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Wizard's First Rule, and the Sword of Truth Series

2023 Contest•37 min read•8,117 words•View original

A Brief Review of a Ten Thousand Page Series

There are many ways I can describe this series. Most of them are not good.

  • Violent, deranged, and sociopathic
  • Schlocky fantasy cliche
  • Creepy rape fetish fuel
  • Shameless ripoff, possibly to the point of plagiarism
  • Nonstop preaching from a crazy man with reprehensible political opinions
  • The most extreme "Gary Stu" I've ever seen outside of fanfiction or parodies
  • The result of what happens when you give book contract to a guy who's never written before and barely reads books, and that book somehow becomes a best seller, and then he has to follow it up with a new novel every year forever
  • A warning story for why G.R.R.Martin and other such writers are better off waiting as long as it takes to finish sequels, rather than just shoveling out something to get it done

Nonetheless… I still quite enjoy the first book of the series, Wizard’s First Rule. The rest of the series not so much. It's a strange case where the author's writing got worse, or at least less interesting, as he gained experience. I wrote this long review to figure out why that is, and why this first book so fascinates me. It's an interesting case of how flawed but passionate art can be so much more interesting than a more professional approach. It's also interesting to consider just how this book came to be, because I suspect the reality is a bit different than how the dust jacket blurb describes it.

(This review will obviously have spoilers for Wizard's First Rule and the Sword of Truth series. Also some mild spoilers for the Wheel of Time series. Personally I think it’s silly to avoid spoilers for a 20+ year old book, and I don’t think knowing the basic plot will hurt your enjoyment if you do decide to read them.)

Part I: The Business of Epic Fantasy Novels

Wizards First Rule came out in 1994. The author, Terry Goodkind, claims that he wrote it by isolating himself in a cabin, slamming out a manuscript, and having it accepted on his first try for a massive advance, despite having little writing experience and also having dyslexia that made him struggle with reading his whole life. He also claims that he never read any other fantasy novels at all. Oh, and he denies that his books are in the fantasy genre at all.

I have some doubts about that story. Frankly it sounds more like the backstory for a fantasy character than any real author story I've ever read. This book has too many tropes pulled from the general fantasy genre for it to have been written without inspiration. Also, despite the book's flaws, it's too polished to have been written by a first-timer with zero experience or training, and the writing quality seems to get worse in his later books. And regardless of quality, there are very few people who suddenly wake up one day and start slamming out long novels one-per-year almost every year, without prior writing experience.

My guess- and this is pure speculation- is that TOR used a ghostwriter to write a generic fantasy novel and blueprint, while using Goodkind for his original ideas, fight scenes, and to promote him as a quirky celebrity fantasy author. With a fierce scowl and his trademark "yeard" (he made up the term himself for his ponytail/beard combination) he certainly *looks* the part. The novel lurches back and forth the most generic fantasy tropes, and some genuinely original parts. The latter tend to be more violent, more passionately written, and feel out of place in a fantasy novel. It makes for crazy plot twists, but the more workmanlike writing of the generic fantasy plot keeps it all hanging together. I would really like to know if there's anyone who worked at TOR at that time who could shed light on whether my suspicions of a ghostwriter are correct. Or maybe Terry Goodkind is just a one-hit wonder who followed it up with a lot of mediocre pulp, and I'm a jerk for casting doubts on his integrity.

In 1994, the epic fantasy genre was in full swing. There had, of course, been many pulp fantasy novels following in the wake of Tolkien. But in 1994, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series had made a huge splash after starting in 1990, showing a huge demand for a more sprawling, detailed, and militaristic fantasy world than what earlier Tolkien-inspired works had done. Earlier examples included The Riftwar Cycle and Dragonlance books published during the 80s, not to mention a huge amount of video games and TTRPGs, particularly DnD. The Dragonlance novels built a world based on elements from DnD, with some characters literally made up during a DnD session. But the Wheel of Time series really stole the show. It managed to be both familiar enough for fantasy readers to pick it up easily, but also original enough to stand on its own outside the shadow of Tolkien and DnD. Gamers were buying up its massive, pricey hardcover volumes in droves, eager to find out new details of its meticulously designed fantasy world and the latest plot twists in its serpentine saga of adventure, politics, and war. It sold 40,000 copies its first year (a huge number for a brand-new series from a non-famous author) and went on to sell millions more.

