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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I enjoyed the first two thirds,until the story took a turn into some strange bondage fantasy. It was a nice standard kind of sword and sandals adventure before that.
One of my favorite fantasy novels. You can tell the author was setting it up to be part of a series, but it still stands alone really well, giving the reader the choice of going on in the series. Zed is probably my favorite character of them all, but it's tough bc Goodkind has created so many wonderful characters in this book.
This is a loooong book but I really liked the world.
Nice to read a fantasy book that's not YA
Nice to read a fantasy book that's not YA
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Rape, Torture
I really enjoyed this book. Yes it's formulaic and the bit at the end was an odd twist that felt a bit like the author HAD to bolt it in in order to get all the characters to where they needed to be but whatever. It entertained me and I'm keen to read the rest of the series.
This book, actually this entire series, is amazing. I couldn't put it down. The characters are well developed in my opinion. They actually hve flaws and act like real people and the story neveris dull. I recommend this book to anyone who is a lover of fantasy you will not regret it. This is my favorte series I hope you guys enjoy as much as I do.
Like reading amateur fanfiction. Zedd, Rachel, and Scarlett almost made this book bearable. Almost.
This was just the sort of thing I was looking for. Swords and sorcery. Hot, mystical women. Brash heroes. Humorous side companions. Corrupt governments and ancient castle-ular conspiracies. And one really evil antagonist.
What's interesting is how bad the writing style is, compared to today's standards. And by standards, I mean all the writing advice I hear these days. It's no wonder the thing is 300,000 words long. There's a lot of lines that are unnecessary. A lot of plot segments and sections that clutter up the prose. A lot of needless descriptors and sentences that are repeating what the dialogue suggests. There's lots of adverbs, and lots of scenes and characters that don't add anything to the story. I doubt you could get a work like this published these days.
But you don't care because the story is easy to follow, and interesting. I don't know why. Maybe it's because of the little things, like the sausage & cheese and spice soup that add an air of world-building. Maybe it's the lovable characters (although Kahlan gets whiny and evasive with her *HORRIBLE SECRET* and Richard is a little too bulletproof and god-like smart). It makes them lovable because they're always "saving the cat", which is a standard, but cheap way to make a hero likable right off the bat (although you can also give them a dog). The world is complex, and there's a lot in the background that you need to know to understand the foreground. But it doesn't throw it all at you at once. It gives you what you need to stay satisfied.
Then it got weird when we got to the dominatrix.
I'm serious. The story takes a total 180 and we go to BDSM-land. The hero is unnecessarily kidnapped and forced into slavery as a part of this sect of S&M dominatrices who work for the evil ruler. And this goes on for about 1/6th of the book as the hero is sexually tortured beyond all measure of humanity. Then he escapes, but not before making his dom fall in love with him. Before, the tone of the book... well, it wasn't exactly kiddish, but it wasn't adult. It was general audiences. PG-13. But all of the sudden, he's getting some kind of magic cattle-prod pressed against his junk every day, and he apparently suffers no psychological damage. The next thing he does is befriend a mother dragon. Best WTF moment in a book.
What's interesting is how bad the writing style is, compared to today's standards. And by standards, I mean all the writing advice I hear these days. It's no wonder the thing is 300,000 words long. There's a lot of lines that are unnecessary. A lot of plot segments and sections that clutter up the prose. A lot of needless descriptors and sentences that are repeating what the dialogue suggests. There's lots of adverbs, and lots of scenes and characters that don't add anything to the story. I doubt you could get a work like this published these days.
But you don't care because the story is easy to follow, and interesting. I don't know why. Maybe it's because of the little things, like the sausage & cheese and spice soup that add an air of world-building. Maybe it's the lovable characters (although Kahlan gets whiny and evasive with her *HORRIBLE SECRET* and Richard is a little too bulletproof and god-like smart). It makes them lovable because they're always "saving the cat", which is a standard, but cheap way to make a hero likable right off the bat (although you can also give them a dog). The world is complex, and there's a lot in the background that you need to know to understand the foreground. But it doesn't throw it all at you at once. It gives you what you need to stay satisfied.
Then it got weird when we got to the dominatrix.
I'm serious. The story takes a total 180 and we go to BDSM-land. The hero is unnecessarily kidnapped and forced into slavery as a part of this sect of S&M dominatrices who work for the evil ruler. And this goes on for about 1/6th of the book as the hero is sexually tortured beyond all measure of humanity. Then he escapes, but not before making his dom fall in love with him. Before, the tone of the book... well, it wasn't exactly kiddish, but it wasn't adult. It was general audiences. PG-13. But all of the sudden, he's getting some kind of magic cattle-prod pressed against his junk every day, and he apparently suffers no psychological damage. The next thing he does is befriend a mother dragon. Best WTF moment in a book.