there. If you want to read a book that you are emotionally invested in the characters then read anything by Orson Scott Card.

Goodkind is pretty smart. I mean, think about it, he saw where the money was. I would compare Sword of Truth to Twilight. See, Twilight is written to a young teenage female audience and the Sword or Truth was just written to young teenagers in general. It doesn't matter that the average age audience for the Sword of Truth is a lot higher that one might expect; one can't help but see that the targeted age is quite young. He loses a lot of his readers around Faith of the Fallen when he switches into preachy anti-socialist mode and starts diverting all of his energies into tearing down communistic or socialistic ideology rather than actually helping revive his dying story (although to be honest, reviving it is like trying to give CPR not to a corpse, but to a skeleton with all the skin already rotted off). He does one thing well though, and that is repeat himself. I don't say that he repeats good things he said before, he just repeats the plot for the first book ten times.

Anyways, I hope this review steers you away from reading The Sword of Truth if you are at a point where you can still be spared. For the love of the light, people, please don't read it, don't fund Goodkind's drug habit! At least, well, his dependence on drugs is just one of the things I've assumed after reading. I could be wrong but I doubt it.

I'm young and read LOTS of books. I especially enjoy fantasy and science fiction. After the 4 TV series came out, I mentioned it to my brother. He said that it sounded familiar and then he said that there were books to the TV show. I got terribly excited and read them very quickly. Unfortunately, the books weren't part of my school's system of reading (Accelerated Reading). I started the books in June of '09 and am almost done with the last book. I find the books very exciting and gripping. Sometimes, I get lost in Richard's words. Like when he was addressing the people of the banished empire in the 8th book, I got confused and lost in his speeches to them. Maybe I'm just not that wide in my vocabulary yet, but I can still feel Richard's emotions and his feelings toward everything that goes on. I highly recommend this book to high school and possibly middle school students. I enjoyed these books greatly :)

This series is not for the light of heart. It is an epic saga, and is a book that is worth rereading many times as you go through your own saga in life.
Some people may overanalize this book, and try to find political bias or riddicule. But it is not meant to be a money-making book by targeting a certain audience, but rather a testimony of the protaganists life and morals; and it will take a lot of thinking on your part before you see the full picture.

I love this series. The characters and the world are awesome, and the plot is interesting. The action sequences are very intense, and his descriptive style makes you feel like you are the person swinging the sword of truth, not Richard. While some elements of the series are common pieces of fantasy, there are enough original, or at least uncommon aspects to make it interesting. For example, how many fantasy heroes do you know that are imprisoned at some point? Then think about how many of them are raped and tortured with an agiel for months, something presumable much worse than regular torture. From my experience, the latter is not a common occurrence. The ending novel, Confessor, is easily great enough to redeem the series from any poor qualities. A very epic ending, where you have to read the series over again to look for the clues Goodkind put right in front of you.. The only major downside to the series is that, in some of the later books, like Naked Empire, Goodkind tends to get preachy. Some of his philosophy gets redundant, as if he's trying too hard to make sure everyone understands. Otherwise, this is a great series.