Tell me about Terry`s Goodkind books.

[Dark Jezter]

What are you talking about? The only reason anyone's talking about Martin at all is because a bunch of Goodkind defenders brought him up! Nobody has made a "Goodkind is teh suxx0r. Martin r00lz!" post in this entire thread.

You're right, I did jump the gun, although strictly speaking my statements weren't confined to this thread. I let my annoyance at the "Let's praise Martin every time the subject of Terry Goodkind comes up" crowd override my better judgement. For that I apologize.

Now JD, be reasonable. You disagreed with him about the book, which makes you a frothing-at-the-mouth hater and fanboy of some other author. Someone else agreed with him about the book, which makes him an objective reader.

Duh, man.

Cute.

Never mind that Lord Pendragon and I did not agree about the books, which I mentioned in my initial reply to him. Nor did I ever state, or even imply, that Joshua Dyal was a Martin-worshipping Goodkind-hater (in fact, one of JD's very first post mentioned that he wasn't much of a Martin fan).

On a scale of 1 to 10 for snide comebacks, this one would probably rank a 4. The sarcasm wasn't too blatant, but your strawman was knocked down too quickly and too easily. Still, you rushed to the defense of your buddy (although he wasn't even really under attack), which is an admirable trait.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

No, I can asure you it is not based on his later works. I haven't read them. I only got through about the first 5 books I think before I left the series.

Fair enough. If you think the first five are bad, you'd really hate the rest of them!

takyris, I'm only going to respond to your post by noting that I find it highly likely that many readers fall outside of your simplistic categories.

This Terry Goodkind book really divides his readers: either they love it or they hate it. Its detractors consider it a criticism of communism disguised as a fantasy novel (which is a valid argument, considering that the Imperial Order's treatment of its citizens bears a strong resemblence to Stalinist Russia), but fans of the book like its message that no tyrannical regime can survive when people embrace the idea of freedom.

Ah. I was afraid that was the one. I'd have to place myself squarely with the detractors. Even if I accepted the more positive message "no tyrannical regime can survive when people embrace the idea of freedom," I found the novel moved at a glacial pace and was, for the most part, simply uninteresting. Reading page after page about Richard delivering things and carving stuff was extremely trying.

Out of curiosity, how would you rate Chainfire? I bought it, but I stopped reading it when Richard and Kahlan were separated...again. I might be convinced to give it another try, though.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Out of curiosity, how would you rate Chainfire? I bought it, but I stopped reading it when Richard and Kahlan were separated...again. I might be convinced to give it another try, though.

If you're one of the readers who were put off by the preachiness of some of the more recent titles, you'll be happy to learn that Chainfire takes the focus off of philosphy and focuses more on the war against the Imperial Order. I thought it was one of the better books in the series. Also, according to Goodkind's website, Chainfire is the first book in a trilogy that will conclude the Sword of Truth saga, so it appears as though things are beginning to wrap up with this one (unless, of course, he pulls a Robert Jordan on us ).

 

[takyris]

Jezter: In that case, I was also jumping the gun and responding to something you wrote in another thread. You did not specifically say that JD was a Martin fanboy. Whether or not you implied it is a matter of discussion. Not here, though.

But if you want to avoid people thinking that you're attacking people who bring up Martin, you might want to avoid writing, "I would just like to thank you for giving an objective appraisal of the series rather than the generic "Goodkind is teh suxx0r. Martin r00lz!" post that pops up seemingly every time a thread mentions Terry Goodkind." Food for thought.

And for the record, I come to the assistance of the person I believe has the point in the given conversation, not the person I like better. Even if it's somebody I actively dislike.

takyris, I'm only going to respond to your post by noting that I find it highly likely that many readers fall outside of your simplistic categories.

Interesting. In what ways? I wasn't trying to be simplistic. I was trying to be broad. And if you're slapping a judgment on the word "simplistic", as it often carries the secondary meaning "stupid", then I'd like to know why you felt it was simplistic.

Being impressed by ideas is not a bad thing. I'm not, but that doesn't make me better than someone who is. The books I mentioned are not necessarily books I personally like, but they are generally books that have a lot of ideas packed into them. People who are impressed by ideas in books might like them.

