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mhshokuhi's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
یک مدل از فانتزی‌هایی که بسیار بهش علاقه دارم: فانتزی‌هایی که جادو و شمشیر و اتفاقات هیجان‌انگیز به میزان قابل توجهی داشته باشه و شبیه یه رمان عادی نباشه که از ۵۰۰ صفحه یدونه اژدها یا چیز جادویی هم نبینی بعدش بهش میگن هم فانتزی :وی
جلد دوم مجموعه شمشیر حقیقت با تمرکز روی ریچارد و کِیلِن و زِد سه داستان رو روایت می‌کنه که در نهایت به هم می‌رسه وقایع مستقیم یا غیرمستقیم، اتفاقات هیجان‌انگیزی میوفته، ریچارد بیشتر قدرت خودش رو پیدا می‌کنه، کِیلِن استراتژی جنگی باحالی می‌چینه و زِد هم در حال شوخی وسط بدترین موقعیت‌ها که کاری هم از دستش درست بر نمیاد :دی کلا اکشن خیلی بیشتری داره این کتاب، سرعتش هم مناسب بود و بقیه‌اش همون توضیحاتی که برای ریویو کتاب اول نوشتم 😅 البته ویلن خاصی نداره اونقدر این کتاب با اینکه خطر خیلی خیلی بیشتر از قبل هست و یا کلا پشت صحنه هستن یا حضورشون خیلی کمه برخلاف کتاب قبل. دیالوگ‌هاش به‌یادموندنی‌تر بودن و نکات ریز اینور اونور هم داشت که البته دفن هم نشده بود کشفشون نکنی بعداً و کلا تجربه خیلی خوبی بود این کتاب با اینکه ابدا چیز ابرشاهکاری نیست و خودش رو هم خیلی جدی نمی‌گیره در نهایت. واقعاً خوشحالم این جلد و جلد قبلی رو بعد از چند کتاب اخیری که تقریباً دوستشون نداشتم خوندم.
جلد دوم مجموعه شمشیر حقیقت با تمرکز روی ریچارد و کِیلِن و زِد سه داستان رو روایت می‌کنه که در نهایت به هم می‌رسه وقایع مستقیم یا غیرمستقیم، اتفاقات هیجان‌انگیزی میوفته، ریچارد بیشتر قدرت خودش رو پیدا می‌کنه، کِیلِن استراتژی جنگی باحالی می‌چینه و زِد هم در حال شوخی وسط بدترین موقعیت‌ها که کاری هم از دستش درست بر نمیاد :دی کلا اکشن خیلی بیشتری داره این کتاب، سرعتش هم مناسب بود و بقیه‌اش همون توضیحاتی که برای ریویو کتاب اول نوشتم 😅 البته ویلن خاصی نداره اونقدر این کتاب با اینکه خطر خیلی خیلی بیشتر از قبل هست و یا کلا پشت صحنه هستن یا حضورشون خیلی کمه برخلاف کتاب قبل. دیالوگ‌هاش به‌یادموندنی‌تر بودن و نکات ریز اینور اونور هم داشت که البته دفن هم نشده بود کشفشون نکنی بعداً و کلا تجربه خیلی خوبی بود این کتاب با اینکه ابدا چیز ابرشاهکاری نیست و خودش رو هم خیلی جدی نمی‌گیره در نهایت. واقعاً خوشحالم این جلد و جلد قبلی رو بعد از چند کتاب اخیری که تقریباً دوستشون نداشتم خوندم.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Rape and War
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
buzby72's review
adventurous
dark
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Slavery, Torture, War, Blood, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Violence, and Death
vcoutant's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
So much sexual violence. Plot is mostly driven by miscommunication
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
sierrainstitches's review
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I don’t know. I feel the same way I felt after reading the first. “I read it.” Just, meh. There’s a whole lot of rape/SA for there also being a forced-birth theme. And the names kill me. A fantasy series with magic and mysticism and then… you name a guard Kevin and a villain Tyler? A dragon named Gregory?? WHY.
Other points… book 2 is still poorly written. Painful dialogue. Awkward interactions. Will I continue on this moderately painful quest? Undecided.
Other points… book 2 is still poorly written. Painful dialogue. Awkward interactions. Will I continue on this moderately painful quest? Undecided.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Rape, and Sexual assault
ashybear02's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Gore, War, and Death
Moderate: Sexual violence, Rape, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Sexual content
sashagalkina's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
Terry Goodkind is great at world creation and weaves the plot beautifully with parts fitting each other like a puzzle. The three drawbacks I found that lowered my rating was the pace being quite slow at times, characters being much more two dimensional than in the first book, and this one was a lot more gruesome, gory, and graphic. I had to put it away a few times cause I got too disturbed. The story itself is of course very interesting and having an audio book is definitely a plus for this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape and Murder
ocean_the_reader's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
DEFINITELY CHECK TRIGGER WARNINGS!!
