I don't doubt
Goodkind actaully has some writing talent, just asj him, he will tell you, apparently he just does't use it.
Wizards First Rule was a ver solid first installment to a series. Sure halfway thru the novel we figured out the Zed/Richard/Rahl angle climax at the end already, and sure the bondage segmet was too lengthy but all, in all a solid, and prmomising start. I hate to be negative about an author, but IMHO the rest of the series is a waste of time.
Goodkind seemingly makes up elements as he goes along to extend teh series (which he does again in his last installment, recently released
Chainfire as well, yup, another lost continent, nevermind he has done this before).
Pillars of Creation may be one of the top 10 worst novels in genre history by a Best Selling author, and the worst part is
Goodkind knows the criticism, but actually thinks he is laughing the last laugh by thinking he is just weaving such an intricate, and socially important plot, that the common reader just can't see his genius for what it is (this is true, again just ask him, or read ANY of his interviews). All due apologies to Mr.
Goodkind, but his series tired, derivative from book to book, and hardly significant at all on a literary level he tried to claim, even in comparison to many genre writers (such as
Mieville, Wolfe, Moorcock, Harrison, Vandermeer tons more). Here's a quote by
Michael Moorcock I find funny, and apt here (note the bold especially):
"Terry Pratchett once remarked that all his readers were called Kevin. He is lucky in that he appears to be the only Terry in fantasy land who is able to write a decent complex sentence. That such writers also depend upon recycling the plots of their literary superiors and are rewarded for this bland repetition isn't surprising in a world of sensation movies and manufactured pop bands. That they are rewarded with the lavish lifestyles of the most successful whores is also unsurprising. To pretend that this addictive cabbage is anything more than the worst sort of pulp historical romance or western is, however, a depressing sign of our intellectual decline and our free-falling academic standards."
goodkind can talk all he want, if you listen him enough one actually amy start believing he is a actually a great fantasy author, instead of what he is...essentially an author who has written one
mildly good fantasy novel period, his first one.
I apolgize to
Goodkind fans but I finished reading
Chainfire a couple of weeks ago and was simply appaled. My fault however for thinking
Goodkind was going ot get on track however, and actually listen to his fans.
You know something ... I have Newcomb's The Fifth Sorceress (and it's follow-up book) in my "To Read Pile" as well!
You know I gave this series a chance and read up to second novel,
Gates of Dawn ,
Fifth Sorceress isn't great (no matter what the banner on the cover claims) but it isn't absolute garbage either so I gave it a chance...mistake..
Gates of Dawn is dire, and is on teh same list with
Pillars of Creation (They both have nice covers tho) The ending so obviously invented and easily wrapped up conveininetly (anotehr case of magic being used in a way, I call it uncreative), it's simply atrocious, not to mention if you didn't know any better you would swear these were
Goodkind novels as the premise in the first novels are very similar.