Being unfamiliar with a lot of other fiction out there is not a bad thing. I am familiar with other stuff, but that's just because, frankly, my mom started buying it for me and leaving it on my desk, even when I said that I'd rather keep reading the Hardy Boys books I was reading at the time. That speaks more to my mom's insistence on me broadening my horizons than it does to any genius on my part. The books I mentioned in there are also books that I consider good "Starter Books". I don't like all of them now, but I did read all of them, and enjoyed most of them at the time -- although I'd suggest that Brooks be last on the list, since I think his early stuff suffers the most today.

And liking romantic stuff and soap-opera-like emotional upheaval is not a bad thing. If it were, there wouldn't be so many Buffy and Angel fans. There wouldn't be more shelves devoted to romance in the average Borders than there are to fantasy. If you don't like to think of yourself as the kind of person who might like reading a romance novel, that speaks to your ability, or lack thereof, to accept the things you enjoy. I'm not making an attack here.

I don't read a lot of romance, but I've read a few of the Nora Roberts fantasy books and liked them -- great dialogue, good emotional development, good characterization. Her plots move a bit slower than I'd like, so I wouldn't read her all the time, but as a change of pace, it's fun stuff.

There's some good romantic fantasy out there. Heck, Blue Rose is all about that stuff, so you might be into Mercedes Lackey or Melanie Rawn (listed as inspirational source material) or Kristen Britain or Lorna Freeman (similar in feel) if what you liked about Goodkind was the emotional wringing-out of the characters. Those are probably better suggestions than Nora Roberts, too, since they are still trying to be fantasy first and romance second. Despite Goodkind's stated assertion that he doesn't consider his books to be fantasy, I'd still suggest that, at the least, "Wizard's First Rule" is a fantasy first and a romance second.

If you read "people who like ideas, people who haven't read a ton of fantasy, or people who like romantic fantasy" and took that as some kind simplistic insult, that says more about you than it does about me. I didn't like "Wizard's First Rule", and I don't exactly make a secret of it, but I have this apparently rare ability to separate what I personally like from general reality. My dislike of the books is my own opinion. The stylistic conventions Goodkind uses are general reality, although if you think that I've overlooked other broad categories of people who enjoyed Goodkind, I'm welcome to hear them.

(For the record, I can and do also come up with categorizations of people who like other stuff. I'm sure I'm overlooking stuff here, but people who enjoy Martin's books tend to be a) people who like grittier fiction and b) people who like political manipulation. I'm leaving out other obvious stuff, like "likes to have scary things happen to characters" because, well, almost everyone likes to have scary things happen to characters. That doesn't narrow the field a ton.

It's very possible to like both authors for different reasons. I can see somebody who likes the emotional hand-wringing in Goodkind's work also liking the political manipulation (which leads to a lot of emotional hand-wringing, albeit described in less detail) in Martin's work.)

 

[Desdichado]

I come to the assistance of the person I believe has the point in the given conversation, not the person I like better. Even if it's somebody I actively dislike.

Example: Joshua Dyal.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Interesting. In what ways? I wasn't trying to be simplistic. I was trying to be broad. And if you're slapping a judgment on the word "simplistic", as it often carries the secondary meaning "stupid", then I'd like to know why you felt it was simplistic.

It was simplistic because you've generalized all readers who like Terry Goodkind as falling into three broad, hardly all-encompassing categories, discounting any other reason someone might like the novels. It'd be akin to me saying "There are three categories of people who enjoyed the movie Forrest Gump. People who like overdramatized tales that contain unrealistic larger-than-life characters. People who like ideas in their movies. And people who like movies about the mentally-challenged."

If you read "people who like ideas, people who haven't read a ton of fantasy, or people who like romantic fantasy" and took that as some kind simplistic insult, that says more about you than it does about me.

No, it really doesn't. And anyone reading your post can see it clearly, regardless of your protests now.

I didn't like "Wizard's First Rule", and I don't exactly make a secret of it, but I have this apparently rare ability to separate what I personally like from general reality.

The thing is, you assert your opinion as if it were "general reality." You describe Wizard's First Rule as filled with "extended and slightly overwrought emotional description" for instance. That could be a fine analysis, but the fact that you found it so doesn't qualify it as "general reality."