So... why not do the same thing? If there's a market for one 90s American military fantasy series, why not two? At least that's what the publishers at TOR must have thought, because they snapped up Wizards First Rule right away, and turned it into another long-running series, each with large expensive hard-cover volumes. This is also when G.R.R. Martin was working on A Game of Thrones, although he didn't finish his book until 1997. JK Rowling was likewise working on her Harry Potter books.

The plan worked. Wizard's First Rule became an instant best seller. It sold 100,000 copies the first year, an even faster start than the first first Wheel of Time book, The Eye of the World. The Sword of Truth series as a whole has sold over 10 million copies, which is a huge number by any metric, but still dwarfed by the 70 million copies sold by the Wheel of Time series. WoT also gets more attention in general- a video game series in the 90s, a recent high-budget Amazon show, and much more overall fame in the fantasy community. SoT is very much the "also ran" to WoT, but it was a strong contender during the 90s. Personally I prefer the WoT series much better overall, but I find its first book tedious, as you might expect from an author with great ideas but still finding his stride. For SoT it's the opposite: the first book is a banger, but the rest of the series is mediocre, which is reflected in the series' sales and overall reception. And also, perhaps, what you might get when an author used up all his original ideas in the first novel and he was left to either turn over everything to ghost writers in subsequent novels, or try to force himself to copy their style.

Part II: The Fine Line Between Trope and Plagiarism

Now for the hot topic. Did SoT plagiarize WoT? Well… that's a tough question, which has been debated endlessly in fan communities ever since it debuted. There are obvious similarities, but to some extent that's expected from any mass-market fantasy genre book. Putting in a military emphasis isn't exactly a one-of-a-kind unique idea, and once you do that, a lot of the other ideas follow naturally (like having detailed magic systems designed for war, or the political interactions between magic users, regular soldiers, rulers, and civilians). There's also a dragon featured prominently on the front cover of WFR, even though it's a minor part of the book, because apparently every fantasy novel is legally required to have a dragon. The main character of WoT is nicknamed "The Dragon Reborn" for the same reason.

But there are some other similarities that are harder to explain away. Most notably:

  • Both series have a sharply gendered magic system, with different magic and different organizations for men and women. There are a lot of plot turns driven by "battle of the sexes" bickering between men and women. Basically these are gender stereotypes but with magic (men crush their opponents with direct magical attacks, while women wear them down with indirect attacks, that sort of thing). It's hokey, but it's still fun reading as long as you don't take it too seriously. Of course there are many, many other books about the differences between men and women, but this is the most notable feature of the magic in the Wheel of Time series, so it's odd to see another series using that angle just a few years after the WoT books were published. Note that this is only vaguely implied in Wizard's First Rule, but becomes explicit in the later books.

  • Both series use magical collars to force magic users into captivity. Magical collars aren't unique to these books of course- the "Gor" books in particular use them prominently, as have many other fantasy books- but the details of how they work in these books are almost identical.

  • Both series set up the ultimate "big bad" as a thinly-veiled version of Satan. It's "Shai'tan" or "The Dark One" in Wheel of Time, and "The Keeper of the Underworld" or "the Nameless One" in Sword of Truth. Both are godlike evil entities long-ago imprisoned by a benevolent force called "The Creator." There's also an evil magic power associated with both series' versions of Satan. Again, hardly an original idea to use inspiration from Christian stories (Tolkien certainly did), but it's odd to see two works under the same publisher use the same idea, almost word-for-word, at the same time.

There are many other similarities one could list, but those three are the most specific and egregious. The other similarities tend to fall under general fantasy tropes (for example, they both have an orphaned main character living in isolation suddenly find out that he is the chosen one from prophecy, with a mysterious figure showing up to teach him about his magical power that will unlock his great destiny). Some angry WoT fans have compiled lists of all the points in common to try to prove plagiarism, and while I do agree it's suspicious that they have so many commonalities, I find it hard to call plagiarism on any of these tropes that have been used so many times before by other well-known fantasy works. The three I listed above are more suspicious because of how specific they are, as well as central to the main plot. I think they could be justified under the same defense- namely, they each have their own page on TVTropes with dozens of examples. (Gender Restricted Ability, Shock Collar, and Satan correspondingly). Still, it's highly suspicious, and I'm surprised that the editors at TOR didn't object to publishing two such similar series at the same time, even if it was just two people having the same idea.

