The Anti-SoT page- A Closer Look
The Sword of Truth-
a closer look
The beginning of the Sword of Truth was auspicious enough
:
"A phenomemal fantasy, endlessly inventive, that surely marks the commencement of one of the major careers in the genre" - Piers Anthony
doesn't Mr.Anthony say this about every new fantasy novel that comes out? Seems like it
"I really think it;s going to sweep the country as Tolkien's work did in the sixties" - Marion Zimmer Bradley
I have yet to see "Richard & Kahlan live!" graffitied on a subway wall. Have you?
"A very powerful story with fully realized characters and memorable scenes that build as the story grows" -Gordon R.Dickson
"fully realized characters and memorable scenes that build as the story grows"!? You mean Mr.Goodkind has accomplished what every author is supposed to do in even the most basic stories? What a cliched comment, Mr.Dickson!
There we are, just a taste of what we heard back when WFR came out. Most of it was pre-publication hype, something which TOR books is very good at. Some of it is just deranged, delusional stuff. "Sweep the country like Tolkien's work??" Why not say you want to bear his children and be done with it, eh? As any veteran reader of fantasy, I have grown somewhat used to all of the blurbs and comments scattered on jackets and covers throughout the shelves, each stating this was the next big thing to hit the fantasy world. Most of it is taken in stride, other times it's blatant crap (Lord of the Isles, the finest fantasy series of the decade? Please, Mr.Anthony, not you again) Anyway, SoT has had more than it's share of adulation, and many feel that is deserved. After all, this is an epic story on an epic scale, with a battle between good and evil. That's a good start.
The story, for those of you too busy reading good authors to have paid attention to it, goes something like this: Richard Cypher is a simple woodsman, content with his simple life as a trail guide, being at one with nature. In comes an exotic woman with magical powers, in comes some baddies who want the woman dead. Throw in a benevolent wizard who hides his mighty powers, some strange cultures and creatures,magical artifacts that can destroy the world, stir them all together and you have.....yes indeed. Formula Fantasy! Now, I'm all for a good ol' fantasy story, a book that doesn't require you to get too involved, something you can read on a long trip somewhere and get some pleasure out of it. The fantasy market is full of them. It is only when the story tries to puff itself up and make itself bigger and more important than it really is, that is when I take offense. Most of these self-indulging authors that have sprung up in the nineties try to hide their formula fantasy behind a lengthy series, in which to fill the pages, they ramble, lose their basic plot line in a feeble attempt to sound brilliant, and the whole series crumbles. Most authors like this are not afraid to write generic formula fantasy, but they forget a basic rule of form fantasy: most of these books are one-shot deals, a trilogy at the most. "Authors" like Mr.Goodkind don't even know how long their series is going to last. 9, 10 books? (does anyone know this, BTW?) In thier arrogance, and that is what it is, they believe they have such a great vision, such a unique take on a story....they have such genius that they don't need to worry about outlines and plotting that much, they don't need to slave over making sure they know what happens where and how, or how they can maximize the power of a chapter using as few words as possible. If something sounds cool, hell throw it in there! You can always write another volume to the series!
If anyone else is like me and writes for fun (or professionally)....isn't the beast of the whole thing sitting down and banging out a workable outline? Making sure every chapter flows well and advances the whole idea of the plot? I'll admit, it isn't fun most of the time, and it is hard work. Where do writers like Mr.Goodkind think they are talent-wise to think they can get away with not doing this? You can tell, too, not only from the undetermined length of the series in progress, but from the ideas of the individual volumes. For instance, look a that villans we have seen so far in The Sword of Truth:
Book 1: Darken Rahl ("Luke...I am your father!")