Reread of 2022: this is definitely a slower book however I enjoyed it. I loved how it does touch on self-acceptance near the end, even of things that could be new and scary. I'm still loving this reread and very excited to continue.
Verna is insufferable at the beginning, which I forgot about, but she has a great character arc.
I love Warren and Nathan ❤️.
This book was slow and dragged a little bit. However I still absolutely loved it and getting to meet new characters and seeing the world expand.
Reread of 2022: this is definitely a slower book however I enjoyed it. I loved how it does touch on self-acceptance near the end, even of things that could be new and scary. I'm still loving this reread and very excited to continue.
Verna is insufferable at the beginning, which I forgot about, but she has a great character arc.
I love Warren and Nathan ❤️.
This book was slow and dragged a little bit. However I still absolutely loved it and getting to meet new characters and seeing the world expand.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Murder, Rape, Violence, and War
cherry_revival's review
adventurous
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
In short – this book could have been cut in half and still be too long. Its lack of pacing, long stretches of nothingness, poor character development and the fact that you can barely see the plot from all the deus ex machines, left me with a very bad taste at the end. While not without flaws, I truly enjoyed the first installment of this series. Unfortunately, all those flaws that could be overlooked within the context of the first book are amplified ten folds in the sequel.
Honestly, I've reached this far simply by the force of my affection to the T.V. show. If it had very few to do with the first book, it has even less in this one. Since I bought a box-set of the first three books, I intend to read the third one as well, but I doubt if I would bother reading any other in this series. Hopefully, the third book will be better. I really do love the idea of the book and the characters, but an idea isn't the final product, and this is a very bad one.
There are more than a few serious problems in this book, but these bothered me the most: the pacing, poor treatment of female characters, a bad case of "Mary Sue" and the usage of prophecy.
First - the length. This book is 979 pages long. Nine hundred and seventy nine pages. That is a lot of pages even for some of the best stories ever told. And not even half of that is justified in this case. This book is only around a 120 pages longer than the first, but it feels so much more. Goodkind's tendency to stall and prolong at the least important parts of the story and then rush through most of the plot is cranked up to 11 here.
We find ourselves against our will dragged back to the place where most have criticized the first book for lingering far too long - the Mud People. And it takes more than 250 pages for the journey to actually begin. Kahlan and Richard return to the village intending to get married only for Richard to start having life threatening headaches due to his newly discovered magic powers. And by start, I mean about a 100 pages into the story. It takes that long for the main conflict to be set.
Like in the previous book, it's not particularly difficult to see where the plot will go next. The arrival of the Sisters of the Light and the idea of the Palace of the Prophets makes it clear that Richard is going again on a journey, this time to what I can only call a "magic school" to learn to control his powers. At the same time we discover a bigger threat looming over the world - the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead has been torn by Richard's actions in the first book, which could lead to the release of Keeper of the Underworld and the end of the world. All of this takes 150 pages more. That's 250 pages of exposition.
For reasons not important right now, Richard and Kahlan separate, each to their own journey. And off we go. And go. And go. The "journey" part of the book, in which very little plot takes place, is stretched over almost 500 more pages. For 500 pages I have found myself saying again and again "I think the plot is finally starting now" only to realize that it most certainly didn't. That is not to say nothing good happens here. I truly love the relationship between Richard and Sister Verna (though rather repetitive in this section of the book and then accelerated at the end instead of paced in a more natural way throughout the book) as well as that of Kahlan and Chandalen. These are two well-earned and far more developed relationships than any other in the first two books. Kahlan's plot-line with the soldiers of Ebinissia is also great and sheds a light on her as a leader and a warrior. It's simply a question of length in comparison to contents - it's just too long with very few things happening that has anything to do with the main plot.
We are left with almost 300 pages, a normal novel size, to cramp the entire main plot in. And yet somehow it is still filled with long stretches of nothingness dotted with occasional advances in the plot that are then simply ignored until convenient. So many plot lines, usually the most important ones, from the very first chapter to almost the last are only visited once or twice and then completely neglected (Zedd and Adie, Chase and Rachel, everything that happened in D'hara just to name a few), and it is somehow expected of us to remember them at all when they are sort-of solved at the very end (if they are even addressed at all). If even two of them would have been given just a bit more space within this massive book over the endlessly repetitive exploits of Richard and Kahlan, the plot might not have felt so unevenly spaced and paced.