But there are many other fantasy series with details in common with SoT. If I were to accuse SoT of plagiarism, the series that comes to mind is one from 1977- The Sword of Shannara. It was also an Epic Fantasy Novel (aka pulp fantasy), inspired by (aping) Tolkien, and written by an author with little experience. It was accused of copying too many elements from Tolkien, but was nonetheless popular when it came out. Its eponymous sword is a magical sword with- wait for it- the power of truth. It has a magical power that can force anyone to confront the truth of their own lies. In other words, it's a magical sword of truth. Now *that's* a plagiarism claim!

(In case you're wondering- spoiler!- the titular Sword of Shannara reveals some sort of absolute, objective truth, which is independent from all human reasoning or perspective. There's no quibbling about differences in interpretation- it just works by magic, OK? And this magical truth sword kills the big bad evil guy, an undead spirit, by forcing him to confront the truth that he was dead all along. It's all pretty cheesy and schlocky, but nonetheless a fun read as long as you don't question it too closely.)

Ironically, the Sword of Truth in its eponymous series doesn't have any magical truth powers. Instead, it fuels the user with a bloodlust that generates superhuman strength, allowing it to cut through anything, even steel. It will kill anyone that the user thinks is guilty, regardless of actual truth. In theory the user is the "Seeker of Truth" and is an expert at finding the truth, but he doesn't have any magical powers for that; he's just using regular human reasoning. If he makes a mistake, then he kills someone innocent. His mentor figure encourages him to use violence when he thinks there's even a possibility of guilt, rather than waiting for certainty. Given how violent the setting and plot of the book are, this turns the magical Mcguffin into something more like a Chainsaw of Murder than a Sword of Truth.

These sort of contradictions are why I find Wizard's First Rule such a fascinating book. On the one hand, it's a more mature approach to the concept of "truth." There is no magical shortcut, you have to figure it out for yourself by thinking and hard detective work, and sometimes you get it wrong. On the other hand, this also takes away the fantasy of magical truth. You don't need a magic sword to hurt people that you think are guilty, you can do that with just a regular sword. So why bother even making it magic? The story veers from one extreme to the other; sometimes it fully embraces the most worn-out fantasy cliches, other times it rejects them for no reason. It's almost a parody of the fantasy genre, except that the whole thing is painfully serious. It's a mess, but it raises interesting questions.

It's not just fantasy cliches either- Wizard's First Rule takes an extended tour through supermarket romance land (and, not coincidentally, is often sold on supermarket shelves next to romance books, where I rarely see Wheel of Time books). The main hero, Richard, is a buff manly-man who grew up with just a father and brother (his mother died early), and never had any love interest. He has no women in his life at all- this is even magically confirmed in one of the later books. That is, until he meets the heroine, Kahlan, who is equally gender-isolated (just a mother and sisters. A side effect of her magical power prevents her from having love affairs or male relatives). She appears out of nowhere, running through the woods while wearing an elegant white dress. Somehow she's still gorgeous and the dress is still pure white despite being on the run through the wilderness for days. Richard falls in love at first sight. She's also a damsel in distress, getting chased by four bad men (you just *know* from looking at them that they're bad, so Richard feels no hesitation or remorse about killing them), and so their first meeting involves him saving her life. Plus saving her from rape. That will be a recurring note in the series…

This is another weird contradiction that adds flavor to the book. Based on fantasy archetypes, Kahlan is a powerful female magic user to contrast Richard's physical strength (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicIsFeminine). Her magic power is kept hidden from Richard (and us) as a mystery, but it's clearly something powerful. She doesn't have to learn to use her magic or anything, in fact she has to struggle to keep it contained. She's also the unquestioned ruler of her land who has supreme authority over all, including the power to make queens bow on command. And she's been everywhere, knows everyone, and can speak everyone's native language. And she's a stone-cold badass who can lead armies in combat with genius strategies while outfighting a dozen bad guys. And yet… she's still somehow a helpless damsel in distress who needs Richard to save her from anything important (which is any villain with a name, or any main plot arc). I won't blame you if you think this is all stupid and sexist, but it still makes for an exciting plot.

