My favorite books - The sword of truth series
In these posts I will tell you about my favorite books (mainly fantasy). The first will center around Terry Goodkind's Sword of truth series.
I was first introduced to The sword of truth series through the television show, called Legend of the seeker. The show aired for two seasons, before getting cancelled. After it got cancelled, I was not done with the story yet, so I decided to buy the first couple of books.
The books tell the story of Richard Cypher, a woods guide from Westland. When the confessor Kahlan Amnell walks into his life, his whole world get turned upside down. Together with the wizard Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander, they travel to the Midlands to battle a great evil from the third land, D'Hara.
The main story originally got released in 11 books, the last book containing a proper ending. Not long after that, though, four more books got released as a chronological addition to this series, featuring the same characters. They felt like a natural continuation to the original story.
The book Debt of Bones got released as a prequel, telling the story of a younger Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander. The book The First Confessor: The Legend of Magda Searus got released as another prequel, but this took place long before the original story. It features all new characters, only heard about in tales from the original story.
There were moments throughout the story in which I did not read for months, getting a bit tired of the (sometimes) slow story telling. During other moments, it was hard to put the books away. Terry Goodkind creates a wonderful world in which it is easy to lose yourself; it sucks you in. There are a couple of slow moments though, where it's hard to stay with the story. In some ways, the writer's opinion about certain topics easily shines through, but this is just something I noticed and did not bother me most of the time.
My reading these books has spanned over many years, as not all had been released when I started. I also took a few breaks in between, when the story hit a slow part. My favorite book of the entire series was The First Confessor: The Legend of Magda Searus, because the tale was so emotional. The Sword of Truth story is amongst my favorites (though another series has stolen my heart in the last couple of years) and I can recommend it to anyone looking for a new fantasy story to dive into.
Have you read these books? What did you think?
Great series! I read most of them, and it's an epic storytelling ride. I would almost say it's too complicated and even too long to ever get really popular, but then I suppose there's the example of J.R.R. Martin.
I've never read J.R.R. Martin, but my brother told me about the complication of the stories. Those have done quite well indeed! I might actually start on that at some point aswell, though there's still so much I want to read :-)
Ah, I meant George R.R. Martin. I never read any of the books, but it seems like they are a whole universe unto themselves.
Yeah, from what I hear from my brother, it's lots of intrigue and you really need to keep your head in the game to not get lost in all the different story lines.
I gave up after 'Soul of the Fire'. The first book was a very good reading as a stand-alone novel, but all these sequels did little to move the story forward and repeated themselves quite a lot.
Yes, there are definitely long parts of slow moving story telling. I did enjoy the overall story though, which made it worth it for me.
If you liked the first book, but don't want to read the whole series, I can recommend The first confessor as a stand-alone novel, as that was my favorite I think.
I have to admit that this is also one of my favourites. I have often even quoted Zorander...or at least from time to time. Nice choice :)
Ooh, good to see I'm not the only Sword of truth fan :-)