Wizard's First Rule

OK, I'm about 1/3? 1/2? way through Wizard's First Rule and I'm really asking myself if I'm wasting my time. The characters aren't particularly interesting, the dialogue is flat and boring, the motivations and set-up are poorly contrived and poorly demonstrated, the plot is weak, thin and cliche, the villains are ridiculously over-the-top and Goodkind isn't particularly talented. He telegraphs badly what's going to happen, even to me, and I'm a more "disengage your mind and read almost subconsciously" kind of guy rather than one who's trying to unravel the mystery as the book unfolds.

I've had a few folks tell me the book improves in the later half, though. I also had a similar experience with Perdido Street Station recently; about the first 200 pages of it were dreadfully tedious and the rest of the book was reasonably well-done. So I'm a bit leery of cutting loose too soon and missing out on a book (or even a series, I suppose, if I really get into it) that may improve. After all, the masses must know something, and there's no denying that Goodkind sells really well.

However, the only thing I'm finding that motivates me to read is the fact that this confirms my wild hope that any Joe Blow amateur author who has the determination to actually write a full book can get it published and be successful, regardless of talent. I'm finding that reading this is giving me more inspiration to write than anything else.

You are wasting your time. I made to the third book in the series. It doesn't get any better, if anything it gets more ridiculous.

I liked the first one well enough., but not enough to go on when it quickly became apparent that he wanted to be the next 'WoT' author. I've heard repeatedly on the boards here that the rest of the series devolves quickly.

The first book is pretty good after you finish it. The rest are sort of copycat (i.e. WOT quality).

WayneLigon said:

I liked the first one well enough., but not enough to go on when it quickly became apparent that he wanted to be the next 'WoT' author. I've heard repeatedly on the boards here that the rest of the series devolves quickly.

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Agreed - the first one was fine-ish. The series devolves into a stagnant mess of S&M fantasies and ridiculousness. I made it through two and a half, and I'm pretty forgiving.

JD, you and I do not agree on many things, but I would say this:

Finish the book.

Because it gets better? Oh, heck no. Because the last hundred or so pages include the Terry Goodkind Bondage Hour, and also so that you can say, "Yes, I really did read the whole book, yes, really, all of it, and I still thought it was awful, yes, a bad romance novel disguised as a bad fantasy novel, and he never actually describes the sword in any more detail than 'a sword', except that it glows red when he kills someone angrily and white when he kills someone lovingly, I mean, please, can you GET any more phallocentric than that, and the characters act like David Eddings characters despite the fact that they've only known each other for a few days, leading one to suspect that Goodkind was unintentionally aping Eddings without understanding what Eddings did to make that level of teasing familiarity believable, and his supposedly strong female character spends the entire novel weeping about, and his hero sneers while killing people, which seems oddly nonheroic, and his monsters are never actually physically describes, such that it comes as a surprise to find out that they have arms, and he never actually has a, you know, sword-fight of any kind, where any kind of fight choreography might be said to happen, and he keeps breaking all of his own magical rules and then explaining it after the fact, and his powerful wizardly magic of "People are stupid" works about at the level of 6th-grader psychology, and the amazing twist at the end of the story was not so much foreshadowed as clubbed into our heads, such that the 'twist' is that the reader is annoyed with the idiotic protagonists for not figuring out stuff earlier, and the villains are ALL sexual sadists of one form or another, with such gems of characterization as 'His skin was as smooth as that of the young boys he favored' as attempts at character development for our evil bad guys, and really, fundamentally, an atrociously, insultingly, almost deliberately rotten book whose popularity is either a sign of the power of marketing or a lamentable indication of the supreme gullibility of a readership that is so simple, starved of critical thinking skills, and sexually frustrated that this rancid, waste of paper somehow seems anything less than an offensively putrid attempt at BDSM porn lit with a thin, spotty, slightly crusted veneer of fantasy."

But, you know, YMMV.

I read the first book. It was just OK IMO. I heard in the other books, the main characters "forget" important facts from the other books that they should know.

Joshua Dyal said:

OK, I'm about 1/3? 1/2? way through Wizard's First Rule and I'm really asking myself if I'm wasting my time.

...

I'm finding that reading this is giving me more inspiration to write than anything else.

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I've read all available books in the series, and if I hadn't read the alst book I would have echoed every else saying how the series devolves & stops going anywhere- BUT with the latest book the threads woven in the previous books that I originally thought were pointless filler irrelevant to the larger series begin to come together.

Summary: If you can't make it through the first book, don't bother.
If you can make it through the first book: 2nd & 3rd are better, 4th & 5th are worse, 6th regained my hope that the series was worthwhile .

That's partly because Chase comes back in Book 6. Chase rocks.

btw you will get annoyed at the numerous times Kahlan/Richard are in anguish because they're not sure if Richard/Kahlan still understands/loves them.

I would have to agree with most here that the series left a lot to be desired.....But I am a devout Brooks fan. I enjoyed all of the Shannara books (up until "The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara" book, which I found fairly dull, and haven't continued the series from there), found the "Magic Kingdom of Landover" pretty boring, but enjoyed his latest series, which escapes my memory at the time. I believe the first book was "Angel Fire East," and continues for another two books.

I may be mistaken about the title of the first book, and the above mentioned may in fact be book number two......Any help here????

Look_a_Unicorn said:

I've read all available books in the series, and if I hadn't read the alst book I would have echoed every else saying how the series devolves & stops going anywhere- BUT with the latest book the threads woven in the previous books that I originally thought were pointless filler irrelevant to the larger series begin to come together.

Summary: If you can't make it through the first book, don't bother.
If you can make it through the first book: 2nd & 3rd are better, 4th & 5th are worse, 6th regained my hope that the series was worthwhile .

That's partly because Chase comes back in Book 6. Chase rocks.

btw you will get annoyed at the numerous times Kahlan/Richard are in anguish because they're not sure if Richard/Kahlan still understands/loves them.

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Ditto here. Strangely enough, I can't stand Wheel of Time, but I don't mind the Sword of Truth novels. Sure, there's a fair share of crap and filler in the books, but I've enjoyed them on a whole.