Legend of the Seeker: Look upon me book continuity, and despair.

Dibs

Also, the whole tone is off. It'd be one thing if Richard killing the unarmed protesters was treated as a tragedy, a necessary evil that he loathed doing but couldn't prevent. Instead, the atmosphere is "fuck yeah, get those worthless hippies."

Except that, in context, it reads as brainwashed people acting as human shields for their oppressors. Whatever.

I've never seen so much concentrated negativity in my life. Why don't one of you literary critics suggest a fantasy series worth reading? Should I dredge through entire chapters of singing in LoTR in order to appreciate TRUE GENIUS?

The man wrote a solid series with a few weak books. Stop sniping.

Jragghen

Dibs wrote: »

Also, the whole tone is off. It'd be one thing if Richard killing the unarmed protesters was treated as a tragedy, a necessary evil that he loathed doing but couldn't prevent. Instead, the atmosphere is "fuck yeah, get those worthless hippies."

Except that, in context, it reads as brainwashed people acting as human shields for their oppressors. Whatever.

I've never seen so much concentrated negativity in my life. Why don't one of you literary critics suggest a fantasy series worth reading? Should I dredge through entire chapters of singing in LoTR in order to appreciate TRUE GENIUS?

The man wrote a solid series with a few weak books. Stop sniping.

If you think is concentrated negativity, you must not reveal that you like Goodkind on many fantasy/literary forums. He's pretty widely regarded as a hack. The chicken of pure evil is a passage that's quoted quite often all over the place. As for other series, A Song of Ice and Fire and Malazan Book of the Fallen are the two staple series you'll probably see recommended. But hell, Wheel of Time is better than Sword of Truth.

I'm not even going to try to grasp how someone could praise Goodkind then take a swing at Tolkien. Hoy.

Page-

Dibs wrote: »

Also, the whole tone is off. It'd be one thing if Richard killing the unarmed protesters was treated as a tragedy, a necessary evil that he loathed doing but couldn't prevent. Instead, the atmosphere is "fuck yeah, get those worthless hippies."

Except that, in context, it reads as brainwashed people acting as human shields for their oppressors. Whatever.

I've never seen so much concentrated negativity in my life. Why don't one of you literary critics suggest a fantasy series worth reading? Should I dredge through entire chapters of singing in LoTR in order to appreciate TRUE GENIUS?

The man wrote a solid series with a few weak books. Stop sniping.

Oh, I see now. Gratuitous slaughter of unarmed civilians who aren't even responsible for their own actions. When you put it like that it makes perfect sense.

If you want good fantasy then ASOIAF is a great place to start. But really, any fantasy series is better than the Sword of Truth books. Hell, by the author's own admission the books are almost fantasy as an afterthought, and moral (Objectivist) teachings are their goal. When you're writing plot not because it's good plot, but because it's more conducive to setting up strawmen that you can knock down (and probably rape) in order to get across another lesson about how the world should be, then you're failing at writing. Besides that, Richard is an admitted Gary Stu, which never makes for fun reading (especially when the author is a giant douchenozzle).

There are many topics on fantasy reading recommendations, you could always check out one of them.

see317

Dibs wrote: »

Also, the whole tone is off. It'd be one thing if Richard killing the unarmed protesters was treated as a tragedy, a necessary evil that he loathed doing but couldn't prevent. Instead, the atmosphere is "fuck yeah, get those worthless hippies."

Except that, in context, it reads as brainwashed people acting as human shields for their oppressors. Whatever.

I've never seen so much concentrated negativity in my life. Why don't one of you literary critics suggest a fantasy series worth reading? Should I dredge through entire chapters of singing in LoTR in order to appreciate TRUE GENIUS?

The man wrote a solid series with a few weak books. Stop sniping.

I'd recomend you pick up the Acts of Caine by Matt Stover as a good fantasy series.
Hell, I'd recomend the latest Drizzt dreck before SoT.

Bloods End

see317 wrote: »

Dibs wrote: »

Also, the whole tone is off. It'd be one thing if Richard killing the unarmed protesters was treated as a tragedy, a necessary evil that he loathed doing but couldn't prevent. Instead, the atmosphere is "fuck yeah, get those worthless hippies."

