I’ve been a fan of Terry Goodkind’s books for a while now. I only started reading them after I saw that the television series, “The Legend of the Seeker,” was based on his series of books called The Sword of Truth. The thing is that I hate fantasy stuff. Things with swords and magic annoy me for some reason. It’s just hard for me to take seriously. But for some reason I saw someone’s comment on the Legend of the Seeker’s HULU page and they were commenting that they didn’t like how Goodkind borrowed too liberally from the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Well, let me just go out to the book store and buy all of his stuff because the work of Rand is some of my favorite of all time. Let’s take a look at what The Third Kingdom has to offer to many books already available that feature his popular characters Richard and Kahlan.
When I first found out that Goodkind’s favorite author was Ayn Rand I quickly read all of his stuff. I subscribe to Rand’s philosophy and her books are some of my favorites not just because I agree with her but because I love the way she writes. Well, it took me a long time to warm up to Goodkind because after several books I didn’t feel like he had a true grasp of Objectivism and I didn’t think that he was accurately portraying it in his books.
That ended when I finally read his 6th book, Faith of the Fallen. I thought that book was his masterpiece. If you love the work of Ayn Rand and are always looking for something as inspirational as her works then you need to muscle your way through the first few books in the Sword of Truth series just to get to Faith of the Fallen. It’s that good. I mean, he knocks it out of the park.
And I’m not saying anything bad about his first batch of books. I liked them; they just weren’t what I was expecting.
Essentially, the Sword of Truth series is about Richard and Kahlan. Two characters that exist in a realm ruled by the unjust, the wicked, and the irrational. Richard has the Sword of Truth and Kahlan is what is called a “Confessor.” A Confessor can touch someone and enslave their mind so they only do the bidding of the Confessor. This means she can ask them to tell the truth and get the absolute unedited story about what they did and what’s going on.
As the series goes on they try to right the wrongs in their world and deal with the obstacles that are thrown in their way in the old fashion sense of all that is Fantasy. The major difference in this series of books than in other fantasy series is that the devices that Goodkind employ are mainly meant to further the philosophical viewpoint that he has on the real world. It’s black and white. The good guys are the people that believe in individual rights and freedom and the bad guys want others to be enslaved to each other and their masters.
But The Third Kingdom doesn’t have anything really to do with the Sword of Truth series. That series ended a few books back. Now Goodkind has started a new series under the title of The Omen Machine.
Well, The Third Kingdom is the second book and sequel to the book, The Omen Machine.
First I want to applaud Goodkind in keeping with his characters resolve of what is right and wrong and staying logical and rational. His writing style is simple and to-the-point. He’s no George R.R. Martin but one thing Goodkind has in his favor is that he somehow is able to craft a very compelling story that makes you want to keep reading and reading. I’ve found that most of his books move at a decent pace and then right when the last 100 pages comes up he kicks it into high gear in a major way. Typically all of his books end with a bang in those last 100 pages.
The Third Kingdom is a bit weird to me though.
It’s like he spent a lot of time watching “The Walking Dead” and then kinda got into vampires as well. Yeah, the book starts out with Richard and Kahlan in a loopy state, being rescued by some villagers, then later attacked by zombies a la “28 Days Later” style.
I’m saying zombies in a sense that the undead are attacking and eating people. Goodkind’s zombies differ in that he gives a decent reason for them attacking the living: Seeing as how they’re “undead” they attack the living in search of their souls. They’ve been brought back to life via magic but they all lack a soul which has escaped their bodies. So they try to find a soul in the flesh, blood, and bones of the living. And they’ll just keep eating away in hopes that the soul in encased in the blood, marrow, or brains of their victims.
But there’s also what he calls “half people” which are kind of like vampires. They’re more intelligent then the roaming undead corpses. But they’re all seeking a fresh soul.
The downside is that the first 200 pages of the book has Richard reading a wall.
Yes, the first 200 pages of the book has Richard reading a wall and telling his new buddy what’s up with what’s going on around them. Then they head off to find Richard’s other buddies to try and save them not only from some miserable fate but to also seek their help in getting healed. See, Richard’s buddies are two powerful magical people that can only take away the touch of death that’s been put in both himself and Kahlan by a Hedge Maid.
So I’m not going to spoil anything about the book but I will say that it’s obvious that before writing this book Terry Goodkind watched a movie called “Martyrs.”
“Martyrs” is a 2008 French horror film that’s said to be part of the New Wave of French Extreme. The central plot line of “Martyrs” very closely resembles a developing plot device in Goodkind’s book. It’s like one day he just started steaming horror films on his Netflix account and decided to shoehorn them into his new book.
And that’s kind of what the book is. It’s this shoe-horned side quest.
You know how when you play a video game and you have your main quest – like in Dead Island you’ve got to get to the lighthouse to get something but on the way you’re constantly sidetracked by other little side quests you have to complete first. Well, The Third Kingdom is one 560 page side quest. Sure, it brings out a new evil character but everything that happened in this book can be boiled down to one character’s story arc in a Song of Ice and Fire book. It’s like if you chopped out Jaime Lannister’s portion of Games of Thrones and made that into one book you’d get the basic flow of The Third Kingdom.
I’m not saying it’s a bad book but it’s a far cry from his other books.
Terry Goodkind has always been hit or miss with me. Wizard’s First Rule was pretty good once it kicked in at the end. Stone of Tears annoyed the shit out of me until the last 100 pages. Then everything slowed down up to Faith of the Fallen and slowed down again until he got to the Chainfire trilogy.
This whole The Omen Machine business is playing out like a series of webisodes instead of the actual show you want to watch.
