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This is the first book in a very long series by Terry Goodkind. My bookclub will be reading it soon, but I had already started reading it so here is what I thought.

It is a story of Richard Cypher, a woodsman in a village of the Westland. To him magic was a myth or a legend and he never thought of it more than an afterthought. Then he stumbled across a woman dressed in white named Kahlan and everything in his world changed instantly. He finds out he is the Seeker of legend and he must cross the boundry to fight the evil Darken Rahl.

The good and bad thing about fantasy is that there is a very true formula for how the story is written. It is good because when someone that can truly write gets a hold of it, it can be a magical thing indeed. It is bad because of how predictiable the story can be sometimes. This book had both the good and bad of that equation.

What I liked about the book. The characters were good for the most part. I really like Richard and Kahlan and how the struggled with they felt about each other versus what could actually happen in the regard. There are so many secrets between them and she witheld the most important one from him that he had to learn from another. But their relationship was what the book was mostly about.

I did like the mud people. Savages are fun!

Zedd annoys me a bit. I liked the banter with him and Richard, but he is such the aging wizard the he is too much of a stereotype for me to care too much about him. There were a few exceptions to this and he gets better written as the books move on from this one.

The story was pretty basic. Stop the evil one from using a magical artifact. If he uses it could be that he rules all, or even the world is obliterated in an instant. Again, nothing new on that regard, but not bad either.

I also love the self righteousness of the hero. I can relate to that, and totally understand why Richard does what he does. Is there anything more terrifying than someone who truly believes in what he is doing?

What I didn’t like about it. They could have cut off about 200 pages of the book. I was wondering if he was like Dickens and being payed for the word. I don’t mind reading large books, but damn this one was a big one. So it felt like a bit of it could have been left out.

Again Zedd was a bit of a stereo type as a wizard and I did see the betrayal coming toward the end of the book.

Would I read more of the author? I have already read the 2nd book in the series and will be posting that review soon, so yes. I have actually alread read the first 5 or 6 and hope to get through the series.

Rating. 8.5 out of 10. A fun first novel by someone that I really enjoy as a writer. His later books seem better edited and not nearly as long which is nice.

Review by Stacey Chancellor