Yes, and I have no strong feelings one way or the other.

My opinion can be summed up with this fellow’s comment:

Submitted by Chris
(Jul 06, 2010)
I heard about the Sword of Truth: “The series is to a fantasy reader what a fine wine is to a connoisseur.”
Unfortunately, upon reading the novels, I find it more accurate to compare the series to a Merlot (watch “Sideways” 2004). It tastes good enough that the common person will enjoy it. But it lacks subtlety, it lacks refinement, and it lacks the rich depth of flavours that really makes fine wine enjoyable to a connoisseur. Don’t read this for depth, don’t read it for subtlety, don’t come in as a critic of fine Fantasy novels, and you will likely really enjoy the series. I did. But I enjoyed it despite its lack of finesse.

Basically? Meh. All right if you turn your brain off and don’t actively think about it. The more I tried to actively engage with the book, the harder it was to take it seriously.

Despite hearing dozens upon dozens of reviews telling me how insanely bad the series is, I finally picked up the first book from the library to give it a shot. I made it through the first chapter before giving up out of sheer boredom.

Oh yeah! That’s the other thing I read—that in later books, Goodkind started reading too much Atlas Shrugged and it started to show up in his work, which is a shame. In any case, I was probably generalizing with my discernment statement (also, kudos for keeping your cool when I pretty much insulted you right in your face, which I’m just gonna go and apologize for right now. I practically told you this already, but I find your levelheadedness really admirable.) Kippurbird, the Eragon sporker, quite likes them if I remember reading right, so perhaps it’s a question of what a person discerns to be good or bad. For instance, I don’t care much for protaganists that instantly go the killkillkillkill route, so I try to avoid books with protaganists like that because I would be disgusted by them and tha’ts no good. I know other people would be like, “That’s right, punch that guy right in the face ahahaah!” you know? The friend of mine whose bookshelf I snagged the book off of is a very critical reader, and she said she didn’t think it was good or bad, just unintersting. However, it wasn’t one of the main Sword of Truth novels—I don’t recall the name, but one of the main characters is named Oba, which I found hilarious because I actually have a friend by that name. Does it seem familiar to you?

Interesting. So only dead people can take away facial hair?

Okay, the example was sarcastic, but the question behind it was posed honestly. Is subtractive magic restricted to the dead?

Hm. I guess. So is there a perfect state of beardedness, the ideal “what exists” that is subtracted from and added to? Is moving away from it bad?

Also, are the dead passive or active in this magic system? If you kill a famous evil sorcerer, is he going to sit in Valhalla and do his best to suck everything out of existence? That would actually be kind of interesting.

That’s what I originally thought.

I shall quote my LJ as my opinion has not changed since then, except with regards to the TV show being better. I wrote this before the second season had been announced, and the second season is so much more fun than the first. Gotta love those series that don’t take themselves too seriously (unlike the books…).

To summarize my opinion in a couple short sentences: it would have been so much better if the interesting things had started happening earlier rather than 400 pages in. Tense shifts are evil. Repetitive florid descriptions are even more evil. Forcing a castrated rapist to eat his own testes is not justice; it is squick. I wonder at the author’s fixation on having the bad guys eat testicles. Was bricked by foreshadowing. Darken (*eyeroll*) Rahl was pretty hard to take seriously as a villain; too shallow an evil to really catch my interest. Misspellings are evil. TOO MANY COMMAS!!! (And that’s coming from someone who likes using commas.) Correction: too many arbitrarily placed commas! My inner Grammar Nazi died a little reading this book. Other than that, I’ll admit that I enjoyed it a little, once it finally got going. Only thing is, it took forever to get going.

So, was the TV series better than the book? In my opinion, no; they’re on pretty even footing. Where version one stumbled, the other did well. Take Darken Rahl for example. He comes off as much more evil and threatening in the TV series than in the book (his actor’s also quite the hottie). On the other hand, the theft of the Box of Ordun from Queen Milena’s castle was much more effective in the book than in the TV series, mainly because in the book, the character of Rachel is much more fleshed out.

Final verdict: great time-killer, which is what I needed at the time. Otherwise, I would have quit at about 200 pages in. It goes on my shortlist as one of only two books that have ever made me want to fall asleep while reading it. Even the Bible wasn’t as boring as the first 200-odd pages.

You may also be interested in this here entry of mine about my issues with Confessors.

War, I was past “This book is boring.” and well past “Why am I still reading this?” by the time I hit page 200. I know, for I was at the point where I was counting the pages of boring content that, were it not the only thing I had to read on the trip, I would not be reading. To this day, I recall the page count being 243.

That’s 243 pages plus the initial ~200 pages of sheer BOREDOM that book subjected me to. And quite honestly, while the pace was great after those initial 400ish pages, HALF the book was spent boring me to death, which meant that, under normal circumstances, I never would have finished the book. Ever.

Concerning your comments on my article:

I recall Kahlan mentioning that her sister became weak after using her power, and that it took a very long time for her power to recover. I was under the impression that it was only her sister who suffered physical weakness, however, and that the other Confessors remained capable of fighting after using their power.

Concerning 4, there’s this thing called internal consistency. If one strong emotional stimulus is enough to trigger involuntary confession, why not others? Con Dar could be seen as extreme rage being the trigger for uncontrolled confession, so why not extreme fear or joy? Why is it only orgasm that is mentioned as triggering involuntary confession?

As for point 5, I recall the first book explicitly stating that wizards could not perform any Underworld magic. I’m going to go by the book on this, rather than an interpretation.

Wikipedia plot summary

Ha-ha, I read Wizard’s First Rule, annotated it and sent it to a friend of mine for his birthday last year. I think my opinion of these books was somewhat biased though, considering the fact that I watched Legend of the Seeker religiously before reading them. Anyway, I found them to be ridiculous, but I understand why some people would find them entertaining.

Yeah, really. There was this child molester/rapist/right-hand-man-of the-bad-guy dude. He was (if I remember correctly) trying to rape Kahlan, then she confessed him (bye-bye willpower) and had him eat his own junk. This series is not for children.

ok, more of the story. So it pretty much starts off with this guy (Richard Cypher) who is a woodsman. He escorts people through the woods..yeah. Anyway, he lives in Westland which is part of a bigger land that was divided into three lands by a crazy insane spell a long time ago. Westland (Which we find out has no magic in it, and is the westmost land), the Midlands (take a guess), and D’Hara. ...I was looking up the size differences and found something for you guys

Wizard’s First Rule all typed up for you :D