Except that, in context, it reads as brainwashed people acting as human shields for their oppressors. Whatever.

I've never seen so much concentrated negativity in my life. Why don't one of you literary critics suggest a fantasy series worth reading? Should I dredge through entire chapters of singing in LoTR in order to appreciate TRUE GENIUS?

The man wrote a solid series with a few weak books. Stop sniping.

I'd recomend you pick up the Acts of Caine by Matt Stover as a good fantasy series.
Hell, I'd recomend the latest Drizzt dreck before SoT.

Acts of Caine are so fucking good oh my god.

Balefuego

Page- wrote: »

Dibs wrote: »

Also, the whole tone is off. It'd be one thing if Richard killing the unarmed protesters was treated as a tragedy, a necessary evil that he loathed doing but couldn't prevent. Instead, the atmosphere is "fuck yeah, get those worthless hippies."

Except that, in context, it reads as brainwashed people acting as human shields for their oppressors. Whatever.

I've never seen so much concentrated negativity in my life. Why don't one of you literary critics suggest a fantasy series worth reading? Should I dredge through entire chapters of singing in LoTR in order to appreciate TRUE GENIUS?

The man wrote a solid series with a few weak books. Stop sniping.

Oh, I see now. Gratuitous slaughter of unarmed civilians who aren't even responsible for their own actions. When you put it like that it makes perfect sense.

If you want good fantasy then ASOIAF is a great place to start. But really, any fantasy series is better than the Sword of Truth books. Hell, by the author's own admission the books are almost fantasy as an afterthought, and moral (Objectivist) teachings are their goal. When you're writing plot not because it's good plot, but because it's more conducive to setting up strawmen that you can knock down (and probably rape) in order to get across another lesson about how the world should be, then you're failing at writing. Besides that, Richard is an admitted Gary Stu, which never makes for fun reading (especially when the author is a giant douchenozzle).

There are many topics on fantasy reading recommendations, you could always check out one of them.

Seriously, there's good fantasy out there if you look for it. But even the most cliche cookie cutter stuff is better than Goodkind's bile.

Bogart

Has this turned into a 'what can innoculate against Terry Goodkind books' thread now? Because the answer is John Crowley and Gene Wolfe.

Also, I clicked that link and read some of the excerpts, ones I hadn't read before. Terry Goodkind is a very, very bad writer.

The Raging Platypus

I'd honestly get more joy out of reading the derivative Sword of Shanara dreck than re-reading any of Terry Goodkind's books.

Actually, I'll be fair - I did enjoy the first one, and then mildly enjoyed the next two. But then it just flew off into Dubya-Tee-Eff Land and never looked back.

Scooter

Dibs wrote: »

Also, the whole tone is off. It'd be one thing if Richard killing the unarmed protesters was treated as a tragedy, a necessary evil that he loathed doing but couldn't prevent. Instead, the atmosphere is "fuck yeah, get those worthless hippies."

Except that, in context, it reads as brainwashed people acting as human shields for their oppressors. Whatever.

I've never seen so much concentrated negativity in my life. Why don't one of you literary critics suggest a fantasy series worth reading? Should I dredge through entire chapters of singing in LoTR in order to appreciate TRUE GENIUS?

The man wrote a solid series with a few weak books. Stop sniping.

Did you just dis Tolkien?

Did he just dis Tolkien?

Balefuego

To be fair Tolkien's prose is not very good, it's dry and longwinded.

But he wasn't really a writer anyway, so its forgiveable.

Daxon

Balefuego wrote: »

To be fair Tolkien's prose is not very good, it's dry and longwinded.

But he wasn't really a writer anyway, so its forgiveable.

God yes, LoTR is one of the few series that has been successfully converted into film and end up being better than the original. Though the movies are a bit longwinded at times as well...

Anyhow, on book recommendations: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is pretty fucking good.

Big Dookie

He probably shouldn't jump right to ASoIaF though guys. After you read those books, ALL fantasy is bad in comparison. Maybe building up to it would be better.