Part III. Going Through the Plot, Blow by Blow, or at Least the Most Interesting Blows

(Major spoilers in this section)

Kahlen tells Richard that the big evil guy, Darken Rahl (dark thrall?), is an evil wizard/warlord who is using some sort of evil magic, in addition to his evil armies, to take over the world. She brings no evidence for this, but she's the romantic lead heroine, so we must trust her absolutely. And did I mention that he's evil? His main hobbies are murder, rape, and torturing little boys, all of which the book describes in excruciating detail. In order for his evil magic to work, he needs a magic box called the Box of Orden. And since he’s so obviously evil, the good people must do whatever is necessary to stop him from getting that magic box. The world is divided into three areas, with Richard off in Westland where there's no magic. Kahlan, from the Midlands, made a hazardous journey across the magical border into Westland because her wizards believed that the world's greatest wizard was hiding in Westland, and that this wizard would appoint a Seeker of Truth who would be able to track down the Box of Orden with the magical Sword of Truth and defeat Darken Rahl (who comes from the eastern land called D'Hara). By an astonishing coincidence, the exact man she's looking for is the very first man she runs into- Richard's grandfather Zedd is the great wizard, and he appoints Richard as the Seeker of Truth, giving him the magic sword.

Sounds like a classic fantasy plot, right? A bit cliche, but sometimes things are cliche because they work well. But then Wizard's First Rule tries to outsmart itself, and it all falls into a hot mess. Since the Sword of Truth has no magical powers that don't involve killing people, they're stuck tracking down the box without any magical help. And Richard is less than useless- he doesn't know where the box is, he doesn't have any (apparent) magical powers, and he grew up in an isolated magic-free zone so he knows even less about magic than any random person from Kahlan's Midlands would. And they have to cross the dangerous magic barrier just to get back! The first third of the novel is heavily driven by their efforts just to recross the barrier- Richard ends up going in and out five times because he has to save others who fall in. At first the barrier was a big spooky thing with evil spirits that try to suck you in, but after the third trip I was getting impatient.

I find myself conflicted. It might sound like I'm bashing the book a lot, because there's a lot to make fun of here. But I also think it's fascinating! You've got this powerful magic super-queen, who has given up everything on a desperate plan to search for a legendary hero. All of her own wizards killed themselves so that she could get here, so she's left with nothing. It was a wild, desperate plan, which only worked out by extreme luck, except it turns out that the "legendary" man she's looking for can't actually help her. The legends were overblown, and he's just some seemingly average guy with a magic sword that's a lot less powerful than her own magic. That's a great twist on the magical-savior cliche. I would have liked to read a different book about what Kahlan would do on her own, given this crushing setback.

But, no. The book then veers back again into cliches and tropes, both fantasy and romance. Despite all her powers, Kahlan is still a damsel in distress who needs a hero to save her. Richard is the hero and the chosen one, so despite not having any useful powers or even basic knowledge about where they're going, he's still able to overcome all obstacles. Whether he's coming up with a clever scheme to outwit his opponents, or smashing them into bits with his sword, he is unstoppable at both. After they finally make it back into the Midlands (which, I remind you, is where Kahlan started, and which she knows better than almost anyone in the world because her job involves traveling everywhere), Richard tracks down the location of the box within a few weeks. It basically goes like this:

Richard: Are there any magical people near here who could use their magic to tell us where the box is?

Kahlan: Yes, there's a whole group of (Magical Native Americans) right by here

Richard: Great, let's do that. Why didn't you just ask them before?

Kahlan: I guess because they kill everyone who goes near them?

Richard: It'll be fine, I'll talk them into it.

Kahlan: You don't even speak their language. Luckily I do. And they know me, I'm a special exception to their "kill all outsiders" rule. In retrospect I probably should have gone to ask them instead of risking my life to go find you.

After roughly a week, Richard convinces them to not only not kill him, but also to love him so much they make him an honorary member of the Mud People (that's what they're called) and use their magic power to help him. The dialog here is *really* awkward, because not only are they a ridiculous mishmash of stereotypes, but it also has to keep mentioning that Kahlan is translating everything while Richard is the one who thinks of everything to say. Why couldn't Kahlan just go there and negotiate directly? They even recognize her as an important magical person with authority. There's really no need for Richard at all, except to give him something to do. That said, it's kind of funny to read about such a straightforward white savior/primitive tribe story. It's just *so* blatant. To give just one example out of many, apparently they've been living for thousands of years with leaky roofs because they don't know how to make a proper roof, so Richard fixes it up for them. He's not a roofer or anything, this is just common knowledge from his "modern" civilization (a fantasy medieval pastiche with no modern technology) that's supposed to wow the primitives.

