The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind

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Submitted by KrishnaPrasad Bhat 
(Sep 10, 2009)

The concept is good as such. But TG has the habit of dragging the story too much when there is no need of it. And major irritation is repetitions and flashbacks. Since this is a series, nobody will read book 4 before reading book 1-2-3. Why repeat the story of those books in book 4? That too not once, several times (I just used a book number, the flashbacks are in all books, not just 4). And in the story line also, he made the hero a Superman with all the ideas & power. But till the end, he never realizes how to use his gift. Then what is the use of having gift at all.

And think about the world where all people look alike. Richard is taken as a captive in one of the books by Nikki. He travels to the other end of Old world, but nobody thinks and realizes that he is not from that place at all. No different races of humans?

The first time I ever heard of the book, my dad was read 'Temple of the Winds.' He gave me 'The Wizard's First Rule,' and I was captured. When I read the book at age 14, I was entranced. The character seemed so real compared to what I had been reading(Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.) When he introduced the characters, I came to know each as though I was actually meeting them, and eventually came to love many of them as though they were friends. Some of my favorites were actually not main characters(Funny how that happens.) A couple good mentions were Zedd, Cara, and Nicci. Goodkind writes with real people, not some people who have everything going for them and can do no wrong.

The first book was great, probably in the top five of the series(of course, out of an eleven book series.) While it did get a little long winded, in the 'Pillars of Creation' and 'Naked Empire' it seemed as though he was just writing for writing's sake. 'Faith of the Fallen' was another great one. Another thing he could have improved on was not overplaying Richard and Kahlan(BTW, pronounced Kay-lin) getting seperated all the time. It was when the Imperial Order got deep, not just a face villian like they were up until Chainfire when Nicci explains their ideals, was when the book got intresting. The Imperial order was obviously a crack at the crusaders back in the day. Goodkind is not against religion, like many believe, he just thinks reason is the greatest gift to man ever.

Finally, I loved the last three books. Goodkind outdid himself in those three books. The only complaint I had from the last book was that Nicci didn't get something better. But a great series(If you really want to, you can skip the third and the eighth, they really don't add much to the story)

This whole series was mediocre at best. The first couple books were pretty decent, I liked the story, I loved the characters, it was fun. By the time I started reading the third book, I realized that Goodkind is a below par writer who relies of repetition to fill the pages of his books. The same concepts and the same lines and the same words are repeated over and over throughout the series in a manner that is almost maddening! In addition the culmination of events that happens in the last few chapters of every book is somewhat boring when it is so expected. Story lines are never allowed to come to a satisfactory ending mid-novel, and always pile up in the last few pages. This is further frustrated by the fact that towards the end of the series the answers become less creative and interesting, leaving this reader thoroughly disappointed after finishing the series. I understand that this book was targeted at a younger audience, but it felt at times as though it was written by a teenager. Worse, it felt as though the first book was planned, and each book after that was written almost as an afterthought. One including some extremely disappointing retconing in the final book. Overall: decent story, poor writing, very little depth in the characters (everyone is either perfect, constantly improving, or the bad guy), and a absolutely HORRIBLE ending to the series. I was angry when I finished the last book, I'm not even kidding.

From the first book, I was captured by this series. Goodkind manages to build characters in a magical way. The scale of the series only manifests as you progress through the books, but build it does, and better it gets.

There were a couple of books that were a little disappointing, but in hindsight did a job for the author in explaining other things that you would have wondered about without.

Each novel has a very political drive which allows for a linkage to the real world which is very interesting.

I particularly liked Goodkinds interpretation of magic. Overall, this series is wonderful. I would also recommend that AFTER you've read it, to read A Debt of Bones, which is a short and interesting prequil.