My dislike of the books is my own opinion. The stylistic conventions Goodkind uses are general reality

Your impressions of what stylistic conventions Goodkind uses are not indisputable fact, no matter how many times you claim they are.

As for insults, your second categorization did not insult me. I simply found it simplistic and pointless because of that. Your first categorization, however, certainly made me blink. It would have probably been simpler to just write, "For those of you who like these characters, maybe the problem is that you just don't have any taste."

 

[Pants]

That being said, I had a bit of trouble with the Rada'Han and the a'dam myself. It seemed a bit too specific. A bit too similar. Especially considering the similarity between the way Richard was treated wearing the Rada'Han, and the way Egwene was treated wearing an a'dam.

Even so, these are all incidentals, and not, IMO, justification enough to actually list Robert Jordan as a co-author.

Are groups of female caster really that uncommon? Keeper of the Underwolrd is common in many myths. Dark Sisters, again common theme. Magic men being uncontrolible...not as common but many stories of magic being uncontroliable so that's not that far to go. And collars for people is an idea anyone who's seen a dog can come up with. At most I'd call it coincidence.

Yeah, I can say that one or two might be coincidence, but all of thse... it's just too much of a coincidence for me.

Then again, I read WFR and SoT right after I finished reading WoT. And back then, Jordan was THE MAN. Could have colored things a bit.

(For the record, I can and do also come up with categorizations of people who like other stuff. I'm sure I'm overlooking stuff here, but people who enjoy Martin's books tend to be a) people who like grittier fiction and b) people who like political manipulation. I'm leaving out other obvious stuff, like "likes to have scary things happen to characters" because, well, almost everyone likes to have scary things happen to characters. That doesn't narrow the field a ton.

I like Martin because of all the sex!

 

[takyris]

It was simplistic because you've generalized all readers who like Terry Goodkind as falling into three broad, hardly all-encompassing categories, discounting any other reason someone might like the novels.

As I said earlier:

I'm leaving out other obvious stuff, like "likes to have scary things happen to characters" because, well, almost everyone likes to have scary things happen to characters. That doesn't narrow the field a ton.

I wasn't making a complete list of the only possible reasons to like the novel. I was making a list of reasons to like the novel that might differentiate it from other well-known popular novels -- a list that might, for example, come up with reasons that people might like Martin's work but not Goodkind's, or Goodkind's work but not Eddings's.

I apologize if I did not make that sufficiently clear. I could also have included "People who like things that are awesome", but again, that doesn't narrow it down much.

It'd be akin to me saying "There are three categories of people who enjoyed the movie Forrest Gump. People who like overdramatized tales that contain unrealistic larger-than-life characters. People who like ideas in their movies. And people who like movies about the mentally-challenged."

I'd go with "general human-spirit triumph", "clever historical integration", and "full-life biography stories" off the top of my head, but it's been a long time since I saw the movie. Those are more specific reasons that somebody might like that movie in particular and not others.

Was that an actual attempt for you to look critically at Forrest Gump, or was that just a reductio ad absurdum argument?

The thing is, you assert your opinion as if it were "general reality."

Any discussion of a novel is opinion. That said, there's a difference between "This story was totally lame" and "The author of this story did not focus on creating realistic, fully fleshed-out settings." Both are opinions, yes, in the sense that "breakfast is always late because the people at the drive-through must totally hate me" and "objects in motion tend to stay in motion" are both theories.

I do think that "Wizard's First Rule" was totally lame. That's my opinion. I thought that the setting was stupid, the characters were unlikeable, and the plot was inane. That's all my opinion, as valid as anybody else's, but not any more valid than anyone else's. Your mileage may vary -- and in a thread asking what people thought of Goodkind, it's really good for both of us to show up. If you believe that I have a negative opinion of you because I have a negative opinion of a book that you like, you might possibly be taking an internet discussion of a fantasy series a bit seriously.

I ALSO, having analyzed the novel critically because I was determined to finish it despite the fact that I knew by the end of the first chapter that I wasn't enjoying the book, have the critical opinion that, as a literary work, Goodkind was more interested in abstract ideas than concrete, gritty details. And that, intentionally or not, he wrote a romantic fantasy novel. I say this after having read the novel carefully as though it were an assigned novel in one of my classes.