Somehow this plan works (with some twists). Richard wins over the Mud people with his friendliness, and they offer him his choice of three hot babes so that he can marry into their tribe. But no, he's such a gentleman/virgin that he won't do that- the Romance tropes are stronger than the Boys Adventure tropes. So he whips up a plan to trick them all like idiots, making them think he has poison sperm since he's from the Westland where people eat poison, and joins with Kahlan instead. The Mud People use their magic power, which call the spirits of their ancestors, and they reveal that there's a witch living nearby who can tell them where the box is.

It's pretty contrived- the spirits can't say where the box is, they have to say where someone *else* is who can tell them. And luckily she's only a short trip away. This all sounds stupid when I write it out, but in the context of the story it works well. There's a real sense of danger, desperation, and frustration because we're constantly hearing about the evil deeds of the main villain, and how important it is to stop him quickly, we're running out of time, etc, so all of these delays and side trips are a *calamity*. When I read the book quickly, I found myself getting sucked into it and not caring about how contrived all the plot points are- I just wanted to know what happened next.

So they go to see the witch. Before then, Kahlan finally informs Richard (and us the readers) about what she is. It's been a big mystery until now- she has *some* sort of magic power but she won't say what it is. It turns out she's a "confessor" with the power to brainwash anyone by touching them, which creates an overwhelming love that turns them into her slave.

At this point the book has four different types of human magic users- wizards (Richard's mentor/grandfather, the main villain, and others who were killed), sorceresses (a mysterious old woman named Adie who helps them cross the barrier), confessors (Kahlan plus others who were all killed before the start of the story), and now this witch (her name is Shota). When I read it as a teenager, this hit me with a burning curiosity to find out more about this magical system. What exactly is the difference between a wizard, a witch, and a sorceress? Is one just the gender-swapped version of the other? Which kind is more powerful? Wizard's First Rule never answers these questions. It gives a few hints and details, but you're left to wonder about it on your own (as does Richard). It gives a wonderful sense of mystery to the magic.

Unfortunately, the later books in the series don't follow that approach. Instead they explain in great detail how the magic system works. In a nutshell: wizards are male, and sorceresses are female. Wizards are the most powerful, but they need the most training. Confessors only have a few specific powers they were given by wizards, so they can't do much. And there are no other witches except Shota, who only makes brief appearances. It's all nice and consistent, but it's also pretty boring (and some would say sexist, since the most powerful magic users are all male). This is one of the reasons that Wizard's First Rule is so much better than the rest of the series. I don't know if it was intentional, or an amateur oversight, or if they had to trim some explanations to shorten the book, but either way the limited information sets the mood. Having it all laid out like the class system in an RPG ruins the magical mysteries.

Back to the plot. They go to visit Shota. Again, Kahlan was well aware of this witch and could have gone there directly, but she just didn't think of that. Shota turns out to be a hot babe and flirts with Richard while threatening to kill Kahlan. Then she tells him where the box is, and implores him to do whatever is necessary to win because she's so scared of what will happen if Darken Rahl gets the box. Again this is all contrived and stupid. If she was so concerned, why didn't Shota seek him out earlier? Or grab the box herself using her magic? It's basically just in there so that Richard can look good by applying common sense (let's go ask the nearest person with powerful magic) and risk his life in an epic quest, plus have another beautiful woman throw herself at him (he again declines, because Kahlan who he met a few weeks ago is his one true love).

They leave Shota and go meet up with Zedd en route to the box. He was supposed to go with them from the start, but was conveniently injured so that Richard and Kahlan could go off alone looking cool, instead of them uselessly following along behind someone with overwhelming magic and knowledge. He reveals that Richard himself is- wait for it- a wizard! Or at least, has the power to someday become one. What a twist.

There are many stories like this about a young man learning he has magic powers. But the way it works in WFR is that Richard was able to trick Zedd with some wordplay. Apparently these sorts of tricks are a power that only wizards can use. The eponymous "Wizard's First Rule" is that people are stupid, and you can trick them with a lie that they either want to be true, or fear is true. It's almost like an educational TV segment- "Hey kids! You too can be a wizard! Try this at home! Lie to your friends and family! With this one weird trick you can con anyone into believing anything" - but that's a pretty weird lesson to be teaching kids. And it makes such a big deal about how this sort of thing, outsmarting other people, is the most important wizard's power and something only a natural-born wizard can do. It's not just a joke or a philosophy, but actual magic- except that gets undercut by how Zedd can also shoot magical fireballs and summon the spirits of his dead parents to reveal secret knowledge. Not to mention this kinda sucks for Kahlan- I guess she'll never be able to outsmart anyone because she wasn't born with the magical wizard power.

