Fantasy Book Club discussion

Post here if you are planning to read this book. Give us your first impressions, no spoilers please.

I have read this book and in fact the series. In my honest opinion I think the writing starts off fairly poor and childlike. It does improve though as does the underlying tale.

It is one of those that you will have to endure the first book to get to the gems that are the later books. I am guessing it will be a love or hate thing.

Read this one back in October of 2010. I won't re-read but might chime in on the discussion. Pretty sure I thought it was fairly standard at the beginning, all the "normal" fantasy elements are there, nothing terribly original.

Since I watched tv series that was adapted from the books, I intended to read the series. I loved tv show well enough and heard story in the books are significantly different than the show. I started reading it for group discussion. I have a lot of complaints about writing at this point, regarding constant repetitions and overdose of explanations.

I actually enjoy the writing. It seems to move slowly, but I find it drawing me in. So far, I am thoroughly enjoying the book.

The TV show was done terribly. Overall, it was too sexed up, and none of the character looked like the way I thought they were. When I first hear of the show, I thought it was going to be amazing since it was done by the director of Spider Man.

It was also done by the director of Xena, wasn't it?

Yes... Sam Rami is the same man.

I really liked this book and the next few, but their quality declines rapidly after Faith of the Fallen. I couldn't stand the premise of Chainfire and dropped the whole series at the start of that book.

David wrote: "It was also done by the director of Xena, wasn't it?"

Exactly cheap and nasty series.

Sean wrote: "I really liked this book and the next few, but their quality declines rapidly after Faith of the Fallen. I couldn't stand the premise of Chainfire and dropped the whole series at the start of that..."

Yeah, I feel like Chainfire came out of nowhere.

I started out really enjoying this series but it seemed to get darker and darker as it went along. I felt like Goodkind was beating me over the head with how evil his villains were and that was completely unnecessary. Some of the things his villains did to people still haunt me. I'll never pick up another Goodkind book again because of that.

I was annoyed by the tv show myself, Richard is supposed to a big man, not the actor they picked who is level with Khalan actress. He's supposed to personify power.

As for the books, I'm not sure if Goodkind has children as it seems like he has a serious need to impart the wisdom he's learned from life. I do enjoy some of the things he says, they are pretty accurate in some cases, but as the series progresses the story slows down, he does repeat himself often, even within a paragraph, and it becomes more and more preachy.

I read the first five books, but I think I've had enough. I ended up skipping probably a good 40% of the fifth book because I was bored.

Reading this book for the third time. A solid book, but not my absolute favourite. I have yet to read the other books in the series. Unlike S.J., I actually like the fact that the villains are....villainous.

My first introduction to this world (and author) was in the Legends Anthology. The story Goodkind did in that anthology was my favorite of the group, and so I went out and immediately purchased Wizard's First Rule.

And made it about 100 pages.

It's been awhile since I tried to fight my way through this story, but I just couldn't connect to anything, so surprising after such a great short story.

Warren wrote: "It's been awhile since I tried to fight my way through this story, but I just couldn't connect to anything, so surprising after such a great short story. "

Throughout the book, I kept feeling this would be quite a good book if it had half of its page numbers with a tight editing. Because all that explaining and repetition we have to endure steals a lot from tension of the story.

I'm about 50 pages in, and I'm loving it so far. I like that the writing is easy and fun, which I'm sure will change soon enough as the books go on, but I'm really enjoying the writing.
Also, I like Richard. He's said quite a few very funny lines already :)

Well, I for one enjoyed the TV show and was sorry it ended after two seasons. I picked up the whole series at my local used bookstore a couple years ago and now I'm happy that I'm finally going to read the darned thing.

If you can get to faith of the fallen, you will love it!

I find it interesting how people either really like or really don't like this series. For me: I LOVE this series. I was engaged from the first page, couldn't put it down. I think it runs about 8000 pages from start to finish and I think I read it 3X in succession. Fortunately, I didn't find it until just before the CONFESSOR came out, so the first time through, I only had to wait a couple of weeks for the final book. I especially liked how little things mentioned in one place suddenly took on new meaning further down the line. Were those things planted there intentionally? Did it just turn out that they were convenient pieces to use later in the work? (I took it that they were intentionally planted and found myself consciously finding ways to do the same in my own writing.) If there is one fantasy author who I'd most like to chat with, it would be Terry Goodkind. As for those mentioning the TV-series--I watched about 10 minutes and decided they'd ruined the story sufficiently such that I had no reason to continue. I never gave it a second thought or chance. I'll let the written work stand on its own. Love it. Love, love, love it.

I tried to read this but since I am both female and over fifteen I could not finish it. There are literally 3 books on my could not finish shelf (as in I will never attempt again). I just couldn't stand the writing. "Womanish ways"??? I just can't even...

I have tried to read this book twice, once as a teenager and once in my early forties and both times I found it to be unreadable as well as easily predictable. My wife calls this series torture porn