Debatable. I enjoyed the series. Mostly.

The first four books are definitely the strongest of the bunch: Kahlan especially becomes a remarkable character at some point. But as many have said: there are certain motifs that are consistently revisited. The Mord-Sith are a major "character" in the series and will try to reinvent themselves as something better eventually....but you still need to deal with their shit.

And there are hundreds (and I do mean hundreds) of pages of philosophical drivel which if you do not agree with drag on and on and on. *Especially* in book 6 where (once again) the main character is fucking abducted and held against his will.

Textbook example of diminishing returns. I remember loving “Wizard’s First Rule” and was hoping for more of that philosophy in the series, but the second and third books take a turn towards more S&M and capture porn.

Basically I think the series was irrelevant and the first book is all you need, but your mileage may vary.

The series just came off as some Ayn Rand wizard BS to me

I liked them okay, but I'm the kind of reader who can skim a boring part and then re-engage when something interesting happens. The torture is easy enough to skim over. It's creepy and monotonous but I've read worse

My biggest problem is that they appear to be written for people with no memory- each book spends more and more time summarizing the previous books but again I skim those parts.

There is some truly great story and some well developed secondary characters hiding in there if you're willing to search for it, and there's a lot of dreck to slog through while you're searching.

Get one from the library and see if you like it, if you don't, take it back

Drop them while you can. I’d recommend switching over to The Codex Alera, Feist’s Magician series or the Belgariad.

The series is absolutely full of rape and torture. It genuinely becomes just cliche after a point that the bad guy will either be a rapist or a torturer or occasionally a child murderer... And then there is a book where the plot is a single statue is so god damn pretty and nails the human experience so fully it absolutely will inspire an entire nation to overthrow their oppressive leaders.

If you just need something to kill vast amounts of time, it'll work.

No. The second book opens with the MC once again sold to a sex cult. I bailed 2-3 chapters into book 2.

Do note the middle is one long love letter the the philosophy of Ann Rand.

The torture turns up a lot it felt like it was nearly every book. The dominatrix nuns are a fairly main set of characters. I gave up for that reason about book 4?

I read nearly them all... Started as fun fantasy, but by the end I felt it was more a pulpit for big Terry to whack us with his adopted philosophy. I also felt the build up to the fight with the Big Bad was vastly overdone vs how the Big Bad was dealt with. A let down. I wouldn't go back to reading them.

It’s been a million years but I had to stop at the one where the MC spends the entire book carving/building something. Can’t remember now what it was. A statue?

God no! That dominatrix porn goes on and on and on book after book. And it manages to get, of all things, WORSE.

It goes from torture to public humiliation.

When it came to the point where >!he's forced to eat from a dish on the floor like a dog (which by the way was done to me for three years as a child while in foster care, so maybe I'm over sensitive?)!< I quit reading it.

I learned it goes on well past that point, too.

Zero redeeming qualities in those books.

Stop torturing yourself (pun exceedingly purposeful).

I forced myself to read the whole series hoping it would redeem itself in the end, but I remember (and I’ll try to say this spoiler free) that the true ending went back and spoiled the ending of the first book in a certain way, which I had enjoyed when reading it. So I slogged through all the lost potential of a world that was almost interesting as it was built, all the political straw man plots, just to ruin something that made me want to continue the series in the first place. Unfortunately this one was my worst series ever.

You wouldn't be missing anything worth while. I made the mistake of reading most of them I'm my post Robert Jordan passing depression. I think I was on the last one and something just made me put it down, unfinished, and never look back. To this day I still consider it my lowest point in reading.

I couldn't do it. I cringed my way through the first book and hated 2. For some reason I still bought three. Even worse than one and two.

It felt like one huge justification for rape and torture because it hardens you and makes you stronger.

No Terry! Bad Terry! That doesn't harden anyone, it destroys lives.

Got tired of passages that felt they were cut and pasted from the clipboard.

What are your feelings on rape as a plot device? Or MASSIVE deus ex machina? There’s a non-zero chance that rape is actually used AS deus ex machina at some point, I can’t really remember all of the details anymore.

Nah. It's pretty much downhill from there.

They're a snore.

The chicken of evil frankly makes everything worthwhile. I wish more people acknowledged evil chickens.

The first couple of books were fine. Then it get's into a loop of "Yay they're together Oh no they're apart, omg how can they get back together" for a few books, then it goes into some kind of Ayn Rand shit and I stopped there.