Again there's this collision between cliches, which makes the book a mess, but an oddly compelling mess. Zedd is always portrayed as a zany old weirdo who keeps many secrets. He kept everything he knew about magic secret from Richard all his life, supposedly for Richard's own protection. So you're left to wonder, is Zedd really telling the truth here? Maybe he always knew that Richard had magical power. Maybe he's making up this whole "Wizard's First Rule" thing because he doesn't want to teach Richard how to shoot magical fireballs quite yet. Maybe the whole thing is a joke, and Zedd is just playing it up as important because he doesn't want to admit he got punked by his grandson. Or maybe Zedd knows that they're up against an overwhelming foe and he just wants to give Richard a little morale support by pretending he did something really great. All of these are interesting possibilities to think about, and the book never gives any clear answers. But unfortunately the later books come back to this, and apparently Zedd was telling the literal truth here. Tricking people and shooting fireballs is part of the same magic, and something only a wizard can do. Don't ask why, it just be like that. This is another reason why I prefer the vague contradictions of Wizard's First Rule over the detailed world-building of the rest of the series.

So now they're finally all together, and back in the Midlands where Kahlan started. The gang is back together again, and they know where the box is! There's a real feeling of success at this point. Off they go to get it. Turns out it was taken by a queen who employs the world's only other living wizard. You'd think that would have been an obvious place to start looking, but apparently not. To be fair, there are a lot of magical spells for hiding things in this world- Zedd had a spell that made everyone forget his name and not recognize him as the great wizard. So I suppose it's not impossible that this other wizard, Giller, cast a spell to make everyone not think of looking at him for the box. But the book never mentions this at all, and in fact it switches to another PoV character, a small child, who works for the queen's daughter and is well aware of the box, so it doesn't seem like much of a secret.

If you stop to think about it, it makes Kahlan and her original wizards all look like idiots. But it's OK, there's enough action in the book that I didn't think of this stuff when I read it casually, I was swept up in the plot. Not to mention the odd violent scenes like how Richard uses the sword to murderize an illusionary version of Zedd, or the creepy dialogue where Zedd suggests murdering anyone who seems vaguely suspicious, including himself. This is also supposed to be somehow "educational," like "look how logical I am, that I am willing to Do What Must Be Done in order to save the world from terrible evil." All the violence and action really distract you from thinking too hard about the plot holes. I'm not being sarcastic- although I notice these plot holes, they don't bother me at all. I think too many authors focus too hard on making everything perfectly consistent, but inconsistency doesn't matter if it helps push an exciting story. I am willing to suspend disbelief as long as it's fun.

They walk into the castle where the box and the other wizard are. Zedd is armed with fearsome arcane magic. Kahlan demonstrates her authority as the supreme empress who makes queens bow down. Richard is just some guy with a sword, but he threatens to kill the queen's young daughter. Again, why is Richard here? He's totally unnecessary! He's more like a psychopath than the chosen one. But somehow this works out, and they get the box.

So hurray, the day is saved. Happy ending, that was easy. Except no, there's still about 1/3 of the book left. Richard randomly runs into his brother Michael, who by the way just happens to be the political leader of all the Westland. Richard is an idiot, and gives away the box, despite blatant foreshadowing from the first part of the book that Michael is evil (he was sexually harassing Kahlen when he met her, and giving weird creepy speeches about outlawing fire). So not only was their quest ridiculously roundabout (Kahlen could have just guessed that the box was with the one remaining wizard and gone to him directly) and unnecessary (the wizard was a double agent and had his own scheme to protect the box, which was successful), they end up making things worse by giving the box directly to their enemy. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!

Still, I empathize with the characters here. They were *trying* to do the right thing, and they weren't stupid, they were just desperate and in way over their head. I've had problems at work like this- I was really worried about a problem and didn't know how to solve it so I talked to Alice, and she didn't know either but she sent me to ask Bob, who told me to consult Carol, who informed me that Dave has actually been working on this problem the whole time and I'm just getting in his way. It's highly unconventional for the chosen one in a fantasy story to be so *useless*, but it's oddly realistic. I like this version of Richard much better then the uberman he becomes in the later books, who always makes the right choice and never make a mistake. I’m tempted to compare him to Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Arc, who never made any great impact on the overall plot, but he served as our PoV for the grand adventure story.

