Bless Terry Goodkind for actually finishing his series! I've been going along with this series for a long time. My favorites had been the 4th-5th books, Temple of Winds and Soul of the Fire, and I felt it had been going downhill. In fact, I thought Chainfire was so bad that I gave up. But once the final book in The Sword of Truth series, Confessor, came out, I decided what-the-hell and read the final two books. Phantom and Confessor were certainly better than Chainfire and in the last book, Goodkind does a pretty darn good job of weaving in lots of parts of earlier books that seemed forgotten - even if at times it seemed artificial.
Now looking back over the entire series, I see it as missed opportunity. Goodkind had a lot of really cool elements in the series, and I like how he *attempted* to establish a little more of the theory behind the magic. But the fun elements were coupled by bad dialog, cartoonish characters, too much preachiness, too much repetition, and clumsy handling of the plot elements he was bringing in. So all in all, I'd have to say that even though only a few of the books were what I'd call plain *bad*, the series overall is not as good as the sum of its parts.
Now the other fantasy mission I've been on lately is to read a lot of Terry Brooks' Shannara books. I really enjoyed his modern-day Word and the Void trilogy when I read it last year, it is the best work he's done. So when I heard he was going to write a series (Genesis of Shannara) to bridge that series with Shannara, I was intrigued. I've been keeping up with the recent books, like the High Druid trilogy. I noticed a throw-away reference to "the Word" in one of the recent High Druid books, and I said, "A-ha! He's planting more links!"
But I've also decided to re-read the early Shannara books, since it has been almost 20 years since I read them before, and I've forgotten it all. The Elfstones of Shannara is my favorite Shannara book now, and Wishsong was OK. I found even in Wishsong, written in the 80's, another casual reference to "the Word". And here's what I've learned about the many Shannara books: no one book is spectacular. Some get a bit tiring, with very linear point-A-to-point-B plotting, no real surprises, etc. But taken as a whole, they tell a really good story of the Shannara world. If Brooks really had deliberately planted the seeds of one day telling about how that world evolved from "ours" a long time ago in the early books, knowing that the link would revolve around "the Word", then he has gone about that task with remarkable patience and lack of grandstanding, and that's pretty cool.
So here are two authors whose beginnings were both marred by accusations of them being copycats - Brooks copycatting Tolkien in The Sword of Shannara, and Goodkind channeling Robert Jordan (get it? channeling?? Ha!) in the second Sword of Truth book. From those iffy starts, Goodkind wrote a series that had some high points, but as a whole does not live up to the peaks in the series. Brooks, on the other hand, has a body of work that doesn't have very many standout entries, but as a whole is consistent, well drawn out, and displays a nice sense of patience in the development of everything that is just now getting tied together.
Bravo to Goodkind for actually drawing his series to a close (attention George Martin), and bravo to Brooks for a series that (at least in hindsight) is holding up very well.
Does anyone else have any favorite series that are either better or worse than the sum of their parts??
Ken
Now looking back over the entire series, I see it as missed opportunity. Goodkind had a lot of really cool elements in the series, and I like how he *attempted* to establish a little more of the theory behind the magic. But the fun elements were coupled by bad dialog, cartoonish characters, too much preachiness, too much repetition, and clumsy handling of the plot elements he was bringing in. So all in all, I'd have to say that even though only a few of the books were what I'd call plain *bad*, the series overall is not as good as the sum of its parts.
Now the other fantasy mission I've been on lately is to read a lot of Terry Brooks' Shannara books. I really enjoyed his modern-day Word and the Void trilogy when I read it last year, it is the best work he's done. So when I heard he was going to write a series (Genesis of Shannara) to bridge that series with Shannara, I was intrigued. I've been keeping up with the recent books, like the High Druid trilogy. I noticed a throw-away reference to "the Word" in one of the recent High Druid books, and I said, "A-ha! He's planting more links!"
But I've also decided to re-read the early Shannara books, since it has been almost 20 years since I read them before, and I've forgotten it all. The Elfstones of Shannara is my favorite Shannara book now, and Wishsong was OK. I found even in Wishsong, written in the 80's, another casual reference to "the Word". And here's what I've learned about the many Shannara books: no one book is spectacular. Some get a bit tiring, with very linear point-A-to-point-B plotting, no real surprises, etc. But taken as a whole, they tell a really good story of the Shannara world. If Brooks really had deliberately planted the seeds of one day telling about how that world evolved from "ours" a long time ago in the early books, knowing that the link would revolve around "the Word", then he has gone about that task with remarkable patience and lack of grandstanding, and that's pretty cool.
So here are two authors whose beginnings were both marred by accusations of them being copycats - Brooks copycatting Tolkien in The Sword of Shannara, and Goodkind channeling Robert Jordan (get it? channeling?? Ha!) in the second Sword of Truth book. From those iffy starts, Goodkind wrote a series that had some high points, but as a whole does not live up to the peaks in the series. Brooks, on the other hand, has a body of work that doesn't have very many standout entries, but as a whole is consistent, well drawn out, and displays a nice sense of patience in the development of everything that is just now getting tied together.
Bravo to Goodkind for actually drawing his series to a close (attention George Martin), and bravo to Brooks for a series that (at least in hindsight) is holding up very well.
Does anyone else have any favorite series that are either better or worse than the sum of their parts??
Ken