Treatment of women in the book (**mentions of rape**):
Second - the women. God, the women. Like many have already said, there is barely a single scene where someone isn't trying to rape Kahlan, or talks about wanting to rape Kahlan, or planning to rape Kahlan. Almost every single woman in this book is raped. An entire city is described almost corps by corps of women and young girls and how they were raped along with their queen, the women in the enemy's camp, the women of the Baka Ban Mana and more and more. And as horrifying as it might sound, I honestly don't know what is more misogynistic - that someone tries to rape Kahlan every over scene, or that no one ever does. Twice she is saved at the very last second, in such a Bram Stoker-y sense of almost-but-never-really-penetrating-way. And of course, the book ends in the wonderful image of her and Richard meeting by the grace of the Good Spirits in some netherworld-kind-of-place to make sweet-sweet love, with Kahlan obviously still being pure and virginal just for the hero. Did I say wonderful? I meant sickening. Saying that "it's an accurate description of the treatment of women in a middle-age-like world" is bullshit. Are the dragons accurate? Are the wizards and wisps and magical hyper-sexual nuns that live outside of time and never age? Every single thing in a book is a choice. Choosing to show endless violence against women with no actual relevance for the plot or the message of the book besides showing violence against women is not okay, period.
Third - Richard. I truly want to like this dude. He is so kind and compassionate and has a great sense of morality. And he is so damn boring. A "Mary Sue" isn't necessarily a bad thing. Most of the fantasy genre is based on this trope and usually that's fine. So many times we have seen heroes who come from nothing, with no training in whatever the plot needs, and are simply a natural in their respective fields, besting even masters in short time and having every one fawn at them, both admiringly and sexually. But there should always be a balance. A character can't be perfect, and Richard is definitely described as one. He is never wrong. And I mean NEVER. There hasn't been a single bad decision that he has ever made in the almost 1,700 pages that I've known him. He never makes mistakes and even when it looks like he did something wrong, the plot aligns itself conveniently so that the outcome of his actions was always meant to be, and therefore the right course all along.
More women issues (**mentions of rape**):
(On a side note – again, it's okay for a fictional character to be very desirable by the people the author chooses would see them as attractive, and almost every single woman that crosses Richard's path falls for him on the spot. But having a woman, who has been gang-raped for months by her most hated enemies and is also pregnant by one of them, offer Richard sex even before her release as well as immediately after to have his children, is just disgusting and only goes to show Goodkind's treatment to women).
This connects with the fourth problem – prophecy. Almost every single thing in this book is a prophecy. There is a good idea somewhere in the bottom of this, but it gets lost among the sheer volume of deus ex machines. There are so many prophecies in here, from the main one about the Keeper to Shota's warnings to apparently everything that comes out of Richard's mouth. And since we've already learned (or more like had our very predictable assumptions verified) in the first book that prophecy never manifests itself in an "obvious" way, the plot is practically spelled out for us in advance. And not only that, but no one actually needs to do anything for the prophecies to come true. Most of the time, especially with Richard, being a "Mary Sue", it just comes naturally. No effort is put to action; the solution simply shows itself to him at the very last second. And because of that, it makes the plot feel rather redundant. Nothing the characters do matter, all is preordained; everything is already set in stone. That renders the characters static and unable to develop, with Richard being the most glaring example of it. When nothing he ever does is wrong, he never has to face the consequences of his actions, nor is he able to learn from them. He is always right, and therefore shouldn't change a single thing about himself, his actions, or his behavior.
Honestly, I've reached this far simply by the force of my affection to the T.V. show. If it had very few to do with the first book, it has even less in this one. Since I bought a box-set of the first three books, I intend to read the third one as well, but I doubt if I would bother reading any other in this series. Hopefully, the third book will be better. I really do love the idea of the book and the characters, but an idea isn't the final product, and this is a very bad one.
There are more than a few serious problems in this book, but these bothered me the most: the pacing, poor treatment of female characters, a bad case of "Mary Sue" and the usage of prophecy.
First - the length. This book is 979 pages long. Nine hundred and seventy nine pages. That is a lot of pages even for some of the best stories ever told. And not even half of that is justified in this case. This book is only around a 120 pages longer than the first, but it feels so much more. Goodkind's tendency to stall and prolong at the least important parts of the story and then rush through most of the plot is cranked up to 11 here.
We find ourselves against our will dragged back to the place where most have criticized the first book for lingering far too long - the Mud People. And it takes more than 250 pages for the journey to actually begin. Kahlan and Richard return to the village intending to get married only for Richard to start having life threatening headaches due to his newly discovered magic powers. And by start, I mean about a 100 pages into the story. It takes that long for the main conflict to be set.
Like in the previous book, it's not particularly difficult to see where the plot will go next. The arrival of the Sisters of the Light and the idea of the Palace of the Prophets makes it clear that Richard is going again on a journey, this time to what I can only call a "magic school" to learn to control his powers. At the same time we discover a bigger threat looming over the world - the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead has been torn by Richard's actions in the first book, which could lead to the release of Keeper of the Underworld and the end of the world. All of this takes 150 pages more. That's 250 pages of exposition.