Goodkind's settings were not described with the intensity and attention to detail that, say, Guy Gavriel Kay's "Sailing to Sarantium" has. (The trade-off here is that GGK's book doesn't spend as long on the characters as Goodkind does. He gets close, by sacrificing a depth of plot, and in my non-critical opinion, he uses his ammo better and does more with fewer lines for his characters. But that's just personal preference, unless we want to start comparing degrees, and that rarely goes well for anyone.) This isn't to say that it's wrong for you to dislike his settings -- I personally disliked them, but a critical assessment that the author isn't focusing on the setting isn't a statement that the novel was objectively bad.

His characters tended to feel things in an all-or-nothing way, and the progression of the relationship between the hero and the heroine is much closer to the romantic fantasy ideal (as seen in Melanie Rawn, Mercedes Lackey, and Kristen Britain, among many others) than it is to a traditional fantasy novel that happens to include a romance (such as the Belgariad, the Farseer trilogy (although this one's close to romance territory as well), or Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire"). I came up with this opinion based on looking at each scene and determining what was advanced or focused upon in that scene, in order to determine that he's spending a lot more time on the feelings of the characters than he is on the advancement of the whole sword-of-truth plot. In my PERSONAL opinion, that was bad. That wasn't what I wanted to read. In my CRITICAL opinion, that's what it was -- a romantic fantasy novel. I welcome alternate interpretations of the first novel, if you disagree. A critical opinion can in fact be wrong, but it requires more than "That's just your opinion" to make it so.

His fight scenes were not detailed. Going through the first novel, there are only a handful of fight-scenes in which actual fight choreography comes into play (as in, people fencing, blades flashing, anything like that). Goodkind was thus not writing gritty military or fighting-focused fantasy. That's my CRITICAL opinion. (My PERSONAL opinion is that the few fight scenes he did describe weren't done terribly well, and I read fantasy at least partly for fun fight scenes. If you're writing a novel in which the big magical thingie the hero gets is a SWORD, my personal opinion is that you ought to have better fight scenes.)

You describe Wizard's First Rule as filled with "extended and slightly overwrought emotional description" for instance. That could be a fine analysis, but the fact that you found it so doesn't qualify it as "general reality."Your impressions of what stylistic conventions Goodkind uses are not indisputable fact, no matter how many times you claim they are.

Very little that is not expressly written on the page can be proven as FACT when discussing a novel, but I have over the years learned enough critical reading skill to come up with critical opinions that can stand some scrutiny.

And the book is filled with extended and slightly overwrought emotional description. That's my critical opinion on the matter. That opinion is what led me to the conclusion that Goodkind was writing romantic fantasy. I based it partly on seeing how many scenes focused on the romance and how many focused on the main bad-guy plot, and partly on the language that Goodkind used. In my personal opinion, the overwrought emotional description wasn't done terribly well -- I found the emotional overwrought-itude better in the Farseer trilogy (which was emotionally overwrought as a coming-of-age teen-angst fantasy story, not a romantic fantasy story). I found the emotional overwrought-itude about at the level of Jordan (who uses emotional overwrought-itude of the "hero fighting his destiny" variety, rather than the teen-angst or romance varieties, for his heroic-destiny series).

You'll note that I've listed one series I greatly liked as being emotionally overwrought… because, well, it was. Just like Buffy had emotionally overwrought elements. I liked it in Buffy. I don't like it in daytime soaps. Buffy having it is my critical opinion. Me liking Buffy is my personal opinion.

As for insults, your second categorization did not insult me. I simply found it simplistic and pointless because of that. Your first categorization, however, certainly made me blink. It would have probably been simpler to just write, "For those of you who like these characters, maybe the problem is that you just don't have any taste."

Ah. The problem here appears to be projection. You evidently have trouble with people not liking something that you do like. Perhaps you think less of me for not liking Goodkind's books. In any event, you've evidently decided that I have a personal opinion about you because you did like the books.

You are incorrect. I have no opinion about you whatsoever. That's not an insult. I don't know you. I haven't knowingly met you. I am not qualified to make a value judgment about your character based on our internet interaction, except to judge that you don't seem to make a distinction between personal and critical opinions.

