That being the case, by now it's well known. Goodkind has been very vocal about what he's trying to accomplish and how he writes. Any new readers should realize what they are getting into and IMO have no reason to then complain about "wasting their time," as if they were tricked into reading the series with false advertising. Am I just being too sensitive about my favorite fantasy author, or has someone else noticed the same pattern in recent GR discussions?
May 10, PM. Terry Goodkind faces the same problem that many other modern authors do. If you do not write in a way that is perceived of as politically correct then you become a sidelined figure. Terry Goodkind writes in a way that encourages the individual to become the best that he can be.
Since this does not require a "village to raise a child" and a totalitarian central government he must be silenced and his work discredited. By the way this is not only true in literature, but also in most other fields in America today. Michael Creighton went from a media darling who could do no wrong and a guest of every talk show until he wrote his politically incorrect State of Fear after which he was never heard from or seen again.
Yes, I am aware that Michael Creighton died a few years ago, but this was not until several years after his book was written and published in deep silence without the fanfare that always accomplanied every new Creighton book. It just amazes me that the same people who can spend hours reading descriptions of magic spells, or characters walking through the woods for pages at a time with nothing happening, become terminally bored with a paragraph or two that actually discusses ideas.
I do understand that some readers are in it strictly for entertainment, and I'm not one to judge, but this is not the entertainment-only kind of writer. Never was, never will be. Do your research and pick the books that suit your taste; no need to trash the author because you expected something different.
Personally I thought there was enough drama, action, etc, that didn't hinge on you agreeing with the views. I know some "liberals" who love the series. I don't mind people not liking it for those reasons, but it seems like there is a type of person that has no values of their own and just prefer to go around trashing authors like Goodkind.
Their entire life depends on it since they would, say, join a Koontz forum just to bash Goodkind. Goodkind had a quote on this topic somewhere Haha Eddie, come to think of it, one of the biggest Goodkind fans we both know is an Obama supporter. But some liberals do respond to the sense of the heroic and the greatness of humanity that Goodkind's books promote, even if their politics does not reflect it. Still there's a double standard. If a work is permeated with liberal bias, it's "normal," not even noticed.
Steven King, anyone? If it has pro-freedom message, that's "preaching. I've heard it said that life's too short to waste time on books you're not enjoying. One of these days I might crack and read them anyway, but for now, at least some of the work has been done for me. Before you do, I should warn you that neither site is complete yet, and I'm kinda concerned that Talisman has given up. It's been over a year since he updated his spork of Temple of the Winds, and he was so close to finishing it as well.
She's the one who helped disabuse me of the notion that the first book is good and it's only later that the series starts to get bad. Oh no, the flaws that readers noticed in later books are heavily present in the first. It's taken her nearly three years to get through this beast, and I don't blame her because reading it is a chore.
One of the chief reasons I don't know if I'm up for it myself. After you've read her sporking, read Talisman's from the start to finish. He's pretty funny, and it will give you an idea what to expect in future volumes. But honestly, even what I've already told you will give you enough of an idea of what you'll get when you read Terry Goodkind; a fairly stereotypical fantasy world with a fairly stereotypical setup and stereotypical characters trying to stop a stereotypical evil wizard from taking over the world.
In the second book we go a little Harry Potter as Richard is kidnapped and taken off to a wizarding school. Okay, I'm being a bit silly with that one, but again, the chief plot is Richard being taken to be trained and Kahlan discovering that their actions in the last book have opened the door for the Keeper of the Underworld to manifest in the mortal world.
The third book mostly focuses on a Church Militant stand-in who's trying to stamp out magic, and also introduces the Imperial Order who has the same goal. One thing that is true is that Goodkind ramps up the preachiness as the series goes on with book six, Faith of the Fallen being little more than a giant objectivist rant. It's also true that the preachiness starts a lot earlier than we think I first noticed it in the third book, but it's present in the first two , and that Goodkind delivers his diatribes with all the subtlety of a knife in the throat, hammering you with his oddly very simplistic and often contradictory moral messages by stopping his story dead and having his characters usually Richard orate on them for chapters at a time.
So now we're gonna examine some of the stuff Goodkind has said over the years that has made him, in many circles, persona non grada , but also, I believe, has made his devoted followers yes, followers all that much more devoted. The problem was already making itself evident in the late 90's, when Goodkind was interviewed by TOR books. I cannot find this interview online anywhere it's been removed from TOR's website but from what I recall of it, mostly he kept the horrible to a minimum, but it was one of the earliest examples of Goodkind talking about what other fantasy writers do versus what he does, and the idea that most fantasy readers are attracted by the magic.
In essence, he was already suggesting that most people who like to read fantasy are immature and silly, and only want silly things like magic, but that his focus is on story and character. But then came Naked Empire had just been released and Goodkind's sales were excellent. He was in the full throws of his delusions of grandeur, which apparently were somewhat muted earlier on. USA Today hosted a fan chat with Goodkind in which he answered questions from fans around the country. And it was hear that the height of Goodkind's arrogance, grand-standing and attitude of entitlement first reared its ugly head.
