Terry Goodkind - The Sword of Truth

This is Terry Goodkind’s caring face

Fantasy is not usually a genre I find myself delving into all that often. So it was strange to find myself reading this series. I’m actually kind of glad this was my reintroduction to the genre. I say this not to mean it’s very good, I use it in the sense that the prominent elements that you usually find in a Fantasy novel (and that is Fantasy with an extremely capital F) are somewhat dulled. While there are many fantasy tropes: magic, wars, even a dragon. The series seems to be more a character drama then one would assume. These books are 1/3 fantasy, 1/3 romance novel, and 2/3 Ayn Rand fan fiction. I personally have no qualms with the first two, if you want steamy romance in your hack and slash far be it for me too judge. The trouble comes when you decide to mix that third element.

In many Ayn Rand books, she sets up her characters as perfect vessels for displaying her philosophies. What this end up meaning is that her character lack the subtle flaws and imperfections that make a character feel realistic. It also makes it so her characters never grow or evolve throughout the course of the story. If you happen to be perfect for the job ahead of you, there really is no need to do much in the way of changing. Normal characters must adapt to their situation. This is exactly the trap that Terry Goodkind falls in. In an attempt to make a nonrealistic philosophy such as objectivism work, he must make a character that can overcome all the hurdles that this would entail. Thus you have a character, in this case named Richard, who by being his own deux ex machina solves all his problems by pure willpower alone.

Another odd thing happened as I was reading this series, I began to see a common set of formulas. The first is the rote way in which Terry Goodkind structures his writing. It’s as if he took it upon himself to only write 80 pages until the rising action must begin, or that the climax of the story must always be 60 pages before the ending of his books. I would think that those points would come naturally into your writing, yet somehow he makes them seem forced. The second odd formula is Richard's unnaturally regular speech patterns. This may sound odd, but as I was nearing the final few books in this series I could skip pages of dialogue at a time. Richard would begin a speech (his favorite form of speaking apparently) about the goodness of mankind and the virtues of his favorite philosophy (can you guess what that is?) and speak relevant information for one to one and a half pages, then I was free to skip a page and scan. If any word or sentences are repeated, skip another page. He would eventually move on to another subject: rinse and repeat.

All in all I’m glad I read this series, it was a much needed introduction to a genre I had thought no longer relevant to my tastes. I would recommend these books to perpetual readers looking for a palate cleanser. They are fun and entertaining and for all my gripes I did in fact buy and read the entire series, just don’t go in expecting anything amazing.