A while back, I read the first four books of the Sword of Truth series (I don't think any others were out at that time; I may be wrong, though). I just purchased (and read) the first book ($3? The cover may be cheap advertising, but I'll drink to that!) and plan on getting a few more, since I have a gift card.

My question is: How do the latter novels face up to the first four books? I would also be interested in hearing your opinion of all of the Sword of Truth books in relation to each other.

I assume you mean the books by Terry Goodkind.

Uh the series is alright I suppose, but the later books tend to work from the points of view of odd little characters nobody has ever heard of before. At least there's not much more dominatrix stuff... if I wanted that I'd be reading S.M. Stirling. The anti organized religion and anti communism commentary is interesting in the first couple of books where it is introduced. By the latest book in the series it begins to feel a bit like beating a dead horse. We get it already. You can't love others unless you love yourself. or something like that. I've seen that line too many times :blink:

Anyway, it's decent. but the first few books were better as an adventure story. As for any sort of moral... well, basically it seems he's telling us to appreciate capitalism because the alternative sucks :hmm

And I wish he'd go back to writing from Richard's point of view more :ohwell:

Just my $.02

i read, and liked, the first book, but never got the urge to read the rest. They're too big, not worth it for writing which isn't top-rate. Same reason I don't read Robert Jordan :P Now Robin Hobb is worthwhile.

:hmm2: *shakes fist at Kundor while muttering Arr!* It do be decent enough, thank you very much. As for Robert Jordan, the weakness of his latter WoT books deprives me of the will to fight you... :ohwell:

I'm not a complete elitist; i have no problem reading even mediocre fantasy, it's escapist, after all. But I won't waste time remembering details to slog through even a trilogy of mediocre fantasy...and when even fairly quality series go on and on, as Sword of Truth and WoT do, or Terry Brook's Shannara, or Kurtz's Deryni books, I lose the will to perservere unless it's of Hobb quality. It's just not worth maintaining the proponderance of backstory and characters and such in my mind.

I love the whole SoT series. FotF and PoC were great! i cryed fr 3 hours at the end of FotF!

my only problem with SoT is that Goodkind compleay copys RJ. Yes Rj is copying JRR, but he dosent copy the entire plot, and all the characters. I mean my god, Goodkind is taking it almost word for word!

I have enjoyed the entire series so far. Yeah, Goodkind does copy RJ and does try and push his views down your throat sometimes. However, I like his world and his characters. I think he tells a good story.

Its bloody boring IMHO

I have read many bloody books...
and many boring books....
but rarely do you find one that is both. Quite the accomplishment, really.

Okay, I've caught the fact that Ann's horse is named Bella, and the flashback to where Elayne was giving birth, both in Blood of the Fold... Are there any other direct connections with Wheel of Time? B)

I've changed my stance a bit on Goodkind. After reading an interview ghost posted on his board, it is clear this guy is crazy and a jerk. His stories have some good qualities (otherwise I wouldn't have read all the books), yet his preaching is starting to annoy me. He seems to be writing a philosophy book and expects everyone to agree with him. Based on the interview, it seems that if you disagree with him, he thinks you're evil. The man's crazy. :whoa:

actually, I feel a lot of that coming across in his writing :ohwell:

There is a great difference between the first four books and the others. The fifth and beyond focus most of the book on 'other' characters (Richard was lucky he got any appearances at all in PoC) and just aren't as interesting.

I've definetly given them up. The guy even looks like a psycho. The first couple were ok the rest are just weird. He's also clearly a pervert.

:rollin:

what tipped you off? the sex, the blood, the torture, the combination of the three? :lol:

All three for sure.

Also the fact that to make his characters evil they have to interfere with children... I really don't like reading about that because it makes me wonder what sort of imagination the guy has

SoT is sort of interesting. I enjoyed the first books much more than I did the latter. Not to say the later books weren't good, it's just his books seem to read more like capitalist propaganda than books. I'm already doing the capitalist thing... I don't need more praising of the thing. And then there's the book where Richard doesn't even show up at all, yah, good call there.

indeed. who needs capitalist propaganda when it's already the accepted system? what's the purpose? the book isn't going to sell in any communist nations anyway....

and Richard is sure lucky the mord sith are chicks. wouldn't it have been unfortunate to him if his dad had given those lil magic rods to muscular men in red tights instead? :ohwell: