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Wizards First Rule by Terry Goodkind

8.2-stars

Summary Excellent, adult-orientated fantasy.

Wizard's First Rule is the first book in Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth series.

Richard Cypher holds the fate of three nations in his hands, he must learn the Wizard's First Rule to achieve his goals. The heart hounds are stalking the humans, blood sucking flies are abound and nowhere is safe. Magic makes love stronger and despair harder.

Terry Goodkind has created a consice, intelligent book that is believable from the start. This is fantasy that is definately aimed at the adult rather than the child and some chapters do contain quite graphic paragraphs of a sexual or violent nature.

It is evident that Terry Goodkind has strong political and social views that he is keen to get across in his books. Rather than finding this spoilt the narrative, I found it healthy reading a book that makes you think about what the author is trying to say. I found that Ursula Le Guin's works had the same effect on me.

"From a young age, Richard had liked to spend time with Zedd while his father was away. Richard's brother Michael, was a few years older, and having no interest in the woods, or Zedd's rambling lectures, preffered to spend his time with people of means. About five years before, Richard had moved away to live on his own, but he often stopped by his father's home, unlike Michael, who was always busy and rarely had time to visit. If his father had gone away, he would leave Richard a message in the blue jar telling him the latest news, some gossip, or of some sight he had seen."
Wizard's First Rule: Chapter 1

This is an excellent fantasy book and hopefully Terry Goodkind can keep up this high standard throughout the entire series.

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Howard from UK

6-stars

A good read, yet I couldn't help seeing parallels in the story and characterisation with The Lord of the Rings and Start Wars (young apprentice, old wizened scholar, beutiful princess type etc etc.) Not good enough to tempt me into continuing the series though......

Ed from Nottingham

8-stars

I found that this book draws quite heavily on other fantasy novels - possibly a bit too much. I constantly had the feeling that I had read this book before. That aside, I still think its a great book, and would recommend to people who have perhaps enjoyed Pullman or Paolini and are looking for something a bit heavier.

Brian from Madison

6-stars

Definitely not anywhere near my favorites from the genre, but a classic cookie-cutter good vs. evil story that is good filler while waiting for new books in other series.

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