It’s a very long series. And if you’re enjoying it, then go for it. Richard, Kahlan, Zedd, and the rest can be entertaining.

After a while, though, it’s kind of like going to church by yourself.

First. I love the books very much. But this is a series that I just can't recommend to others. You have to see for yourself. I fell in love with the series 20 pages in. (First saw a couple of episodes of the TV series)

The books have many flaws, but if you like the first book you should read further. If you have to ask others then just stop. This is not a series that the majority likes. And I can see the problems with the books even though I love them.

It is extremely bad and extremely good at the same time. If you focus on the bad then you will only find shit. If you don't like rolling your eyes (every 200 pages) then this series is not for you. If you don't enjoy richard having headaches then the series is not for you.

Decide for yourself. I like it(even love it). I totally understand why others hate it.

If you only read Wizard's First Rule and then select chapters of the Chainfire arc, then yeah, it's ok 👍

I am so tired of the reluctant hero troupe that Richard got boring really quickly.

Read them as a child, maybe early teens, so I don't remember much except that the female love interest was very annoying and the hero was as well. I actually liked Denna, that's how annoyed I was by the heroine and how much I didn't mind Richard being tortured. Best part of the book for me.

The only one I enjoyed was the one without either of the main characters. Pillars of Creation. It was so refreshing, but the book after that one went back to the regular hero and I just couldn't read the series anymore.

If you're not enjoying it, I say abandon ship. There's nothing in it that makes them must-read or even should-read aside from them being uber popular for some reason once upon a time.

I read them all. At least the first full "story" before it was added on. And sadly, I can't recommend it.

The story starts really good, but then it gets annoying. There's hundreds of pages just basically describing why Communism is bad. I agree, but it gets old fast, and KEEPS droning on about it. The main character starts to just lose, lose, lose in everything he tries, which is a trope I hate. And the climax was anything but. There was a set up fir an epic finish, and then - "OH, I can just do this."

It was my introduction to fantasy, so I'm going to say yes.

Do you like Ayn Rand, BDSM, and libertarian fantasy? If yes to all three, you’ll probably like these books.

It's so much fun to read if only for how absurdly stupid it can get, otherwise it's an awful series of books drenched in gross ideologies

but for real, I can think back to reading this in high school and instantly picture like 5 different scenes that just shock me in the weirdest way possible

for example; the main character kicks the jaw off of a child and fights an evil chicken

edit: or when he beats communism with the power of american football

edit2: I could literally go on all night, he gets mad at his gf cos he slept with her while pretending to be his brother even though he thought he was sleeping with another woman at the time.

he made a statue so beautiful that he collapsed an entire government

he killed a bunch of pacifists in the name of peace

murdered his way out of prison only for his captives to be so impressed they offer him a position on their sports team

edit3: i'm sorry these links need to be added to the thread it's absolute gold i could go on about these books all night

https://www.pornokitsch.com/2010/07/underground-reading-wizards-first-rule-by-terry-goodkind.html

http://sandstormreviews.blogspot.com/2006/08/goodkind-parodies.html

Unfortunately, I think the series falls prey to the all-too-common business model of writing one book to see if there's interest and then following it up with a dozen books to pummel that interest into the ground.

If you look at it as a single, cohesive work, then you really get the "this could have used an editor" impression that there's simply too much and a lot could have be trimmed/excluded/modified to create a more streamlined narrative.

If you look at it as an episodic work (think Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys), then you've got too much backstory to learn. Imagine you're watching Friends and unable to understand what's going on because you skipped the entire season spent following Monica in cooking school.

I enjoyed the first half dozen them bored of them

No. They're crap and nobody should be supporting Goodkind's work. He was as terrible a person as he was a writer.

I read the whole series, and all the extra books after and I can sat it can be a slog. For most of it I would say it is about as enjoyable as you're average action movie. Not particularly well done but fun.

There is about a book and a half that is just about rugby. It's like the author just discovered that it existed.

There's another that is about how communism is bad and capitalism is good.

So, take from that what you will.

I read through the first 5-7 books and stop every time. It feels like the dragon ball z effect. We make him too strong and the bad guys become galaxy level threats to compete. So they have to find a way to make a new threat stronger or unique enough to matter. I always get lost at the same book and stop. The books draw you in and one of the books is hard to read (between books 3 or 4 I think) but the last 1/4 of the book is amazing. I would read until you can’t push on anymore. It’s well written in my opinion.