For reasons not important right now, Richard and Kahlan separate, each to their own journey. And off we go. And go. And go. The "journey" part of the book, in which very little plot takes place, is stretched over almost 500 more pages. For 500 pages I have found myself saying again and again "I think the plot is finally starting now" only to realize that it most certainly didn't. That is not to say nothing good happens here. I truly love the relationship between Richard and Sister Verna (though rather repetitive in this section of the book and then accelerated at the end instead of paced in a more natural way throughout the book) as well as that of Kahlan and Chandalen. These are two well-earned and far more developed relationships than any other in the first two books. Kahlan's plot-line with the soldiers of Ebinissia is also great and sheds a light on her as a leader and a warrior. It's simply a question of length in comparison to contents - it's just too long with very few things happening that has anything to do with the main plot.
We are left with almost 300 pages, a normal novel size, to cramp the entire main plot in. And yet somehow it is still filled with long stretches of nothingness dotted with occasional advances in the plot that are then simply ignored until convenient. So many plot lines, usually the most important ones, from the very first chapter to almost the last are only visited once or twice and then completely neglected (Zedd and Adie, Chase and Rachel, everything that happened in D'hara just to name a few), and it is somehow expected of us to remember them at all when they are sort-of solved at the very end (if they are even addressed at all). If even two of them would have been given just a bit more space within this massive book over the endlessly repetitive exploits of Richard and Kahlan, the plot might not have felt so unevenly spaced and paced.
Treatment of women in the book (**mentions of rape**):
Second - the women. God, the women. Like many have already said, there is barely a single scene where someone isn't trying to rape Kahlan, or talks about wanting to rape Kahlan, or planning to rape Kahlan. Almost every single woman in this book is raped. An entire city is described almost corps by corps of women and young girls and how they were raped along with their queen, the women in the enemy's camp, the women of the Baka Ban Mana and more and more. And as horrifying as it might sound, I honestly don't know what is more misogynistic - that someone tries to rape Kahlan every over scene, or that no one ever does. Twice she is saved at the very last second, in such a Bram Stoker-y sense of almost-but-never-really-penetrating-way. And of course, the book ends in the wonderful image of her and Richard meeting by the grace of the Good Spirits in some netherworld-kind-of-place to make sweet-sweet love, with Kahlan obviously still being pure and virginal just for the hero. Did I say wonderful? I meant sickening. Saying that "it's an accurate description of the treatment of women in a middle-age-like world" is bullshit. Are the dragons accurate? Are the wizards and wisps and magical hyper-sexual nuns that live outside of time and never age? Every single thing in a book is a choice. Choosing to show endless violence against women with no actual relevance for the plot or the message of the book besides showing violence against women is not okay, period.
Third - Richard. I truly want to like this dude. He is so kind and compassionate and has a great sense of morality. And he is so damn boring. A "Mary Sue" isn't necessarily a bad thing. Most of the fantasy genre is based on this trope and usually that's fine. So many times we have seen heroes who come from nothing, with no training in whatever the plot needs, and are simply a natural in their respective fields, besting even masters in short time and having every one fawn at them, both admiringly and sexually. But there should always be a balance. A character can't be perfect, and Richard is definitely described as one. He is never wrong. And I mean NEVER. There hasn't been a single bad decision that he has ever made in the almost 1,700 pages that I've known him. He never makes mistakes and even when it looks like he did something wrong, the plot aligns itself conveniently so that the outcome of his actions was always meant to be, and therefore the right course all along.
More women issues (**mentions of rape**):
(On a side note – again, it's okay for a fictional character to be very desirable by the people the author chooses would see them as attractive, and almost every single woman that crosses Richard's path falls for him on the spot. But having a woman, who has been gang-raped for months by her most hated enemies and is also pregnant by one of them, offer Richard sex even before her release as well as immediately after to have his children, is just disgusting and only goes to show Goodkind's treatment to women).
This connects with the fourth problem – prophecy. Almost every single thing in this book is a prophecy. There is a good idea somewhere in the bottom of this, but it gets lost among the sheer volume of deus ex machines. There are so many prophecies in here, from the main one about the Keeper to Shota's warnings to apparently everything that comes out of Richard's mouth. And since we've already learned (or more like had our very predictable assumptions verified) in the first book that prophecy never manifests itself in an "obvious" way, the plot is practically spelled out for us in advance. And not only that, but no one actually needs to do anything for the prophecies to come true. Most of the time, especially with Richard, being a "Mary Sue", it just comes naturally. No effort is put to action; the solution simply shows itself to him at the very last second. And because of that, it makes the plot feel rather redundant. Nothing the characters do matter, all is preordained; everything is already set in stone. That renders the characters static and unable to develop, with Richard being the most glaring example of it. When nothing he ever does is wrong, he never has to face the consequences of his actions, nor is he able to learn from them. He is always right, and therefore shouldn't change a single thing about himself, his actions, or his behavior.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
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