Wizard's First Rule (Sword of Truth, #1) in Sword Of Truth

Jun 27, 2009 Flint rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: wishlist, epic-fantasy

While hardly the most original book out there with regards to it's basic plot, it's really the relationship between the two main characters, their budding romance and their desperate struggles to save themselves from imminent death, which makes this book shine unlike any other in the genre. I have often noticed that many books with two romantic leads will often focus on one POV, and typically leave one of the characters kind of flat and uninteresting, since everything you know about them is alwa ...more

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Aug 07, 2009 Eddie Novak rated it it was amazing

The Characters: The characters are interesting from the start. Characters who act nobly, and characters who act evil. As the story progresses the characters become extremely complex. The characters didn't hook me into wanting to follow them through 10+ epic books, but by the midpoint of the book, I was sure that I could follow them for twice that amount of books. The characters aren't as diverse as George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire characters. But it is useless comparing them to those The Characters: The characters are interesting from the start. Characters who act nobly, and characters who act evil. As the story progresses the characters become extremely complex. The characters didn't hook me into wanting to follow them through 10+ epic books, but by the midpoint of the book, I was sure that I could follow them for twice that amount of books. The characters aren't as diverse as George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire characters. But it is useless comparing them to those characters, because Martin's characters put even Dickens' characterization to shame.

The Quest: At first, it seemed like this would be another boring quest fantasy book. By about page 500, I stopped caring whether it was even a quest book or not. It didn't matter at the point because of other factors. Yes, this book does have a main quest. Unlike other quest fantasy books though this one is engrossing enough that I forgot there was some goal that the main character wanted to achieve that only he can achieve.

The Monsters: Goodkind creates some of the coolest fantasy monsters; the heart hounds and the gars included. At first I was scared that he would focus on just one group of monsters and make them into the main trouble that the characters would run into. This isn't so, there are a plethora of creative monsters scattered across the land.

The World: It seems that it would be hard to get invested into the world near the beginning of this first Sword of Truth novel because of the format of the characters constantly traveling and never stopping at any place too long. This is soon remedied when Goodkind starts introducing other multiple character story lines. The descriptions of the world are not too detailed as to slow the action of the story, but it gives just enough to paint a picture in the mind so that I could easily imagine what everything looked like. The sprawl of the world is delicious. Sure, it is missing a vast body of water which I love having in fantasy novels, but it makes up for that with having other beautiful locales with people in those places that I can care about.

The Magic: It makes sense. I could almost imagine scientific explanations for everything that happened. The magic never got too zany as to ruin the bounds of the world. And I must say that a lot of the magic is downright clever, like some of the stuff that Rowling came up with. This series will be great because of the magic. There are so many avenues that the magic can explore while seeming plausible to the world. Like in the Harry Potter series, each new book can expand on this because of how creative the author is with making great magical boundaries, while leaving room for inventiveness.

The Motivations: Probably the worst part of the book. It's not necessary for the main good characters motivations to be explained much because of events that occur to them. Though a lot of the villains motivations just wasn't enough for me. They were fun to read about. They did stuff to prove they were evil. I just wanted to get more into their head and realize what made them tick. Maybe I've just been spoiled with A Song of Ice and Fire, in which every characters motive is brilliantly explained and completely believable.

Hidden Information: I hate when fantasy books have characters who refuse to tell certain other characters information. Most of the time there is no reason for that character to withhold that information, it is just done by the author so as to reveal some plot twist or whatever later in the series. If an author is going to do this, just don't bother repeating over and over again with that character, "You aren't ready to know right now." "I can't tell you right now." While this happens in this book, the characters that do this actually have good reason to do so.

The Ending: Pure amazement. Even though clues leading up to it ensured that I could predict most of what would happen, I was still scared to read it. Something about reading those events simultaneously kept my eyes on the page while struck fear into me with each new word that made me want to stop. It was brilliant. During the epilogue I started to get tired, but I had to finish, so I did, and didn't enjoy it as much as I should have, but a few reveals were made that has me really excited for the next book.

I have found the next Great Fantasy.

Bags!

Sure as toasted toads. ...more

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Jul 24, 2009 Jessie Koenigsberg rated it it was amazing

I loved this book! It took me a while to get through it because it is so thick--but it was worth it. I got cought up in Richard's and Kahlan's adventures and enjoyed their characters very much. I did think some parts could have been shorter--like their stay with the Mud People, but that didn't take away from the story. I liked that the villains were so evil--although the book did get a little graphic at times. I started reading the book because I'm a fan of "Legend of the Seeker" and it was neat ...more

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May 19, 2009 Samuel Lane rated it it was amazing

I began reading this book shortly after it was first published. From the first line I was hooked on this book, and eagerly awaited each subsequent novel. Wonderful series.

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Feb 08, 2009 JC de Egurrola rated it it was amazing

Shelves: tv-movie-tie-in, fantasy, love-romance, favorites, supernatural, magic, fiction

The wizard's firsts rule taught me not to trust easily what I want to believe or I think I should believe. Its really true that people are stupid because they choose to believe a lie than the truth. Why? Simply because it hurts. ...more

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Aug 16, 2009 Meredith Kaupp rated it it was amazing

Another one of my all-time favorites. A great fantasy/action/romance with great characters. I've lost track of how many times I've read it....Can't wait for the new book on Aug. 16th.
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