The Sword of Truth Series

[wordsgood]

EDIT: Rather than just adding a review for each book as I read it, I'm going to use this as the start of a thread and will make a new Reply for each book as I've finished it to avoid one massive post. Also, I have made some changes to this review as once again, I wrote it in a hurry and didn't do that good of a job on it!

 

Hi. I thought that since I'm re-reading this series at the moment I might do more than the quick review of the series as a whole that I recently left in another thread in this category. I will do a review for each succeeding book as I finish them.

 

The Sword of Truth series, by Terry Goodkind

Genre: Fantasy

 

11 books total in this series, plus a novella focusing on the background of the one of the main characters, First Wizard Zedd

 

Note: all books in this series are currently available in paperback

 

Book One - Wizards First Rule

Release Date: July 1995

ISBN#: 0812548051

Length: 836 pages

 

Richard Cypher, son of a merchant who frequently travels far and wide and specializes in rare, hard to find items, has spent his whole life in Hartland woods, close to the unknown and forbidding boundary. His elder brother has just been elected as First Councilor for the whole of Westland. At the moment, Michael is busy putting on the show for his special guests and other council members. Richard, on the other hand, was busy focusing on trying to find out who had just brutally murdered their father and only remaining parent. Michael had told him to stay out of it, that it was being dealt with, and Richard should stay out of things he didn't understand.

 

Richard loved his brother, but they had never agreed on much, and Michael didn't seem to understand that he was no longer a boy. He was a man. A man who needed answers, and was out once again looking for clues in the place he knew better than most anyone, but especially Michael. Richard was out scouring the woods for subtle signs that he knew had to be there, somewhere, hiding in the thick growth of the Hartland woods through which the assailants had fled.

 

Attuned to all the sights, smells and sounds of the forest, Richard could safely navigate where few others could. This was his home, his domain. Knowing he should get back to town and make an appearance at Michael's party, Richard was about ready to give up for the day when he found an intriguing clue. Just as he is trying to decide how to proceed, he spots a lone woman in the distance. She is dressed strangely in a flowing, pure white dress, and while not seeming terrified, she did appear to be trying to avoid notice. Definitely not appropriate attire for travelling in the woods, and certainly not if one is trying to move quickly, or with stealth. He soon realize she is being chased by four very large, very fearsomely armed, and decidedly unfriendly looking men....

 

Richard steps in the help the beautiful stranger and in a blink his world shifts. Within a matter of hours he learns that there is such a thing as magic, that this woman, Kahlan, is truly from the other side of the boundary and that his oldest friend Zedd, is not who he's always appeared to be.

 

Zedd, as it turns out, is from the other side of the boundary, from the Midlands, as is Kahlan. Zedd is a wizard, and not just any wizard, but the First Wizard. In that post, long before Richard was even born, it was Zedd who fought in the last great war between the Midlands and D'Hara...and who was known as the Wind of Death by the enemy. It was Zedd who had put up the boundaries, separating the Westlands - and in doing so creating a haven for those who wished to live in a world without magic - from the Midlands where magic is a part of all things in one sense or another. At the same time, he also erected a boundary between the Midlands and D'Hara, stopping forever, he hoped, any more attacks and threats of invasion by D'Hara.

 

After the war was over, and the boundaries up, the Zedd found the current ruling Council of the Midlands Alliance, which had been in place for three thousand years, with representatives from all the major, sovereign nations, had turned horribly corrupt. Quite simply, the Council's function was to work together for peace and prosperity of all lands and peoples, large and small, within the Midlands. Even for those with no seat on the council, such as the peoples of the Wilds, who did not even know the Council existed. Instead, they schemed and vied for their own personal agendas and gain.

