I've read every book in the Sword of Truth series, and while I was originally a Goodkind defender, the longer the series goes on the worse it gets and I just can't bring myself to defend him any longer.
His objectivism is interesting, and while it's a philosophical viewpoint I have a lot of sympathy for, he has zero subtlety about how he delivers this to the reader. None whatsoever, it's literally character after character repeating their ponderously arrived at philosophical conclusions time...after time....after time - and far slower than characters of their supposed intelligence should.
All the philosophical training or intellect in the world will not help if your basic storytelling is broken, which Goodkind's is. He's so concerned with imparting theme he really neglects the plot. There are entire chapters dedicated to discussing the internal logic of some obscure spell in the magic system he's come up with, that just read like filler. There are points he tries to make that the characters literally just repeat about ten times over in a single chapter, or single conversation - it goes beyond merely emphasising his points. The later books (and the last one in particular) are filled with horrendous examples of deus ex machina.
Books 1-3 are excellent, lean, plot driven fantasy novels. I can't really even remember the plots of some of the later books, it's a little like Wheel of Time that way in that he seems to go several books without any real advancement of the major plot arc. A pet hate of mine (which is the author's prerogative, I suppose) is that many of the later books barely feature his major characters, and instead largely follow minor and far less interesting characters on plots that are only tangentially related to the main plot arc, but are of course filled to the brim with the kind of philosophical monologues Goodkind loves to inflict on his reader.
Bottom line - he neglects his plot for the sake of his themes, and it's to the detriment of the series as a whole.
Re: Tolkien sucks and Goodkind is great!
I've read every book in the Sword of Truth series, and while I was originally a Goodkind defender, the longer the series goes on the worse it gets and I just can't bring myself to defend him any longer.
His objectivism is interesting, and while it's a philosophical viewpoint I have a lot of sympathy for, he has zero subtlety about how he delivers this to the reader. None whatsoever, it's literally character after character repeating their ponderously arrived at philosophical conclusions time...after time....after time - and far slower than characters of their supposed intelligence should.
All the philosophical training or intellect in the world will not help if your basic storytelling is broken, which Goodkind's is. He's so concerned with imparting theme he really neglects the plot. There are entire chapters dedicated to discussing the internal logic of some obscure spell in the magic system he's come up with, that just read like filler. There are points he tries to make that the characters literally just repeat about ten times over in a single chapter, or single conversation - it goes beyond merely emphasising his points. The later books (and the last one in particular) are filled with horrendous examples of deus ex machina.
Books 1-3 are excellent, lean, plot driven fantasy novels. I can't really even remember the plots of some of the later books, it's a little like Wheel of Time that way in that he seems to go several books without any real advancement of the major plot arc. A pet hate of mine (which is the author's prerogative, I suppose) is that many of the later books barely feature his major characters, and instead largely follow minor and far less interesting characters on plots that are only tangentially related to the main plot arc, but are of course filled to the brim with the kind of philosophical monologues Goodkind loves to inflict on his reader.
Bottom line - he neglects his plot for the sake of his themes, and it's to the detriment of the series as a whole.