(trigger warning for sexual violence)

Here's where the story takes another lurch into a different set of tropes, adding another interesting level of weirdness to the story. After giving away the box, Richard gets separated from his friends, and then captured by a mysterious magical woman sent by Darken Rahl. Apparently he has a whole group of sexy ladies called Mord Sith (Sith... that sounds familiar... to be fair this was before "Return of the Sith" came out, so you'd have to read Star Wars novels to know the name) whose job is to capture and torture magic users like Richard. She has some sort of counter magic that can control his, and use it to cause extreme pain. Plus she has a magical pain stick called an Agiel, which she uses to torture him.

And she does. At great length, and in gruesome detail. For about 200 pages, the book shifts into an S&M story about Richard getting captured, tortured, and humiliated by this magic dominatrix named Denna. And eventually she falls in love with him too. But first you have to hear about details like how she can draw blood, or break bones, or just cause pain without leaving a mark, and what all of this feels like, and how he at first tries to resist, then gives in, then goes insane, and eventually develops a split personality where half of him loves her for torturing him. The book was already quite dark and violent, but this amps it up to another level.

Oh, and they start a sexual relationship too. After some time, where Richard impresses Denna with his pain tolerance, she "takes him as her Mord-Sith mate" and takes his pants off. And... that's it, fade to black, end chapter. Reading it as a teenager I just with the flow and thought "oh, how horrible" because clearly that's what the book wants us to feel. The main character is being raped, and that's horrible. But re-reading it now as an adult it's so vague about this that it made me laugh. Why did the book shy away now, after all the gruesome torture scenes before this? Or all the other rape and murder descriptions earlier in the book? It's like a Hollywood PG-13 movie, where they can show as much violence as they want but are not allowed to show nudity, especially not male nudity.

I was left wondering what Denna actually *did* to Richard. Sorry for the uncomfortable topic, but this is an important part of the book, and its most distinctive. Did she just order him to have sex with her? By that point he was willingly following all her orders, so maybe that's it. On the other hand, he was so injured from torture that he could barely stand or stay conscious. Could he really get it up in that state? Also, the book tells us over and over how hot Denna is, so having sex with her doesn't exactly seem like the "ultimate punishment" that it's portrayed as. I'm not *at all* trying to justify female-on-male rape here; the book is quite right that it's horrific, it's just that there's a funny contrast in the writing between the gruesome details of the pain-torture vs. how shy it is about describing sex, and how it feels necessary to keep telling us how hot Denna is from Richard's PoV even while she's torturing him. It's a very mixed message here, albeit one you see a lot if you read certain types of fanfic, but it's rare to see it with a male main character getting dominated by a woman, and this is the only such example I can think of in a mass market fantasy novel. One of the later Wheel of Time books had a similar scene but it was much less extreme.

If I use my imagination, I can imagine Denna using the Agiel as a dildo and sticking it up Richard's ass. Sorry to be so blunt, but what else is there she could do as a sexual torture that's worse than anything else he's suffered? She's already stuck the Agiel in his ear and in his mouth- the book vividly describes both those acts. She did the ear thing on his first day. And it's clear that this is some sort of sexual act for her, not just more torture. I think she's pegging him with a strap-on magical pain stick, and the book shies away from describing it because it doesn't want to ruin Richard's image as a tough manly hero (as well as a virgin who's saving himself for his one true love, Kahlan). Not exactly the image that I expected to find in a pulp fantasy novel/male power fantasy! It's worth noting that the sequels have even more rape scenes, but it's exclusively male-on-female rape. Nothing like this ever happens to Richard again, and it's barely even mentioned that he might be traumatized, which is yet another way that the sequels are less interesting than this first book.

After a couple months of that, Richard is finally mind-broken and ready to be presented to Darken Rahl. Astute readers will note that his whole journey with Kahlen only took about one month, so he actually spends more time together with Denna than he does with his "one true love." Why did they want to mind-break him, you might ask? Well, partly just because the villains are evil- apparently they do this to prisoners all the time, just for fun, enough that they have a whole institution of professional torturers for this. But also it turns out that Richard's dear old dad (recently murdered by Darken Rahl) had him memorize a magic book when he was young. And that magic books just happens to be instructions for the magic that Darken Rahl is using, which he can't learn any other way. What a coincidence! This is eventually explained in the second book, but in Wizard's First Rule it just hangs there with no explanation. It's not exactly a cliffhanger or a plot hole, more like a mystery that the first book never got around to revealing.