 

Worse, many of the wizards whom Zedd had personally trained, were selling their talents to the highest bidder. Not since the Ancient War three thousand years earlier, in which so many died and and the vilest of magic was used, had wizards been involved in the ruling of any land, or sold their services for power of a different kind. The Ancient War was a war between the wizards of old, who then had both Additive and Subtractive magic. It was started over the question of whether or not wizards should be rulers and soon there were two factions. One faction emphatically believed that such positions led to abuses of their gift, the other saw it as their right. There were many, many more wizards back then and they all had power far beyond what the dwindling numbers of today held. The war raged on for years and years. Terrible magic was used and the price for both sides was heavy indeed. It was finally ended when some wizards on both sides, desperate to end hostilities before everyone was dead, worked to create an impenetrable barrier forever separating the New World from the Old. In time, most people on both sides of the barrier, came to forget there was anything beyond what appeared to them to be nothing more than a wasteland. Most, but not all. Not the gifted.

 

Having already lost his wife to this latest war, and after creating the two boundaries, Zedd fled in disgust to the Westlands with his daughter after she is raped by evil sorcerer to hide her and the unborn child conceived of that unholy union... He put a death spell on his daughter so she would no longer be hunted and another spell to causing his name to be forgotten to everyone in the Midlands.

 

But Richard doesn't know all of this yet, only that his friend, the scrawny old man who has always been like a 2nd father to him, is stunned enough to find out that Zedd is an important Wizard. Time enough to teach him what he needs to learn later. For now, the boundaries are failing and the Keeper of the Underworld is once again threatening the world of the living through his minions.

 

Before long, all three are on the run, fleeing to the Midlands. To Kahlan's horror, Zedd has named Richard The Seeker. With that post comes an ancient sword - The Sword of Truth - forged and endowed with long forgotten magic, the Sword retains the cumulative fighting knowledge of all those who carried, and fought with it, before him. Richard learns that his father's murder is just the start of things and soon finds himself embroiled in a fight involving magic, armies and chaos. He learns that Kahlan is not just any woman, but the most important woman in the Midlands...to whom even kings and queens must bow. With nothing more than his friend Zedd, his wits, his new sword, at title he doesn't yet understand and this strange, powerful woman at his side, Richard begins a terrifying new chapter in his life........

 

Book two: Stone of Tears - Review to follow soon on this thread.

Edited September 8, 2008 by wordsgood
Adding Information and adjusting review

[phya]

That's the book I'm reading!! To be honest, I expected it to be better. It seems this inspired the tv serie "Legend of the Seeker" and the first reviews of the show all were saying it was bad because the books were so amazing!... Well, I'm reading it, but I'm still not amazed. In fact, sometimes it's a little boring and has flaws. I hope it gets better, because I already bought the second one... And I hope Gookind stops making the Confessor Kahlan cry all the time, since she is suposed to be one of the strongest woman of that time.

[phya]

Ok, ok, I had to add a new post. I've finished reading Wizard's First Rule and in truth it has a great endending. The last chapters are amazing, so they leave you with a very good impression of the book. So, regardless of the first 3/4 of the book that didn't impress me, the last 1/4 makes me remember the book in a good light and say that I liked it.

[butterflybee]

Totally agree with you Phya.Took me ages to get into this book but when i had finnished it I absolutly loved it.Ive also now read the second book and I would say it was loads better.Have got the third but have not read it yet.

[Capture]

And I hope Goodkind stops making the Confessor Kahlan cry all the time, since she is suposed to be one of the strongest woman of that time.

 

So, strong women can't be emotional. They must always be "strong" and serious, and stoic? So, we can't have diversity anymore in our image of the "strong" woman?

[libri vermis]

And I hope Gookind stops making the Confessor Kahlan cry all the time, since she is suposed to be one of the strongest woman of that time.

I cry all the time, and I consider myself a strong woman. Crying is not a weakness, in my opinion. In a strange way, allowing yourself to sometimes be vulnerable when it is appropriate, takes great courage.

 

I do love the Sword of Truth series, but it does have its flaws. Terry Goodkind can be too forceful in his approach to writing, and his characters are somewhat one-dimensional. But his books are page turners for me anyway.