Daxon

Name of the Wind is equal to Song of Ice and Fire to be honest..

Fencingsax

Balefuego wrote: »

To be fair Tolkien's prose is not very good, it's dry and longwinded.

But he wasn't really a writer anyway, so its forgiveable.

Yeah, the fact that he's a linguist and a historian really helped with the context and setting, not so much with the prose.

durandal4532

Fencingsax wrote: »

Balefuego wrote: »

To be fair Tolkien's prose is not very good, it's dry and longwinded.

But he wasn't really a writer anyway, so its forgiveable.

Yeah, the fact that he's a linguist and a historian really helped with the context and setting, not so much with the prose.

I don't know, it's quite dry but it's also a unique style. It works pretty well as an alternate universe's mythology, which I really enjoyed.

Not exactly fun in parts, though.

Rolo

I'm not sure you can really have a fair comparison of prose written in the first fantasy novel in the late 30s with subsequent books in that genre that have come out some 60 or 70 years later. Very few genres of writing would have remained unchanged between those two periods.

durandal4532

Well, yeah. But you can compare Tolkien to C.S. Lewis, it's pretty obvious Tolkien is a different sort of writer.

Echo

Rolo wrote: »

I'm not sure you can really have a fair comparison of prose written in the first fantasy novel in the late 30s with subsequent books in that genre that have come out some 60 or 70 years later. Very few genres of writing would have remained unchanged between those two periods.

It wasn't even fantasy back then, because the term didn't exist yet. It was science fiction, which fantasy evolved out of.

Bloods End

Big Dookie wrote: »

He probably shouldn't jump right to ASoIaF though guys. After you read those books, ALL fantasy is bad in comparison. Maybe building up to it would be better.

Thats a stupid thing to say and you're stupid for saying it.

Evil Multifarious

Okay, the "let's kill the hippies passage" is just a transparent attempt to provide an analogy for anti-war protesters in our time. Of course Goodkind provides "justification" in the context of the world he creates; he's trying to justify the idea that America is fighting a righteous war and those who protest against it are brainwashed, deluded hippies who are such a barrier to justice that they should in fact be killed. It's not even depicted as something to regret, or a tragedy, it's depicted as glorious meting out of justice and people getting what they deserve. It's Goodkind doing what he always does: taking his personal, extreme philosophy and trying to justify it by creating a fantasy world analogous to our own and demonstrating how right he is. Except that even in that world Richard is a horrible tyrant, and the people who think he isn't seem brainwashed and deluded.

It's an articulation of Goodkind's twisted fantasy of killing and brutalizing anyone who disagrees with him or his philosophy, which is played out time and time again throughout the series.

LadyM

I just realized I've been confusing Terry Brooks and Terry Goodkind (whose books I've never actually read) for years. I thought it was surprising that Sword of Shannara guy would suddenly start writing about demon rape gangbangs.

Tam

LadyM wrote: »

I just realized I've been confusing Terry Brooks and Terry Goodkind (whose books I've never actually read) for years. I thought it was surprising that Sword of Shannara guy would suddenly start writing about demon rape gangbangs.

Before I read their respective books, I got Pratchett, Goodkind, and Brooks confused when my friends talked about them. Pratchett not as much because he's pretty different, but Brooks and Goodkind both had "Sword of" titles.

Rolo

Both swords also tell the Truth.

Rolo

Dibs wrote: »

Also, the whole tone is off. It'd be one thing if Richard killing the unarmed protesters was treated as a tragedy, a necessary evil that he loathed doing but couldn't prevent. Instead, the atmosphere is "fuck yeah, get those worthless hippies."

Except that, in context, it reads as brainwashed people acting as human shields for their oppressors. Whatever.

I've never seen so much concentrated negativity in my life. Why don't one of you literary critics suggest a fantasy series worth reading? Should I dredge through entire chapters of singing in LoTR in order to appreciate TRUE GENIUS?

The man wrote a solid series with a few weak books. Stop sniping.