It would only get worse from there. Let's look at some of the questions asked and Goodkind's answers: Littleton Colorado: Have you considered writing anything outside of the world in The Sword of Truth series? Terry Goodkind: Yes. My interest is in telling stories about heroic figures. In many ways, the fantasy genre is a hindrance to that and so I do consider other ways to tell stories that revolve around important human beings. For me, the biggest interest is the fun of writing interesting tales, and there are a lot of different ways to do that.
I've thought about writing other stories that are in the same world in a different time, and ultimately, what I'd like to do is write contemporary fiction that general fiction readers are most drawn to.
That's by far my largest audience, is general fiction and not genre readers. Fantasy is a hindrance to writing about heroic figures? Since when? Has Goodkind not heard of the subgenre "Heroic fantasy"? In fact, that's what fantasy began as; stories of larger-than-life heroes. I've said before that Richard is himself a larger-than-life hero that could only exist in the world Goodkind has created. Also notice the phrase "important human themes".
This is something we'll be seeing again and again. Goodkind is convinced that he, and he alone, focuses on "important human themes" while other fantasy writers focus on magic and world-building. As we'll see in this interview.
Weymouth, MA: What is your work routine, meaning do you have a set number of pages or aword count; do you write in the mornings, et cetera. Terry Goodkind: I never set a goal of so many words or so many pages in one day because then it ends up like a school project on a Sunday trying to fill up a three-page essay that ends up more wordy than important.
The way I work is I write hours a day, seven days a week, and I maintain total focus on telling the story the best way I know how. There are times such as the poem that Lunetta recited in the book "Blood of the Fold" that's not even a page long and took me two days to write.
Sometimes I'll spend several hours on a single paragraph, making it say precisely what I'm trying to convey. And there are some days when I get 20 pages done. But my focus always remains on telling the story.
I'm including this one because it goes back to my initial statement that Goodkind's writing feels forced and unnatural. This might be why. But it doesn't explain why so much of his stuff seems to contain awkward, repetitive sentence structure and especially the feeling that he's making it up as he goes.
Nothing about the end result of Goodkind's writing process suggests a painstaking, tinkering approach to getting everything just right. It actually tends to feel the opposite; slapdash. But I don't think he's lying. I think he's just that poor a writer. As an example, let's talk about that poem that took him "two days" to write: From earth to sky, from leaves to roots.
And no, he didn't just copy Star Trek 's Andorians, but the fact that I had to clarify that should say something Raleigh, N.
C: Are you currently developing another series? Terry Goodkind: No. I devote myself totally to the next book I'm going to be writing. I only think about future projects in the most general of terms.
Goodkind only thinks about future books in the most general of terms, because he keeps introducing new plot elements that don't really work with what came before. Phoenix, Arizona: What authors do you read yourself? Terry Goodkind: I think the most important author to read is Ayn Rand.
Most of my reading is research for the things I'm writing about, but if I have any time to read, one of the people I like is Dean Koontz. I like his sense of life.
He's one of the few writers around today, other than me, who seems interested in writing about heroic individuals who are worthy of being heroes. There's actually very little to read today because more and more books center around characters who are either unremarkable, pathetic or reprehensible. I don't like authors who choose to tell stories about these kinds of people. I like stories about individuals who can show the nobility of mankind.
Goodkind's field of interest is astonishingly barren. It boggles my mind that any published author could suggest that there's so little to read that he can only think of two authors he enjoys, one of whom had been dead for over two decades at the time.
Most authors like to appear well- and widely-read. Goodkind seems to be bragging on how little he reads. Note also Goodkind's obsession with the idea of "heroes" and the idea of being "worthy". The reason is that I consider the map a distraction to the story.
The map was put in the book as one of the cliched fantasy elements that fantasy publishers require. In recent books I've been giving less and less emphasis to the map. When John Grisham, for example, has a character going from a restaurant to a courthouse, readers don't have to flip to the map to see where the restaurant and courthouse are. There's another reason why I don't expand the map, and that has to do with the very nature of what Richard is doing in the story.
Richard, physically and metaphorically, is off the map in what is, for him, uncharted territory. He must use his mind to find his own way. Goodkind wrote that he had told his publisher, Tor Books, that he was unhappy with the art before publication.
We were overruled and the book went to print as-is. Sometimes that happens. It stings to see a publisher not always seem to care as much as we do. However, the author left the poll up, writing that he had promised to give away the books.
Author Terry Goodkind—best known for the Sword of Truth series—recently came out with some harsh criticism of the cover for his latest fantasy novel, Shroud of Eternity , resulting in backlash from the artist and others in the scifi and fantasy communities. Now, Goodkind is saying that his problem with the cover was sexism all along.
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