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A review by purrsnikitty
Warheart by Terry Goodkind
2.0
I am very easy to please when it comes to books. I love easily and quickly. I can count on one hand with fingers left over the number of times I have been disappointed by a book, but Terry Goodkind: you have accomplished something that few others have ever before.
I fell in love with the Sword of Truth series from page one of book one. I adored the characters and the story line. I read and re-read the books countless times. I begged everyone I knew to get me the next one when I finished one. I defended it to my friends who didn’t think as highly of it as I did. It was one of my favourite series.
It remained one of my favourite and most anticipated series up through and beyond Confessor, which is where many people seem to have lost interest. The First Confessor was one of my favourite books, and it seems to have been many people’s least favourite. When we hit Severed Souls, though, I couldn’t take it anymore. The characters I fell in love with were shadows of themselves. The writing was similar to that which I was proofreading for my high school English class peers.
I was told a few days ago to pick up Warheart, after discovering that a book about Nicci had been released. I decided to follow the advice and at least bring the series to a close. It has a 4.0 rating here; it couldn’t be that bad. I will say that either it got better toward the end, or I was desensitized to how bad I had initially thought it was.
Problem 1: the writing
I am not the best writer in the world. I don’t know everything about grammar mechanics. I don’t know the best way to write a story, but I am positively bewildered about how Goodkind got away with putting out what he did. Is it because he did so well with the first several books e produced?
I was drowning in repetition by page two. He uses words like “worldly (17 times), “occult (52 times), “eternal” (59 times), and “spirit” or “spirits” (233 times) even though half of the text looks like he had a thesaurus open next to him. Something that should take two sentences to be explained suddenly takes four paragraphs. I feel like he was working for a word count, not for quality.
Problem 2: the characters
Kahlan is no longer the strong Mother Confessor we once knew and loved. She just cries and goes along with whatever Richard wants. She is a weak imitation of herself. Her purpose in this book could easily have been replaced by another character.
Richard swings between being who he once was and falling into a ghost of that character. It’s like they were all reading off of scripts in a play. The dialog no longer feels natural. It feels forced and awkward.
Nicci is perhaps the only one who feels normal with the exception of Nathan, who we see for a brief moment.
I do not care about the characters we have. When someone dies, I think, “well, ok then.” I can tell the author was trying to make the characters likable and charismatic, but that’s the problem: it appeared forced.
Problem 3: the plot
(SPOILERS will present themselves here)
Well hello Cara, where on earth did you come from, where did you get that knife, how did you die, how did you know you needed to die, and how did you even get here? What even just happened? Where have you been? I’m just going to stand here and watch you kill yourself even though I never would have done so before (me being Kahlan, of course) and pretend like I don’t realize that’s what you’re doing.
Can someone please explain to me why Hannis Arc is even in this series? Goodkind has done such a supremely excellent job in the past making his villains look truly like villains. He gives us insights into their minds, lets us see their evils and their deeds. He shows us what they do and why they’re bad guys. This book would have been a book without Hannis Arc. He just served to help bring Sulachan back, but it looked like Goodkind was trying to make him look like he had much more of a purpose than that. Again I say: hello word count.
Well hi there, Samantha,--and goodbye there, Samantha, and thank you, Richard, for explaining to us exactly how brilliant Goodkind was for foreshadowing her death. Kind of ruins the foreshadowing effect when you have to lay it all out piece by piece like that. Oh, and the Mord Sith who died there, we don’t really care about her? Alright, then. I don’t think I saw her name come up a single time in the rest of the book. The other Mord-Sith noticed Cara had died, but nobody brought up Laurin’s death. You guys are great. The soldiers died there, too. Pretty convenient, since none of them could travel in the Sliph and would be trapped there in the collapsed tunnels anyway. Thanks, Sammy. Killing two birds with one stone. Or…twelve with one blast of power.
On we go to the Keep. Nice of Richard to explain while not explaining what’s going on while trying to be cryptic while trying not to be cryptic while trying to get things done. Oh, hey, Verna- the guy you loved wanted me to tell you something and I know this cause I was dead with him but I reeeeally don’t have time to explain all this right now so just take my word for it. Oh and lots of other people are dead, too. Sorry to dump it all on you, gotta run!
Now we get to the part that I can never forgive Terry Goodkind for, because I’m sure he lives his life just praying for the forgiveness of people like me.
Richard is a seeker of truth. He wields the sword of truth. He is the true seeker of truth. He serves to find truth in everything, serves to live his life in service to the truth.
And how does our lovely plot get resolved?
Through lies and deceit done by our seeker of truth.
He lies to his wife, lies to his protectors—actively lies to them over the course of hours. He plans out his whole host of lies. He goes out of his way to lie to them and to deceive them. Yes, it was for a good cause. Yes, it did succeed in saving lives. All of these characters have trusted him in the past, though. They have all gone along with his wild, insane, idiotic plans before. They know him to be the seeker, and the first wizard, and a war wizard, and all of that. If he had been honest with them upfront—if he had told them everything he suddenly decided to tell them after it was all over with, he wouldn’t have needed to lie. From what I read, nobody questioned the need to lie, though. They were a bit angry, sure, but nobody raised a hand and said, “hey, Richard, why are you telling us all of this now?”
Our seeker of truth is a liar and a deceiver when it suits him, for no apparent reason than it moves our plot along and presents us with some twists and turns.
You should have quit a few books ago, Terry Goodkind.
There were parts of this book that I did enjoy. There were brief glimpses of the characters as they once were. I will probably read the book about Nicci, just to see what happens in it. I was not satisfied with this book. I was disappointed by how it came to a close. The first ten or eleven will forever hold a special place in my heart, but I feel like I lost something special when Goodkind allowed everything to fall over like this.