As I said before, it's great to get all the personal opinions out there. I was attempting to get away from my personal opinions and look at the novel critically to suggest other books that people who liked Goodkind might also like. That's evidently not going to happen, given that you reacted by insisting, "It's only an opinion, not a fact!" as though you were trying to get Intelligent Design taught in the ENWorld classroom. All opinions are not equal. Personal opinions are, but critical opinions can be demonstrably proven wrong. I welcome your efforts to do so with any of the critical opinions I have voiced.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Ah. The problem here appears to be projection. You evidently have trouble with people not liking something that you do like. Perhaps you think less of me for not liking Goodkind's books. In any event, you've evidently decided that I have a personal opinion about you because you did like the books.

I have trouble with people making backhanded judgments about other people's taste, and then coyly denying it when called out. And if your posts have shown anything, they've shown that you are more than intelligent enough to have been well-aware of what you were doing.

As far as having trouble with people not liking something I do like, it must be a selective trouble, then, since I had no problem whatsoever with Crothian asserting that he didn't like any of the Robert Jordan books he's read, despite the fact that I stated I thought the second book, The Great Hunt was one of the best fantasy novels I've ever read. It's almost as if my trouble isn't with people disliking things I like, but rather with people whose commentary exudes casual arrogance.

You are incorrect. I have no opinion about you whatsoever. That's not an insult. I don't know you. I haven't knowingly met you. I am not qualified to make a value judgment about your character based on our internet interaction, except to judge that you don't seem to make a distinction between personal and critical opinions.

I make a distinction between saying "this is my critical opinion" and saying "this is my critical opinion, which is undeniable fact." Your position does make me curious, though. In the years you spent earning whatever degrees you alluded to earlier, how exactly did you reconcile those instances when you received less than a perfect mark for a critical analysis, perhaps because the professor had a different view of "general reality" than you did?

critical opinions can be demonstrably proven wrong. I welcome your efforts to do so with any of the critical opinions I have voiced.

I'm not in school any more, takyris, and to be perfectly honest with you, it's simply not worth my time.

 

[takyris]

I have trouble with people making backhanded judgments about other people's taste, and then coyly denying it when called out. And if your posts have shown anything, they've shown that you are more than intelligent enough to have been well-aware of what you were doing.

Well then, I obviously wrote my initial posts badly. I do in fact have friends that like the books. I don't dislike them. I dislike rabid fanboys of the books, but I dislike rabid fanboys of just about anything, including things that I actually like myself.

So I apologize for my initial posts, which gave you the wrong impression.

I make a distinction between saying "this is my critical opinion" and saying "this is my critical opinion, which is undeniable fact."

Did I say "this is my critical opinion, which is undeniable fact"?

Your position does make me curious, though. In the years you spent earning whatever degrees you alluded to earlier, how exactly did you reconcile those instances when you received less than a perfect mark for a critical analysis, perhaps because the professor had a different view of "general reality" than you did?

Easily. Either a) I was wrong, or b) the professor was wrong, or c) it was somewhere in the murky gray area, but the professor was the one teaching the class. Most of the time, it was (a).

I'm not saying there's no murky gray area. I am a strong believer of the murky gray area. However, a murky gray area does not preclude areas of clear black and clear white. And having 1 dumb guy say "Wait, that's not black, that's white!" isn't enough to convince me that something I'd thought was black was instead in the murky gray area. (Note: You are not the dumb guy. The dumb guy is the hypothetical. Nobody on this thread is the dumb guy. That is me extending the hypothetical to say that there is a difference, in my mind, between a legitimate difference of critical opinion and someone stating that there's no such thing as a fact, and so therefore it's automatically murky gray instead of black and white.)

I could be convinced that some of the things I believed about Goodkind's first book were murkier than I had believed them to be. I could even be convinced that I was wrong, given that I only read the book once, and that it was several years ago. But I'm not going to be convinced unless somebody digs in and actually provides literary criticism to support their argument.

And as you pointed out, you're not in school anymore, and neither am I, and at the end of the day, I'm still not gonna like the book.

That said, I did intend the "People who liked it may also like..." line in a non-negative way, and I apologize if that didn't come through. I can understand how it might not, given that I had expressed a negative opinion of the book earlier.