No he didn't. He wrote two books that were okay if you overlooked the rape, sadomasochism and then followed those up with objectivist shit that had more rape, more torture, more testicle eating, more strawmen.

Tam

Rolo wrote: »

Both swords also tell the Truth.

haha yeah

After reading Guards! Guards I never got Pratchett confused with the other two again.

Dibs

If you think is concentrated negativity, you must not reveal that you like Goodkind on many fantasy/literary forums. He's pretty widely regarded as a hack. The chicken of pure evil is a passage that's quoted quite often all over the place. As for other series, A Song of Ice and Fire and Malazan Book of the Fallen are the two staple series you'll probably see recommended. But hell, Wheel of Time is better than Sword of Truth.

I'm not even going to try to grasp how someone could praise Goodkind then take a swing at Tolkien. Hoy.

It's still concentrated negativity even if I could find it elsewhere. I really couldn't give a damn how the general populace feels about his series, or any other series for that matter. If you point out reasons why his writing is bad, I can take that into account maybe see him for 'what he really is'. Sniping sentences out of the book to make it look like it was all about evil chickens, demon gangbangs and slaughtering innocents is not going to prove anything.

From what I've gathered, there's a lot of hate on him for his extremist viewpoints, and how he worked them into his literature. Not only did he work them in, but he set them up against straw man arguments in order to justify what he was doing - making his beliefs seem right.

I have no problem with that. I enjoyed the majority of the books, just about all of the characters, and even the sport he introduced.

My swipe at Tolkien was a mockery of this thread. I took one aspect of his writing and 'dissed' it, without praising the amount of creativity and work went into pretty much creating the fantasy genre and even sprinkling some songs on it for good measure - just not good reading.

I've read Song of Fire and Ice and will not say anything bad about it. However, it's been knocked in this thread before everyone jumped on the bandwagon and the rampant incest and 'three thrust fucks' of 14 year old girls should bother the liberal crowd here - no?

To whoever puts Wheel of Time above Sword of Truth has a lot more patience than I do. Jordan's writing is intolerably slow, and I don't think anything has happened in three books - I will keep reading though, because while he does prattle on about the scenery and stupid gender bantering, the first three books were good enough for me to want to know how it's going to end.

Ranx

I just can't fathom how anyone thinks that goodkind writes with anything close to flair and skill

Big Dookie

Bloods End wrote: »

Big Dookie wrote: »

He probably shouldn't jump right to ASoIaF though guys. After you read those books, ALL fantasy is bad in comparison. Maybe building up to it would be better.

Thats a stupid thing to say and you're stupid for saying it.

If saying ASoIaF is some of the best fantasy ever written means you think I'm stupid, then fine, you can call me stupid all you want. I'll keep saying it and you can keep calling me stupid and one of us will be right.

Neaden

Dibs wrote: »

If you think is concentrated negativity, you must not reveal that you like Goodkind on many fantasy/literary forums. He's pretty widely regarded as a hack. The chicken of pure evil is a passage that's quoted quite often all over the place. As for other series, A Song of Ice and Fire and Malazan Book of the Fallen are the two staple series you'll probably see recommended. But hell, Wheel of Time is better than Sword of Truth.

I'm not even going to try to grasp how someone could praise Goodkind then take a swing at Tolkien. Hoy.

It's still concentrated negativity even if I could find it elsewhere. I really couldn't give a damn how the general populace feels about his series, or any other series for that matter. If you point out reasons why his writing is bad, I can take that into account maybe see him for 'what he really is'. Sniping sentences out of the book to make it look like it was all about evil chickens, demon gangbangs and slaughtering innocents is not going to prove anything.

From what I've gathered, there's a lot of hate on him for his extremist viewpoints, and how he worked them into his literature. Not only did he work them in, but he set them up against straw man arguments in order to justify what he was doing - making his beliefs seem right.

I have no problem with that. I enjoyed the majority of the books, just about all of the characters, and even the sport he introduced.

My swipe at Tolkien was a mockery of this thread. I took one aspect of his writing and 'dissed' it, without praising the amount of creativity and work went into pretty much creating the fantasy genre and even sprinkling some songs on it for good measure - just not good reading.