Book 2: The Keeper & The Imperial Order
Book 3: Blood of the Fold & Jagang
Book 4: Jagang
Where is the relation between Rahl and Jagang? Where is the connection between the Keeper and Jagang? What the heck is even going on with the Blood of the Fold? Seldom in a series have I seen such a random introduction of new arch-villans. How many of you even think Goodkind had Jagang thought up and conceived as a character when he wrote "Wizard's First Rule"? Such lazy plotting, and the practice of throwing in any even remotely cool scene does a lot to drag a series down, and load it with a lot of excess baggage it doesn't have to have.
In some ways, I'm very liberal when it comes to my fantasy reading. I like new things, new ideas, new types of storytelling. I like to be intellectually challeneged when I pick up a new novel at the booksellers. In other ways, I'm very conservative about the type of story I enjoy. For instance, I do not enjoy gratuitious sex in a story, or excesive violence. Is it too much to ask for a little modesty in your prose? A little decency or disctreteness in dealing with sexual matters? I like a good bit of sex in a story sure, but of the erotic kind, not the pronographic. Older authors had novels loaded with sexual matters, but they were such masters of the language, that it was almost there in between the lines for the reader to discover, and they handled it very lightly, very skillfully. I think you know where I'm going with this, eh?
Goodkind's books are leading the way in an almost dumbing-down of the genre. His books are laced and/or loaded with sex. Like I said, I don't mind that, if it's done properly. I do mind how he writes about a guy molesting boys, how a bunch of prisoners raped a queen and feel up the heroine...how he totally goes out of bounds in the decency category by having the heroine give oral sex to who she thinks is her brother-in law to be...having that same guy cut up a prostitute...and on and on. And TG doesn't leave any of this to the imagination. He's right there, in every detail. I don't mean to come off sounding like a Puritan, but does 1/10 of this stuff have to be told? Can TG leave anything to the imagination? It's a trend I'm seeing more of recently, like a big-budget hollywood movie. Sex sells, eh? If that's the trend, count me out, thank you. Ditto for violence. Kahlan cuts off a man's testicles, and has him eat them. I mean, how much is too much? It really gives you a window into Goodkind's mind, and I don't like what I see there.Do you?
Now on to the matter of plot. The plotting is typical of a lengthy series. Spend 600 pages running around in a psuedo-fantasy world, the author realized he's having too much fun and has a deadline, and throws together a rushed, ramshcakle ending. Book 1's ending was ambomindale. The big bad villan has the "Wizard's First Rule" used against him...he chooses the wrong book, and he gets sucked into the underworld (for some reason I pictured his face melting, ala Indiana Jones)
WESAVEDTHEWORLDNOWKILLTHEBIGBADBROTHER
BECOMETHENEWLORDOFTHELANDTHANKALLOURFRIENDSHOPONTHE
DRAGONANDFLYTOTHEMUDPEOPLETOGETITON!! Whew!
Most authors hit the climax about 3/4 of the way through and then wind it down to the last page. Goodkind spends about two hours writing his endings it seems. Maybe it's because it's a never-ending series, maybe that's just his style. Either way, his endings are a let-down. I don't even particularly care for the sterotypical fantasy "happy" ending, with the hero getting the girl, but I do like to have all my loose ends wrapped up nicely and have everything cleared up....Temple of the Winds is a great example of some flat-out bad loose end resolution
"Oh that guy escaped from our little community of monks, to get you I guess....He's a madman, that's for sure! heh heh haa!" (paraphrased I think)
The thing about it is...this is a series that doesn't even need to exist...at the end of book 1, the bad guy was killed, everyone was happy, and joking around, the world was saved. It was a virutal stand-alone novel. Then all of a sudden in Book 2 Robert Jordan's Aes Sedai make a cross-over apperance, this guy we hadn't heard of until book 2 called the Keeper shows up, and some random guys called the Imperial Order decide to come out of the blue. No foreshadowing, no reasonable explanation. "Oh gee, my first book sold great! Hey, I wanna do a sequel, and another sequel, and another sequel!! (claps hands all quick) Hooray! I'm a good author!!" It's fairly evident that either TOR books or TG's agent got the deal that would have him writing SoT books until he dies. It's kind of like the novel equivalent of the soap-opera or movie serial, where the readers are left hanging-on the edge of their seat until...well, until the damn books are done, sometime in the year 2020. The only problem with writing like this is...eventually the author gets tired of the story. It doesn't matter how well-developed the characters or plot is, you just get burnt out writing about the same damn people and same damn world over and over again. Look at the WoT for the road SoT is going. Robert Jordan has been writing about the same people and world for a good 10 years now...and it shows. His books have turned into intellectual mush. It has happened to everybody that tries it, and most of them were good authors to begin with. Terry Goodkind is lucky the office store allows him to buy pens.
