by The Wanderer
Author: Terry Goodkind
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Series: Sword of Truth Book One
Pages: 848
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Series: Sword of Truth Book One
Pages: 848
I’ve had a soft spot for those lengthy fantasy epics. Before I get to reading them, I do some brief skimming on the interwebs over whether the whole series is worth the time. Reading these opinions, a common trend emerges: the series starts out great before it begins to fall off in quality. I read these things about The Wheel of Time before I started those books, A Song of Ice and Fire before I started those books, and The Malazan Books of the Fallen before I started those books. To a certain extent the “decay over time sentiment” is true for all those series’, but I would still say I had an enjoyable reading experience.
So when I began to skim over what people thought about the The Sword of Truth not to my surprise I saw the same thing. Yet not even a quarter of the way through Wizards First Rule (the first book in the series), I knew I didn’t like it, and by half way through, I wasn’t sure I was going to finish it. I tend to get obsessive compulsive about finishing a book – no matter how bad it is – and that trait kicked in. I made it to the end, my internal subconscious screaming at me the whole way. I’ve read a lot of books in my life, and there have been a fair few that I’ve hated, but I don’t even think the words that follow will do justice to just how bad the writing, plot, character development, themes, and all around arrogance that tells this story is. If you were to ask me today what’s the worst book you’ve read, I’d say Wizard’s First Rule without thinking twice.
I would expect to hear “that can’t be true” or “have you heard of Robert Stanek or Robert Newcomb?” To answer the former, I’d say it’s the worst when compared with material that’s currently being published by major publishers. To answer the latter I’ve heard of Stanek, who’s notorious for being accused of padding his Amazon page with fake reviews, and Newcomb who’s famous for his publisher dropping him for writing one of the most blatantly sexist fantasy books ever, but I would never waste a second of my time reading something that’s so notoriously bad. That being said, I might be overstepping when I say Wizard’s First Rule is the worst book ever, – after all it’s followed by ten other books, which even Goodkind’s admirers say progressively get worse – but I still feel it’s within reason to say it.