I've read Song of Fire and Ice and will not say anything bad about it. However, it's been knocked in this thread before everyone jumped on the bandwagon and the rampant incest and 'three thrust fucks' of 14 year old girls should bother the liberal crowd here - no?

To whoever puts Wheel of Time above Sword of Truth has a lot more patience than I do. Jordan's writing is intolerably slow, and I don't think anything has happened in three books - I will keep reading though, because while he does prattle on about the scenery and stupid gender bantering, the first three books were good enough for me to want to know how it's going to end.

OK, a couple of problems here.
1. This is the PA forums, of course we are going to be negative douchbags to something as transparently stupid as the Sword of Truth series. Debating the literary merits of SOT is equivalent to having a debate about intelligent design on a forum about evolution. One viewpoint is just wrong.
2. To make matters worse he is an Objectivist in a board that thinks Libertarians are crazy idiots. If you expect that libertarians crazier cousins are going to get more respect you have not been paying any attention.
3. Even ignoring all of that Goodkind is a bad writer. Horrible. He cannot write a believable or real character to save his life and the pictures he paints of his world are trite and nonsensical. A dude tried to freaking ban fire. The sport you love so much involves cutting the heads off of the losers. That is not creating a believable world.

Echo

Neaden wrote: »

The sport you love so much involves cutting the heads off of the losers. That is not creating a believable world.

That's what I call rapid team turnover rate.

enlightenedbum

Echo wrote: »

Neaden wrote: »

The sport you love so much involves cutting the heads off of the losers. That is not creating a believable world.

That's what I call rapid team turnover rate.

Also, to be fair (I think Goodkind is mindless and if you don't pay too much attention the first few books at least are decent...things go bad in the third one): the Maya would like to have a word with you about the unbelievable world thing.

Dibs

1. This is the PA forums, of course we are going to be negative douchbags to something as transparently stupid as the Sword of Truth series. Debating the literary merits of SOT is equivalent to having a debate about intelligent design on a forum about evolution. One viewpoint is just wrong.
2. To make matters worse he is an Objectivist in a board that thinks Libertarians are crazy idiots. If you expect that libertarians crazier cousins are going to get more respect you have not been paying any attention.
3. Even ignoring all of that Goodkind is a bad writer. Horrible. He cannot write a believable or real character to save his life and the pictures he paints of his world are trite and nonsensical. A dude tried to freaking ban fire. The sport you love so much involves cutting the heads off of the losers. That is not creating a believable world.

1. I'm not emotionally invested in this argument - I don't mind losing. It just needed to be said that you were all ganging up on Goodkind. I was disgusted to watch people who haven't even read the books join in, or say "I read xxx books and then stopped - I'm awesome!". It's a god damned self-congratulatory circle jerk in here, and it needed to stop.

3. I had no problem believing the world he created, maybe that makes me an idiot. For someone who claims to think he is a horrible writer, you seem to have read the books - or are you just taking what other people have said and using their words to talk out of your ass?

Rolo

Dibs wrote: »

1. This is the PA forums, of course we are going to be negative douchbags to something as transparently stupid as the Sword of Truth series. Debating the literary merits of SOT is equivalent to having a debate about intelligent design on a forum about evolution. One viewpoint is just wrong.
2. To make matters worse he is an Objectivist in a board that thinks Libertarians are crazy idiots. If you expect that libertarians crazier cousins are going to get more respect you have not been paying any attention.
3. Even ignoring all of that Goodkind is a bad writer. Horrible. He cannot write a believable or real character to save his life and the pictures he paints of his world are trite and nonsensical. A dude tried to freaking ban fire. The sport you love so much involves cutting the heads off of the losers. That is not creating a believable world.

1. I'm not emotionally invested in this argument - I don't mind losing. It just needed to be said that you were all ganging up on Goodkind. I was disgusted to watch people who haven't even read the books join in, or say "I read xxx books and then stopped - I'm awesome!". It's a god damned self-congratulatory circle jerk in here, and it needed to stop.