I also want to touch on the characters of the SoT...oh man. I can smell a bad author by reading the first 20 pages or so, because a good book comes down to two things really: Character development (or motivation) and dialogue. Hacks never can quite get the realistic ring of real dialogue down. Some examples of odd behaviour include:
Richard's father gets sliced open like a fish and Richard's kind of like "Yeah man. I'm really sad and grief-torn over it." He does nothing to indicate that he is and half-way through book one the fact isn't even significant even more.
Richard thinks Kahlan betrays him at the end of book 4 in a completely convuluted sex scene and goes off stunned and grieving over the fact. These are the two people that sickened everybody,going through the entire series fawning over one another, " I love you! I LOVE YOU!!" Then when a little something like this happens, we are supposed to believe that "it's over". That sex scene with the "swtich-off" BTW, is the total package of bad characterization, bad writing execution, artifical character behaviour and total plot irrevalance. Kudos to Mr.Goodkind for such an inept display is so few pages!
Another glaring "something smells here" scene happened near the end of Book 1, in which Richard is captured by the Mord-Sith and tortured and broken (so we are told) by his mistress. After finishing this part of the book, I sat back and reflected..."does Goodkind have any sense of reality?" Richard gets tortured, broken, then raped (yes, men can get raped) and 30 pages after he escapes, it's back to heroic feats and manly adventure! You don't recover from something like that psycoligically or physically for a long time, if ever. Look at some cases involving vietnam POWs for example. The scars of torture like we read in WFR never really leave you. I sound like a damn broken record, but I recommend Robin Hobb's Farseer for far more realistic portrayal of torture and
physical injury.
Veteran's of my previous site, the Anti-WoT page are aware of my dislike of fake, genre fantasy sword fights, wherein the hero takes on a bunch of guys and bests them all. I've read a lot of scenes like this in my day, but the Sword of Truth has a scene which tops them all. It happens in "Stone of Tears", chapter 48, in which Richard Cypher takes on 30 (!) of the "Baka Ban Mana", warriors without peer so we are told. As we read the passages, we are told Richard taps the magic of all of the seekers that have gone before him, whose knowledge is in the sword of truth. Mighty fine warriors, who give Richard all of their skill. He then proceeds to kill a good chunk of the 30 "blademasters", and we are treated to the phrase "Bringer of Death" about 150 times in two pages.
Now...even you disagreed with me concerning Rand'al Thor's swordsman exploits in the WoT, this is many many times worse. These are 30 blademasters, warriors, who, according to Du Chaillu,
"train from sunup to sundown, every day. And then they train by the light of the moon. Fighting is almost a religion to them."
"I saw a Baka Ban Mana blade master who had gotten into the garrison in Tanimura kill nearly 50 well-armed soldiers before he was taken down. They fight like they are invincible spirits..."
First of all, I don't care if you're fighting 30 circus midgets, you're going to get hurt. These are 30 or so people that essentially train all the time!! All day every day! I don't care how much magic juice you've got in that sword, Dick, You're a dead man. There comes a point where the superiority in numbers simply negates any skill advanatage, and 30 to 1 is a pretty damn big advantage in numbers. I hope I don't have to go into any more details here. It's absurd.
