The sword of Truth Series

The Sword of Truth series is written by Terry Goodkind, So far as I know there are only 8 books yet. We have all 8. The average book is about 800 pages give or take.

It takes place in a world where some have magic , most do not. Most humans have the latent gene for magic but, they have to be taught how to use it. Most do not get taught. All humans can be affected by magic except for one specific group or type.

Terry Goodkind takes this and turns his world into an incredible journey of religion, philosphy and politics. It is incredibly hard to stop reading. His characters are vivid and alive. There are very few if any dead spots or boring spots. He has a wonderful way of taking you from chapter to chapter and character to character.

His words will make you think, pause, disagree and enjoy. I learned things about my own self after reading this series.

It is the best entertaining series for thinkers that I have ever read to date.

The Sword of Truth series has developed stronger and stronger over time. It began as a wizard’s and dragons book and developed into a book about the human spirit. If you like Ayn Rand, you will enjoy these books, in particular “Faith of the Fallen”.

If I should be so blessed as to have a daughter her name shall either be:

Kahlan

or

Athena.

The Confessors are one of the most interesting developments in this genre that I have ever seen.

-Thirst

If we were to ever have had a daughter she would have bore the name Killashandra from Anne McCaffrey’s Crystal singer series.

We have Faith of the Fallen, We enjoy it.

Writers that are able to develop strong vivid characters usually provoke thoughtful reading material to go along with it, have you noticed that?

Yes, I like Objectivism, so Faith of the Fallen was my favorite. :sunglasses:

i remember having a hard time getting through faith of the fallen (after reading everything sequentially, up to that point). up until then, it was a very good few books, wizard’s first rule was one of my favorite medieval-style novels.
i don’t know… it felt like the story started really going in a direction that i didn’t like. maybe i starter looking at it differently?

I’ve enjoyed the series well enough, but the philosophy has become somewhat heavy-handed over the course of the last few books. I’m all about author’s expressing their beliefs through their work, but when it crosses the line from subtle to pedantic, I lose interest.

I would agree with that. IMO the series was a great idea, but personally I think you can appreciate it from the first book, it gets a little predictable after the first few books also

I love the series overall, but Terry Goodkind is far from my favorite author. Even though I’m a big fan of his philosophy, I do get a bit tired of having him shove it down my throat through Richard.

Richard is probably the part of the books that annoys me the most. It’s get tiresome to read about a person with an unrealistic amount of random talents. There are also too many bouts of “Suddenly, Richard magically pulled the solution to this problem out of his butt.” moments for my tastes.

[quote=“Maytacera”]
“Suddenly, Richard magically pulled the solution to this problem out of his butt.”

[quote]
That kinda sums up alot of the series for me.

100 or so pages till I finish the last book yay!

In the last book, several magical solutions are pulled out of everyones ass.

As a side note, alot of his political messages are a bit suspect. I think he tries a little to hard to relate his ideas of this world onto his imaginarry one, which of course are many many legues apart, and the result is that given the evidences in his book, alot of Richards speil is quite simply bollocks, even if it would make some sense when applied to earth.

Yeah. Finished the series. I got pretty damn tired of all the speech-giving a ways in. I found myself skipping paragraphs and stuff.

Thankfully, the big long speech at the end is about 70 pages shorter than Galt’s in Atlas Shrugged… [-o<

I’ve changed a fucking LOT since I last posted on this specific thread, just a side comment that I have to say.

I found my self doing the same, I understand that over a long series of books its usefull to have a little reminder of what went on, but he does it every book which just means the reader either has to waste their time reading the same thing or skip over it which I (and I’m sure most) did.

I was disapointed with the ending, but thought that the emperors demise was rather nice in itself. The same is true for most of the series. Theres alot of incnsistancies and logical downfalls in the book, but its a fantasticly involving world and so for me a great set of books.

I got irritated with Goodkind trying to cram every characters entire history in to every book…usually in one sentence.

“Richard- the seeker of truth, first war wizard born in 1000’s of years, married to the Mother Confessor, son of Darken Rahl- took a drink of water”

The Sword of Truth series is set in a world divided into two major regions: the New World and the Old World. The New World consists of three lands with Westland in the west, D’Hara in the east and the Midlands in the centre of the two. D’Hara is ruled by a magically gifted member of the Rahl family, while the welfare of the Midlands is decided by a council of representatives led by the Mother Confessor, who is also the leader of the Confessors. The Confessors are a group of women who each have a magical power to force a person to become entirely devoted to them, allowing them to fulfill their purpose - to find the truth. Westland, a land of no magic, is also ruled by a council of representatives. The Old World is not introduced until the second book in the series and its geographical features are described in less detail.

The main character is a young man named Richard Cypher, a Westland woods guide whose simple life is forever changed after he becomes the Seeker of Truth - a position similar to that of a Confessor, requiring him to uphold justice in the world. Over the course of the series, Richard learns about his heritage while seeking to stop the evil that others would unleash upon the world of the living. Because Richard refuses to sacrifice his values and lives his life as a free man, others begin to understand the nobility of man and what it means to be free.

LMAO