I fell in love with the Sword of Truth series from page one of book one. I adored the characters and the story line. I read and re-read the books countless times. I begged everyone I knew to get me the next one when I finished one. I defended it to my friends who didn’t think as highly of it as I did. It was one of my favourite series.
It remained one of my favourite and most anticipated series up through and beyond Confessor, which is where many people seem to have lost interest. The First Confessor was one of my favourite books, and it seems to have been many people’s least favourite. When we hit Severed Souls, though, I couldn’t take it anymore. The characters I fell in love with were shadows of themselves. The writing was similar to that which I was proofreading for my high school English class peers.
I was told a few days ago to pick up Warheart, after discovering that a book about Nicci had been released. I decided to follow the advice and at least bring the series to a close. It has a 4.0 rating here; it couldn’t be that bad. I will say that either it got better toward the end, or I was desensitized to how bad I had initially thought it was.
Problem 1: the writing
I am not the best writer in the world. I don’t know everything about grammar mechanics. I don’t know the best way to write a story, but I am positively bewildered about how Goodkind got away with putting out what he did. Is it because he did so well with the first several books e produced?
I was drowning in repetition by page two. He uses words like “worldly (17 times), “occult (52 times), “eternal” (59 times), and “spirit” or “spirits” (233 times) even though half of the text looks like he had a thesaurus open next to him. Something that should take two sentences to be explained suddenly takes four paragraphs. I feel like he was working for a word count, not for quality.
Problem 2: the characters
Kahlan is no longer the strong Mother Confessor we once knew and loved. She just cries and goes along with whatever Richard wants. She is a weak imitation of herself. Her purpose in this book could easily have been replaced by another character.
Richard swings between being who he once was and falling into a ghost of that character. It’s like they were all reading off of scripts in a play. The dialog no longer feels natural. It feels forced and awkward.
Nicci is perhaps the only one who feels normal with the exception of Nathan, who we see for a brief moment.
I do not care about the characters we have. When someone dies, I think, “well, ok then.” I can tell the author was trying to make the characters likable and charismatic, but that’s the problem: it appeared forced.
Problem 3: the plot
(SPOILERS will present themselves here)
Well hello Cara, where on earth did you come from, where did you get that knife, how did you die, how did you know you needed to die, and how did you even get here? What even just happened? Where have you been? I’m just going to stand here and watch you kill yourself even though I never would have done so before (me being Kahlan, of course) and pretend like I don’t realize that’s what you’re doing.
Can someone please explain to me why Hannis Arc is even in this series? Goodkind has done such a supremely excellent job in the past making his villains look truly like villains. He gives us insights into their minds, lets us see their evils and their deeds. He shows us what they do and why they’re bad guys. This book would have been a book without Hannis Arc. He just served to help bring Sulachan back, but it looked like Goodkind was trying to make him look like he had much more of a purpose than that. Again I say: hello word count.
Well hi there, Samantha,--and goodbye there, Samantha, and thank you, Richard, for explaining to us exactly how brilliant Goodkind was for foreshadowing her death. Kind of ruins the foreshadowing effect when you have to lay it all out piece by piece like that. Oh, and the Mord Sith who died there, we don’t really care about her? Alright, then. I don’t think I saw her name come up a single time in the rest of the book. The other Mord-Sith noticed Cara had died, but nobody brought up Laurin’s death. You guys are great. The soldiers died there, too. Pretty convenient, since none of them could travel in the Sliph and would be trapped there in the collapsed tunnels anyway. Thanks, Sammy. Killing two birds with one stone. Or…twelve with one blast of power.
On we go to the Keep. Nice of Richard to explain while not explaining what’s going on while trying to be cryptic while trying not to be cryptic while trying to get things done. Oh, hey, Verna- the guy you loved wanted me to tell you something and I know this cause I was dead with him but I reeeeally don’t have time to explain all this right now so just take my word for it. Oh and lots of other people are dead, too. Sorry to dump it all on you, gotta run!
Now we get to the part that I can never forgive Terry Goodkind for, because I’m sure he lives his life just praying for the forgiveness of people like me.
Richard is a seeker of truth. He wields the sword of truth. He is the true seeker of truth. He serves to find truth in everything, serves to live his life in service to the truth.
And how does our lovely plot get resolved?
Through lies and deceit done by our seeker of truth.
He lies to his wife, lies to his protectors—actively lies to them over the course of hours. He plans out his whole host of lies. He goes out of his way to lie to them and to deceive them. Yes, it was for a good cause. Yes, it did succeed in saving lives. All of these characters have trusted him in the past, though. They have all gone along with his wild, insane, idiotic plans before. They know him to be the seeker, and the first wizard, and a war wizard, and all of that. If he had been honest with them upfront—if he had told them everything he suddenly decided to tell them after it was all over with, he wouldn’t have needed to lie. From what I read, nobody questioned the need to lie, though. They were a bit angry, sure, but nobody raised a hand and said, “hey, Richard, why are you telling us all of this now?”
Our seeker of truth is a liar and a deceiver when it suits him, for no apparent reason than it moves our plot along and presents us with some twists and turns.
You should have quit a few books ago, Terry Goodkind.
There were parts of this book that I did enjoy. There were brief glimpses of the characters as they once were. I will probably read the book about Nicci, just to see what happens in it. I was not satisfied with this book. I was disappointed by how it came to a close. The first ten or eleven will forever hold a special place in my heart, but I feel like I lost something special when Goodkind allowed everything to fall over like this.