Also, One of the major problems I had with the series...what is the deal with the hokey Wizard's Rules, and advice and wisdom in general in these books?
Zedd: People are Stupid. The greatest harm can result from the best intentions. Passion Rules Reason.
Everyone sits around pondering this devestatingly profound wisdom in the books as if they were somehow revelations to them. I could only shake my head at how dumb Richard and Co. must be. This is the kind of stuff that most people in real life figure out while they are still teenagers. It comes off like Terry Goodkind is trying to enlighten his 12-year old audience to his vast amount of wisdom. Also, another quote that just struck me as completely stupid:
"If you are outnumbered and the situation is hopeless, you have no choice-you must attack!"
Kahlan's father, I believe.This is such a profoundly flawed piece of strategy I couldn't believe it found it's way in a novel. You don't attack in that situation, you run away. Hate to burst the bubbles of all the wanna-be generals out there. I know it sounds cool to attack no matter the situation, it's the very macho thing to do, but even a not-so good military commander would agree that discretion is indeed the better part of valor. As a result of this quote and others, Kahlan's father didn't stike me as a very bright fellow.
The Future of Fantasy?
I kind of wanted to end this section with a little sub-section, that really has less to do with the Sword of Truth than it does with the fantasy genre in general. Parts of this may sound illogical, but you've made it this far, why stop now?
Isn't technology wonderful? Right now, through the technology of the internet and computers, I'm writing to you, basically giving you a window into my thoughts. Kind of cool eh? Through technology like computers and user-friendly software like Microsoft's Windows, writing as a profession has never been easier. Software actually spell-checks for you as you write, grammer checks for you...You've got Thesaurus software, online dictionaries....awesome stuff. It only occured to me recently, during a night of hard-core reading, that this could be a bad thing for readers of fiction everywhere, especially for fans of fantasy. Let me take a swig of my non-alcoholic beverage and try to explain what I mean.
What is 'in' right now, as far as fantasy novels go? Big. Big and lengthy. You can look at all of the "best" series out right now that are either completed or ongoing, and see this. WoT a planned 12(?) books, SoT, George Martin, Tad Williams, etc. The trilogy is a thing of the past, it seems...stand alone, single novels just aren't cool anymore, ya know? If you're not churning out a 6-8-10 book + series, you must be an average writer without the literary vision to complete such a long string of books. Why is this? Why is big beautiful in the world of fantasy? Part of it comes with the territory. Epic fantasy is by definition something larger than life. Combine this with the ease of writing these days on computer, especcially with editing, and the current fad of writing absolutely fat books and this phenomenon occurs. Think about it.
An author now doesn't have to worry about the length of time it takes to write a story any more. A full-time author can virtually put anything he wants into a story now, as opposed to 10, 15, 20 years ago, where for the sake of editing and a deadline an author might decide to leave certain scenes or characters out. Editing and re-writing is a bitch, you know. With the ease of computers as opposed to a typewriter or, god forbid, longhand, someone might be comfortable with trying to tell their story from all viewpoints imaginable, as opposed to limiting the perspective to a couple of characters. More viewpoints doesn't nessecarily make a story better, and in most cases it just gets confusing. Quanity over quality is the theme here, and it's something you don't need to look far to see. Granted, of course huge books have been written before computers, but you didn't get the feeling that many of scenes were filler and were not nessceary. These days with some of the new books out there, I just don't know.
So, in conclusion, You may ask me: "so you friggin' luddite, what do you want the authors to do, whip out the charcoal sticks and wood?" No. Despite all of this, the future of fantasy is brighter than it's ever been. It's still the quality of the story that counts, not the number of words or volumes. A whole new crop of completely excellent new authors have developed in the 90s, and hopefully will be writing long after the hacks and wanna-be Tolkiens have faded into complete obscurity. A good word processer will only take you so far. What counts in the end is the writer's imagination, and thier courage to convey their own, distinct vision.
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