New Goodkind?

I'm about 70% of the way through now and all I can say is that it is a very mediocre TG book.
It's entertaining, but mainly just because it's a story we've been waiting to read for years but it could have seriously benefitted from heavy editing. There is a lot of useless dialogue that does nothing to enhance or further the story and a hell of a lot of repitition.
A lot of times I feel we are told things, things happen, or we meet characters merely due to the fact that Terry had mentioned them in the SOT series and he just wanted to include it in this book.

So far, I'm a little disappointed. I, personally, think Terry should have taken an extra year or so to really go through it, get his harsh editing hat on (or get someone else to do it) get rid of the bits he didn't need and then release it in its most perfect form.

In short, it's good, because it's the story we've craved. But that's as far as it goes.

Ok finished the book the other day. It was entertaining and I did enjoy it - but as my previous post stated - it was probably due to the fact that this is a story I've wanted to read for a long time.

Over all, well, it could have been so much better. I felt that there were a lot of things used that either did not need to be used or weren't used properly (or to their full potential).

For example (SPOILERS!)








Nadja from the old world. Defected from the baddies to help the goodies and was captured and tortured by the traitors among the goodies. The feeling I got from the way she was used was that she was only there to elaborate on some of the baddies evil plans, nothing more. She only explained, and not very well in my opinion, how the baddies created halfmen and dead people and stole their souls etc. She had no use for the story other than that. In essence, she was a throw-away character pretty much.

The use of complicated terminology - 7th level breach, verification webs etc. I feel TG used this merely to make the magic sound complicated. It was hard to read and bogged the explanations down with all this made up mumbo jumbo. The way he used symbolism and such in the SOT series was brilliant because he explained them well and used them in the right context to enhance what was being told/done. In this book, it seemed to be used for the sake of being used really.

The star shift - wtf? This was mentioned quite a few times in the book and was clearly some kind of major event in the history of that world but no more elaboration was made. It may turn out that Terry has more stories to tell that explains it all but as far as this book goes, which was portrayed as a stand-alone novel, it was kind of a passing comment, used to get around coming up with a suitable explanation. Where did the power of orden come from? Oh it was created around the time of the star shift. What does it do? why was it created? Oh not much is known from before the star shift.

To me, while reading through the entire novel, I kept thinking hmm. (that's the best way to describe it.) There were moments when I thought, hmm - that wasn't great explanation, or hmm - He didn't need any of that.

I think, the best way to explain how I felt was that this story kind of skimmed over the tale of the great war. It was a good story - not great, it was entertaining - not gripping, it was fun - not epic and I'm very glad I didn't fork out $300 for the collectors edition!

Overall, good story, not the greatest of executions and I'd rate ALL of the previous TG books over this one any day.

BigBen wrote:

O!

Overall, good story, not the greatest of executions and I'd rate ALL of the previous TG books over this one any day.

Even OM?

Or his "non-fantasy fiction thriller"?

Even The Pillars of Creation?

Gawd, this book must be absolute shite. And no, I'm not surprised.

Yup, even those books I enjoyed more than this one.

TG has gone down a peg or two in terms of writing skill in my opinion.

SPOILERS!!!!!

I think the main flaw with this book is probably that he's surrounded himself with "yes men" and so hasn't had the third eye of a proper editor looking over it as a lot of the description, conversation, interaction was pretty unnecessary and could have been edited down a lot or cut completely. I found, and this could have been just the way I read it as I just could not focus 100% on it as it wasn't as enjoyable, that I was constantly going "get to the point" or "what has this got to do with the story" or things would be explained away too easily etc. I've found that TG recently has been having his characters come across a hurdle and, instead of having them work hard to overcome it, they seem to simply step over it with some wave of a magic hand or throw-away explanation. It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't happen all too often.

The worst thing about this story was that I just couldn't make myself relate or sympathise/empathise or even come to greatly like Magda - who the story was all about! I did like Merrit, I found him to be the best character of the book with Alric a close second. But Magda just didn't do it for me. She came across as a naive girl stumbling through the story saying "there must be more to this than there seems" and coming across answers all too easily.

And lothain! For crying out loud. Even if you didn't know the story from the SOT series it was so obvious he was the big bad man that you just wanted to jump into the book and SLAP every character around the face for not seeing what was glaring them in the face.

