this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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Fantasy books, stories, ＆c
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I suppose it is the 3rd book in the Seeker series. The 2nd one was already not great, but the 3rd was an incomprehensible piece of trash, a waste of paper and ink. I have never read something so bad, before or after. Goodkind is crystal clear when writing out his rape fantasies, and blabbers incoherently for every other part of the book. I strongly dislike rape and torture themes, so there was nothing of value in the book for me. Years later when I read the Wheel of Time series, I discovered that Goodkind stole all of his ideas from Robert Jordan and then made them significantly worse. What a hack.
I tried to reread the books as an adult and was horrified that my younger self liked them so much. I must have glossed over so much.
I've found that Goodkind did have a talent for creating characters, which is what drew me in as a middle schooler--but all the worldbuilding around them is pretty trash.
Like, I'm not entirely against magical femdom pain warriors...hell, I'm a fan of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series with its holy courtesans. But there's a right way to do it and a wrong way, and he chose the wrong way.
And like you said using Jordan as an example, he was also a very blatant thief of things he thinks are cool (like Jordan's stuff), and was pretty up his own butt about his philosophies--acting like they're smart and well-thought-out without actually showing any glimmer of understanding of how real people work.