I liked the first three, tolerated the fourth, hated the fifth and stopped reading.

No. Just read Wheel of time.

I thought Wizard’s first rule was amazing. It’s one of my favorite fantasy books in fact. The issue is that each subsequent book in the series gets progressively worse. In my opinion, everything beyond book 4 isn’t worth reading.

No. Furthermore, no. Also and not coincidentally, no. Hard no. Absolutely.

Nothing worse than watching him fall of a cognitive cliff into some of the most twitchy, red-eyed, arm wavy libertarian chicken doodle you can imagine, after being so entertaining in the first books.

There is so many better authirs and books, dont bother with SoT

First few books are great but Goodkind is a lunatic libertarian and he spends WAAAAYYYYY too much time spouting drivel. He doesn’t even attempt to be sneaky about it, to the point that I consider everything after book four to be propaganda.

I read the whole damn series when I was much younger. It turned into a slog and the end of the series was really bad. It went on far too long and quality went off the deep end. The last book in particular was terrible, even worse than the prior four or five. It seemed to me that he had a contractual obligation to finish but even he got bored with his own political ideology, story, and characters.

Oh god no. Run as far and as fast as you can in the other direction.

Fuck Terry Goodkind and his insufferable brand of repetitive, preachy drivel.

This is the worst fantasy I've read by a mile (and I've read a lot). But more than that, they're some of the worst books I've ever read.

To be totally fair, the first book is decent and the second isn't bad. After that, it's a pretty rapid decline. By the end of book 4 I hated the series and his writing with a goddam passion.

The only thing this series has that other books in the genre don’t are the graphic depictions of gore and violence often sexual violence. He also dedicates the entirety of book 6 to a ham fisted allegory about why capitalism > communism. But if I’m being honest I did enjoy them as a teen when I probably shouldn’t have been reading them but I would never go back for a re-read

Read what you like, not what Reddit likes. It’s popular to shit on the Goodkind series here on Reddit (I can’t recall it ever getting much praise, but people love to jump on the bandwagon once the negative comments start coming in). The series is slow moving on some parts and not so much in others. I personally loved the series.

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I read it when I was a teenager, so it's been a bit. I really liked the first book. After that I liked the stories less and less. Without too many spoilers, Richard is a special kind of wizard, and besides one brief moment for one section of a story, he never learns how to use his wizard powers. They mostly just turn up whenever he needs to dues ex machina his way out of a situation he can't fix with his sword. He's also an artist so he just gets artistic inspiration on how to fix things and it felt like a cop out most of the time. The soft core torture porn themes of the books didn't bother me, I was a teenager so I was probably into it at the time. The main characters just got less interesting to me over time. The side characters were great though. Zed? Loved that guy.

I enjoyed the first 2 or 3. They get worse as they go. The last book in the series feels like the author went through a checklist of loose ends and wrapped them up whether it fit the story or not. It was a disservice to the first few books.

I read the series, I don't remember when maybe book 3 or 4 it turns into some weird struggle vs socialism shit. Then basically devolves into the Author's take on odd romance novel from the grocery store.

I absolutely enjoyed the series, but if it hasn't grabbed you enough to finish it faster than a few months then its probably not a good series for you. You may just not have much time to read, and thats fine, its not meant as a criticism towards you, but if you find it difficult to go back and read more, then you most likely would be better off finding another series to pass your time. Listen to the audio books while you drive to and from wherever or something like that if you want to continue the story. I enjoyed Faith of the Fallen and seem to be one of the few in this thread that did. The S&M girls are there through the whole story, but their purpose in it all changes while their tactics do not. The more you begin to understand them, the more you realize they don't do the things because they want to, they just dont know of any other way. The pillars of creation was a good read as well, and could technically be read stand alone for the most part. Knowing the main characters from the series should be enough, if I recall, to not have any "what the hell was that" moments.

My dad used to read me these as a bedtime story as a kid. It got really awkward with the dominatrixes and whatnot. Clearly Terry G is writing with his left hand. I gave up on book 6 where it got really boring.

I didn’t finish the series. There was a definite decline in quality as it went along. I finished #5 and never went back.

I’d read the series as a teenager, and enjoyed it back then.

