....
I am reading The Third Kingdom by Terry Goodkind. It's part of a sequel trilogy to his Sword of Truth series. I really liked Sword of Truth, although sometimes the characters got preachy. I'm not sure I enjoy this book. The writing style is extremely....well, juvenile, in that it uses lots of really short sentences that read like they were written by a grade-school kid. The first half of the book consists mostly of talking as the protagonist tells you what he's reading on a wall, and it also then consists of him running from, and fighting, people who are trying to kill him while he worries about running out of energy to fight. It just feels stale. Goodkind's first several books were very good, but I feel like his writing has gotten lazy and that he's just churning out books to meet his contract with Tor.
Finished reading that book yesterday morning. I was disappointed in it, although I'll probably read the sequel just to see what happens because it will be the final book in this particular story arc. I'll decide then whether to keep reading Goodkind. The story had potential and the primary antagonist strikes me as someone who could be a very good villain if Goodkind would write about him some more. Problem is, it took over half the book to reach the point where the villain appeared. Only after you encounter him do you begin to get any idea of what's going on. Had the story gotten to the point sooner, we could have seen a more action-packed book that delves into the characters' psyches and the like. Alternatively, had the story gotten to the point sooner, this trilogy could have been written as a single book (I guess the publisher wouldn't approve of that). Meanwhile, one of the two protagonists is virtually ignored. The writing has also degenerated, as I mention above.
What underscores my dissatisfaction is that last night prior to and after the soccer game, and then this morning while eating breakfast, I read
When the Tripods Came by the late John Christopher (yes, I read the whole book that quickly, it's only 151 pages). It's the prequel to Christopher's
White Mountains trilogy (often called the "Tripods Trilogy," though I consider that a misnomer). While it was written as "young adult fiction," I read it because it became available for the Kindle yesterday and I loved the
White Mountains books when I read them as a kid 30 years ago. I've always remembered the story but had never read the prequel (which was published in 1988), so even though I knew the general story of the Tripod invasion I thought I'd give it a read. The book was far better-written than the Terry Goodkind book I finished yesterday, even though the Tripod book was a kids' story and the Goodkind book is not. It had a more compelling plot, moved along without plodding filler, and didn't talk down to the reader. Perhaps this is more a case of speaking well of John Christopher than of speaking poorly of Terry Goodkind, but it's frustrating when a kid's book you read in the space of a few hours is more enjoyable than something that's supposed to be part of an ongoing "epic fantasy" series.