3. I had no problem believing the world he created, maybe that makes me an idiot. For someone who claims to think he is a horrible writer, you seem to have read the books - or are you just taking what other people have said and using their words to talk out of your ass?

Do you really need to eat the entire turd to know it's going to taste like shit?

Once Goodkind got to the statues that could fight communism and the goat that could detect evil, I was pretty much fed up with Richard and Kahlan's constant tragic separations, and decided that Goodkind's novels weren't even worth carrying home from the library.

Scalfin

Balefuego wrote: »

Page- wrote: »

Dibs wrote: »

Also, the whole tone is off. It'd be one thing if Richard killing the unarmed protesters was treated as a tragedy, a necessary evil that he loathed doing but couldn't prevent. Instead, the atmosphere is "fuck yeah, get those worthless hippies."

Except that, in context, it reads as brainwashed people acting as human shields for their oppressors. Whatever.

I've never seen so much concentrated negativity in my life. Why don't one of you literary critics suggest a fantasy series worth reading? Should I dredge through entire chapters of singing in LoTR in order to appreciate TRUE GENIUS?

The man wrote a solid series with a few weak books. Stop sniping.

Oh, I see now. Gratuitous slaughter of unarmed civilians who aren't even responsible for their own actions. When you put it like that it makes perfect sense.

If you want good fantasy then ASOIAF is a great place to start. But really, any fantasy series is better than the Sword of Truth books. Hell, by the author's own admission the books are almost fantasy as an afterthought, and moral (Objectivist) teachings are their goal. When you're writing plot not because it's good plot, but because it's more conducive to setting up strawmen that you can knock down (and probably rape) in order to get across another lesson about how the world should be, then you're failing at writing. Besides that, Richard is an admitted Gary Stu, which never makes for fun reading (especially when the author is a giant douchenozzle).

There are many topics on fantasy reading recommendations, you could always check out one of them.

Seriously, there's good fantasy out there if you look for it. But even the most cliche cookie cutter stuff is better than Goodkind's bile.

Apparently, the first three are commonly considered to be close to Wheel of Time ripoffs (as the tropes index put it, he went from one Rand to another), so start there.

Kilroy

Terry Goodkind is a hack in a genre full of hacks. I don't even give a damn about all the idiotic philosophical bullshit he fills his books with; his writing is simply terrible.

Dibs

Do you really need to eat the entire turd to know it's going to taste like shit?

Once Goodkind got to the statues that could fight communism and the goat that could detect evil, I was pretty much fed up with Richard and Kahlan's constant tragic separations, and decided that Goodkind's novels weren't even worth carrying home from the library.

Dude, High Five!

... on another note, did you just admit to eating shit? 2Rolos1Cup.

The saying clearly doesn't fit - yourself and others have stated that the first few books were 'almost decent'.

FCD

They still had quite a bit of horrific torture and gorn.

Rolo

Dibs wrote: »

Do you really need to eat the entire turd to know it's going to taste like shit?

Once Goodkind got to the statues that could fight communism and the goat that could detect evil, I was pretty much fed up with Richard and Kahlan's constant tragic separations, and decided that Goodkind's novels weren't even worth carrying home from the library.

Dude, High Five!

... on another note, did you just admit to eating shit? 2Rolos1Cup.

The saying clearly doesn't fit - yourself and others have stated that the first few books were 'almost decent'.

I admitted to reading shit.

They started off being mindless entertainment, and ended up being nonsensical objectivist wish-fulfillment fantasies for the author. Once the latter happened, I couldn't justify continuing with Goodkind. This is not a commendation of the series.

Dibs

I liked that he mixed in philosophy with his writing (some have argued that his writing became more philosophical than 'fantasy' - whatever). Once the message was toned down a bit, I even liked that too.

A Dabble Of Thelonius

It's a god damned self-congratulatory circle jerk in here and it outrages my sense of moral clarity.


Alternate joke.


It's a god damned self-congratulatory circle jerk in here and as the president of the anime fan club, I'm here to say that you're on a power trip and need to calm down.