The ending too. That really griped me (if griped is even a word). It came across to me that it was merely TG making Magda go "Ta da!!! And this was what was really going on all along!" It was just too.... nicely... wrapped up.

The whole book was almost like a childrens cartoon show - good guys try to overcome the bad guys - obstacle put in their way - they come up with a solution - they move on - another obstacle - another solution - etc etc.

Can you tell this wasn't my favourite book in the world? The OM was a step down from the SOT series, as was LON but this was a drop down the ladder in my opinion. And I think the main reason was that TG just didn't have anyone saying - "this doesn't work", or "that's too easy" or "what the bloody hell are you on about here?"

After all the fuss about it being an e-book I'm now glad it was and that I didn't fork out over twice as much for a hardcover print.

That said, it wasn't completely terrible and I did kind of enjoy it for what it was but ONLY because I wanted to read the story of Magda. If I'd have picked it up not knowing the backstory and not wanting to read it I would have been thoroughly disappointed.

Honestly, I don't think it's so much that his writing has gotten worse as it is that since I read the Sword of Truth series I've exposed myself to much better writing/authors. His earlier books are certainly better than his more recent ones (pretty much tailed off after Faith of the Fallen), but while Stone of Tears and Faith of the Fallen will always hold a place in my heart they still rank far behind several other series/authors/books that I've read since then.

I agree, there are a lot of authors out there that are better at weaving the tale and storytelling. What gripped me the most about TG's writing though was the characters. Richard, Kahlan, Zedd, Chase, Nicci, Cara, Berdine etc will always (likely) be my favourite characters from any books I read as I think TG created them beautifully and their development through the series was great too. I haven't found characters from any book since that I've enjoyed as much - Colbey, Rache, Mitrian and Garn came very close from Mickey Zucker Reicherts "Renshai" series - but none have matched, in my opinion. But TG's storytelling just dropped right down the ladder since he ended the series. OM, LON and now TLC just haven't even come close to the SOT series (maybe OM and LON come close to the lesser books of the series like POC or NE). I think he just has these stories to tell and simply writes them and seeing as he's an established author his fanbase buys them and he makes a good living from them. But he doesn't craft them anywhere near as well as he used to. It really is a big shame because his biggest asset was the characters he created and the characters in TLC just don't cut the mustard (or whatever that american saying is). They absolutely pale in comparison with his previous characters and the characters we all know and love in OM just kind of dally about and don't develop - they have seemed to lose some of the "pinash" they had in the SOT series. Tis very sad indeed. It is clear from the comments on his FB page, his reaction to fan statements etc etc that he doesn't really care either - he knows people will buy his books and so he writes them. It seems like writing books has now become more of a business for him and he writes them to make money rather than because he loves to tell these stories. (That's my opinion and in no way constitutes the true opinion of the author - just thought I'd put that disclaimer in there haha).

Anyway, I was disappointed, it was a very average book - a half decent read at best but when compared to his other works - just very... meh.

I agree, TG was great at making and developing interesting characters. Nicci is still one of the more compelling characters I've read. If you like reading books with interesting characters, though I can suggest four authors to you that, IMO, do it as well if not better than Goodkind. Brandon Sanderson is the author most like Goodkind, but aside from writing great characters he develops incredibly interesting worlds and magic systems as well as great stories. The other three would be Patrick Rothfuss (Name of the Wind is a MUST read for any fantasy fans), Peter V Brett (starting with Warded Man), and Scott Lynch (starting with Lies of Locke Lamora)

Yeah I loved Way of Kings and I have all of the rest of his works lined up for when I finally have time again to read a good book (TFC took such little time to read because it was so simple - Brandon Sanderson requires a little more time and concentration). I'd heard of Patrick Rothfuss but not familiar with his works and the others I've never heard of but shall look into them. Cheers

Though I probably should dedicate reading time to writing time lol

Reading counts as research, right?

I'd try to avoid reading other fantasy authors directly prior to an attempt at writing - I want to avoid direct influence. But when I hit a slump I do like to read them

I don't know. I was perfectly happy with this book. Satisfied, I think is the word. A bit of it could be the nostalgia of the whole thing. I thought it was overall his best effort since FOTF.

I do want to hit him over the head with my Kindle, however. He's been quoted as saying new readers should START with TFC before moving on to WFR and TSoT series. If that's the case he would have basically ruined THE major revelation of the final trilogy.