Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind

The book I picked up before this may have been in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section, but it belonged on the Romance shelves. The Sharing Knife sounds reasonably like a title for a story of action and violence, right? That was my thought, but it turned out I was wrong. So, I got to read about how Fawn and Dag met and fell in love even though they were 30 or 40 years apart in age (and we’re not talking like, vampires or elves where they live forever and therefore 30 or 40 years is nbd, I mean they were humans, and he was 55 and she was 18) and came from completely different societies and their families and friends were simply shocked and appalled that this had ever come about but they loved each other anyway and wanted to get married after knowing each other for a week and live happily ever after together despite it being a terrible awful idea.

 

It was a learning experience, though. My original idea was to not read the back covers of the books in advance, at least not too thoroughly, because sometimes that spoils some surprises. However it was pointed out to me that the romance novels all have the same exact story synopses right there on the back:

The Girl, who comes from blah blah blah, is beautiful or special or maybe not but is our Heroine anyway.
The Guy, who is a dark and mysterious or maybe a nice and thoughtful guy, is from some other place and blah blah blah.
Together, they will blah blah blah. And maybe fall in love? Who knows…

So, I now know to stay away from those books. No, I didn’t know that before, I’d never picked up a romance novel in my life and I hope to never do so again.

The story was a little interesting, at least at first, but then it became apparent that the story and drama I wanted didn’t really matter. The important, driving part was how The Relationship flew in the face of tradition in every way. Which was not nearly as interesting to me. The author, it said in her bio, was one of the best writers in the genre, which blew my mind. But then they always say stuff like that in bios and whatnot, right? The point is, ‘romance’ is not for me. If this is one of the best writers in that genre, yet I had to convince myself to finish the book purely out of principle, then it’s just not for me. It may not be bad, exactly, just not what I enjoy reading personally. At all.

So when I picked up Wizard’s First Rule, I was slightly apprehensive. The synopsis wasn’t quite like the formula I wrote out above, but it still made sure to mention Richard and Kahlan in a way that left no doubt their destinies were intertwined, most likely as lovers. Still, it was a nice thick book which would certainly take me a while to read, and therefore keep me busy during rush hour for a good few days.

The romance was certainly a driving factor, but it was still not a ‘romance’ novel, thankfully. The first few chapters latched onto me and sucked me right in, and I didn’t look back. Everything was introduced slowly, as opposed to when an author drops a ton of bricks on you all at once and you’re supposed to remember not only the size and color of each brick, but where it hit you and how hard and how much time was in between each blow. This latter method also is indicative of my biggest pet peeve when reading: that the author feels the need to spell everything out for you.

I supposed there’s two reasons why an author may feel the need to lay everything out there for you instead of letting you figure it out. One is that they think you are stupid and need it all spoon-fed to you. The other is that they have an IMAGE in their head of what their world is like that they want you to see, with absolutely no room for interpretation. They don’t want you to make discoveries on your own, they want to lead you around and point out everything you need to know directly. This bothers me very much, because not only do I enjoy reading about 'your' world and making it my own, it tamps down on people’s imaginative abilities, forcing them back into a passive mode of reading.

Terry Goodkind introduced me to his world without making me feel stupid. He let me follow Richard around the woods and make discoveries with him. I liked Richard from the outset as well; he was a strong, capable character with good moral sense. How can you not like that? Richard’s flaws were also introduced, which made me happy, because seriously who can stand it when the hero is the absolute embodiment of perfection?

The wizard, Zed, was also a likeable guy, reminding me of Belgarath from David Eddings’ universe (except that Belgarath is a much more complex and fleshed-out character in all; in fact, the characters are all well fleshed-out and multi-dimensional in the Eddings novels, which is the best part about those books). Kahlan also proved to be agreeable for more reasons than she was just ‘supposed’ to be (which happens more often than not when dealing with heroines, I think), showing steely resolve and intellect.

The story took a sudden dark and sinister turn at some point, though, that completely threw me. It just felt kind of... wrong. The plot started going strange places, with some very convenient circumventing of the rules of magic, or at least it felt that way, and yet the ending was still predictable.

I picked up the third book in this series, Blood of the Fold, and read that too (yeah, I had to skip the second one, that’s what I get for not actually making reservations at the library and just taking my chances that they’ll have what I want). It also traveled down a dark vein, but had some very uplifting moments. Maybe it had to do with missing out on book two, but I didn’t feel as connected to the characters anymore.

Nevertheless, I LIKED these books, very much, and sometime I will get around to finishing up the series (or what has been published so far). I’d recommend them to people who like that nice dark overtone in their fantasy.