Would I enjoy it if I read it for the first time now ~ 20 years later? Bags! I don’t know. There are erotic scenes sprinkled throughout the series so there’s no escaping that. I do fondly remember the magic system in that series, and Richard’s journey off the beaten path.

Everyone has different standards for literary works, and if you enjoyed the first book, then keep reading.

Not even a little. SoT is basically the awkward love child of Atlas Shrugged and The Wheel of Time series. Goodkind shamelessly rips them off so much that Robert Jordan and Ayn Rand practically deserve a writing credit. I actually like both Atlas Shrugged and The Wheel of Time and I found the series practically unreadable. Every book is about how Richard Rahl, Goodkind's protagonist, is basically the perfect specimen of human power and will, and overcomes seemingly impossible odds through unearned and low-effort deus ex machina powers.

This is to say nothing about Goodkind's treatment of women in his books. I'm hardly a bleeding hearted feminist, but Goodkind challenges that, not because he writes women in a deft and nuanced way, but because basically every woman in the series seems to exist to serve Goodkind's BDSM/rape fantasies that it gets actively uncomfortable to read at times.

There's so much more, but to leave you with one of my favorite moments from the series that illustrates just how great a shitbag Richard is and how disconnected Goodkind is from any sort of normative morality in a series all about morality, in Book 1 Richard is captured by bad guys. He's then paraded before one of the bad guy's allies and her court, including her 7 year old daughter. Princess Minibitch mocks Richard for being in chains and sticks her tongue out at him. Richard responds to this by kicking Minibitch in the face, shattering her jaw and severing her tongue. Richard's jailer, a hot woman in skintight red leather, responds to this by taking Richard away and having sex with him.

I became aware of the books through the tv series and was disappointed by them. It's an interesting world, but Goodkind's writing style grates on me. YMMV.

I liked the series. It has a lot of unique world-building things that aren’t fully explained and gives a lot of depth to the history. Like you find out all this crazy shit from the distant past but it leaves you with more questions than answers. Some of that stuff I still think about today when imagining making my own worlds.

Oh hell yes! One of my favorites. I’ve use a quote from one of the books numerous times in the business world to explain roles… Goes something like “You are the steel against steel (cyber security team). I am the magic against magic (politics).”

I don’t know, it lost me after they “convinced” a group of dudes their dicks fell off without using any magic.

Ive read first 3-4 volumes, then gave up, vol 1 and 2 were kinda cool but then the author keeps adding on unecessary plotlines that have little to nothing to offer besides a filler (and boring one at that)

The moment I gave up, was when 3 characters literarily stood in the middle of nowhere, debating on where to go next FOR ONE HUNDRED PAGES

I read the entire series, out of pure stubborness.

First book is good. Second is ok.

Then it turns into weird torture porn and rants on hating socialism and communism.

10/10 never reading again.

Great man theory + Ayn Rand with a healthy dose of S&M and dues ex machina.

I started reading the books when they were first released and book one I was like “ok, lets see where this is going” and ultimately it’s one of the few series I just quit.

If you can slog through the objectivism political theory it’s tough to also deal with how the world ending threat you just read for 800 pages is resolved by some simple act.

The super duper great man that has some magical John Gault insight into reality is a boring sociopath.

Very few books I’ve read and actually hated and this was one of them.

Is this the series where there’s page upon page about how much they love each other and it feels like it’s never gonna move on from what should have lasted four sentences?

Short answer: NO. But hey thats just my opinion.

The series starts strong but then goes on for far too long. I didn't finish them.

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Libertarian fantasy writing. Goodkind fell into the Clive Cussler trap: formulaic writing, predictability. Details change, but certain things happen over and over.

Thry start off okay, but God do they go on. I made it through to the end, so did my wife, but both of us regret wasting so much time on the last half of the series. Just read the first 3 or so and you'll have read them all, at least in theme, as the author just goes back the same well over and over again until it's dry, then when the horse dies of dehydration he starts just kicking and kicking and kicking the shit out of that horse. If you think this analogy is being stretched a bit thin then you will think the premise of Sword of Truth is stretched even thinner.

The series is a blatant rip off of the wheel of time and the omen machine is a blatant rip off of game of thrones. The only thing terry adds is awful political ramblings since he believes that ayn rand and the bible are the only other books someone should read.

The first few books are worth the read. I wouldn't go past book 4 though.

I used to love the series, but it got to the point where it was just too much in-your-face objectivism.

Too keep it short: no, don’t bother. Gets wayyyy too preachy.

No. No no no no no. The first book set up a surprisingly good world despite some very huge holes then the next 13 or 14 or however many books just destroy it. Plus it has one of the most anticlimactic villain fights I've ever read.

Also to add the author is a dick.

To this day the first book is the ONLY BOOK EVER I couldn’t finish.

It’s just so dogshit.

My thoughts as a reader who dropped it after book one:

Absurdly not. It's a trope filled mess that steals blatantly from other authors, rides Ayn Rand's dick from sun up to sun down, and has a pretty gross depiction of rape and women both in terms of quantity and depravity. To top it off, the author was a massive asshole.

I really can't think of anything praiseworthy about the book I read, and doubt very much that the series as a whole would be any different.

No, I dropped the second book a couple chapters in because it was just torture porn.

I like the part where the witch shows up and says "don't do this or bad stuff" and they do it anyway.

Depends how much you love Ayn Rand. He grtd i suffer able about it starting around book 5 and it just gets worse from there.

Also, the pattern of "horrible thing" that is solved with new spell that was banned gets painfully predictable.

I got tired of the ending being "richards just the best it just took him a bit to realize it"

The first few books are pretty good, but it becomes extremely obvious libertarian propaganda as it goes on.

Starts out decent but that's it. Not worth it and quickly deteriorates to garbage with it's torture and rape elements. There are just countless better fantasy books and series out there more worth your time.

"Is X worth reading?" or "Should I finish Y?" type posts are considered recommendation requests and should be posted in the weekly recommendation thread.

No. Don't read the series.

I LOVED the first book. It was amazing. The book had a message, a philosophy, ideas. It was mentally stimulating.

High on book one, I read the whole series in a few months. I didn't realize it at the time, but the other books weren't fascinating. This is how I read them all so quickly - they weren't deep enough to slow me down.

Later, when I had some time to reflect upon the books, I realized what it was: the books switched to fan fiction. The plot took a back seat to being cool. They were no longer deep. It was like watching a sequel to a great Hollywood blockbuster - clearly lacking the magic of the original.

I like rereading books. I haven't picked this series back up.

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As someone who loved the series as a teen, and is currently listening to the audiobooks to fall asleep at night, I wouldnt recommend it. It's nostalgic to me, but VERY WTF in places. A random list of stuff:

• lots or rape and torture. Often graphic. Child rape as well (beginning of the series). Gang rape. Main (male) character is also raped, but it's never identified as such and he ends up "loving" his rapist.
• lots of anti-socialist / anti-communist rants, usually propped up by caricatural strawman plots and character design. Ie, the bad guys from book 3 onwards are just a caricature of communists. Book 6 is basically "won't anyone think of the plight of entrepreneurs under communism?". Goodkind is openly libertarian and an objectivist, and a follower of Ayn Rand.
• related: as the books go on, the "rants" get longer and longer, up until it takes up several pages. One character would just monologue endlessly about individual freedom or about the Common Good (depending on which side they're on). None of this is done in the character's unique voice either, so they all end up sounding the same.
• each book takes great care to repeat, re-explain or summarise what had happened previously. That's great if you pick up the next book after a long break, especially as the magic system and history of the world can get a bit complex. Not so great if you read the series in one go.
• some of the plot elements seem quite derivative bordering on plagiarism (Samuel / Gollum for example), while others are truly original.
• for the audiobook versions: the reader changes almost every book. Most of the time that's not really an issue, apart for book 4 (I think?) In which the reader pronounces some names wrong (including that of the female lead!)

That said, it can be beautifully written in places, and some of the characters are really endearing. Despite the abundant sexual violence, and the fact that most of the adult female characters are "one of the most beautiful women Richard had ever seen", female characters are plentiful and interesting in their own right. The series also has several older characters (both male and female) who survive and stay important throughout the series (none of that "and then the old mentor dies so that the hero has to grow up"). It's also kinda refreshing that Richard and Kahlan are both established adults with careers and such, and not teenagers / young adults.

No. He’s a hack that stole most of his stuff from better authors and Ayn Rand. He’s also an absolute garbage dump of a human being.

EDIT

there are a plethora of better authors out there, even a better Terry, specifically.

There's not many instances like you mentioned. I remember just one more softcore event, which is pretty crucial to the story line actually. Series is worth it though. I enjoyed it when I was 25-26. Don't think I'd like it now.