Anyway, Richard confronts the big bad villain Darken Rahl. He uses his hidden wizard powers to restore his sanity from where he had magically sealed it away before being mind-broken by the torture (which sounds cheesy, but I liked this bit of mental magic). Darken Rahl just sort of gives up on torturing Richard, and lets him go, but with a magic spell to make him look like everyone's enemy. There's a brief interlude where Richard befriends a magical red dragon who flies him around, partly to fulfill the fantasy novel requirement to have at least one dragon, but also because Richard needed a plot device to move around faster. Richard finds out that his brother betrayed him, and then goes to Kahlen, who uses her power on him because the spell makes him look like Darken Rahl. Darken Rahl then captures them all, and forces Richard to read him the magic instructions by threatening Kahlan. All appears lost, but in the final twist, Richard reveals that his true love for Kahlan protected him from her power, and that he was able to trick Darken Rahl into killing himself by altering the magic instructions to switch which box was which. He did this using the Wizard's First Rule that Zedd taught him earlier, which apparently shows how a crafty lie is more powerful than the most powerful magic rituals. By opening the wrong box, Darken Rahl kills himself. As he’s dying, Darken Rahl and Zedd reveal that Darken Rahl was actually Richard's real father, because he raped Richard's mother. The end, and they all lived unhappily ever after.

I'm very conflicted on this ending. It's very clever- it ties up all the main characters and plot details from the story together, and instantly resolves everything from certain defeat to instant victory. It defeats the villain without resorting to a deus ex machina or sudden new magic powers. The narrative is mostly told from Richard's PoV, but this part is from Zedd's, so it keeps Richard's thoughts a secret from the readers until the twist is revealed. And I guess if you make "Wizard's First Rule" the title of your book, it damn well better be important to the story.

On the other hand, it's just a little too "cute,” which makes it an awkward contrast to the rest of the book. I'm afraid my review is lowballing just how violent this book is. Almost every chapter has people getting killed, with grimdark descriptions like "chunks of brain flew from the tip of his sword" or "the magical flame was alive with purpose, and it melted the flesh from his bones as he writhed in agony for days". So I laughed a bit when the big evil is finally defeated by a combination of "the power of love" and "ha, jokes on you! I switched the boxes when you weren't looking!". It's almost like the poison cup scene in The Princess Bride. That's a wonderful scene, but it just doesn't fit for such a dark, serious book like Wizard's First Rule. But that odd mixture of grimdark military realism and fantasy romance gives this book a unique flavor. The sequels lose almost any sense of levity, so they're more logically consistent, but they're a real slog to read through even if you're in the mood for grimdark military porn.

Part IV: The Flaws Make it Interesting

I was inspired to write this after reading this review. He only read the beginning, and focuses mostly on the technical points of why the writing is bad (mostly that the voice is too distant from the main character to be emotionally compelling, and that it makes readers work too hard to figure out what's going on). I agree with most of his criticisms, and yet… I find myself thinking that those "problems" are part of why this novel works so well. "Work to figure out what's going on" is another way to say "keeps you turning pages to find out what will happen next." Keeping us distant from the main character allows us to be surprised by all the weird things he does, and also makes us less horrified by him killing people or getting tortured.

Zen has a word for this effect: Wabi-Sabi. If you're not into Zen, you might remember it from that one King of the Hill episode. A small flaw can, paradoxically, make the greater whole shine brighter, like a missing rhyme in a poem or the personal touches of a home-cooked meal. Wizard's First Rule has this in spades. The careful, professional, polished fantasy tropes are offset by whatever weirdness the author felt like throwing in. It made me rethink my entire concept of what makes fiction "good" or enjoyable.

Part of what I like is the general frenzy of amateur enthusiasm throughout the whole book, and the "bad" writing is part of that. You can tell it was written as a passion project. The later books (perhaps with more help from ghostwriters) are more logical and coherent, but it just makes them boring. Frankly, most of them are stale rehashes of the same plot. Instead of an interesting protagonist who makes odd, unpredictable, sometimes stupid decisions, you get Mr. Perfect slaying all his foes while preaching at us. The author learns to communicate his ideas more clearly, and it turns out I hate his ideas. I do not agree, at all, with his politics or his general sense of philosophy (it turns out he was a big fan of Ayn Rand), and the later novels hammer that beat relentlessly. It was much more interesting when he was struggling to express himself!

It might be interesting to try a collaborative, or even antagonistic approach to book writing. Bring together one experienced writer with one who is brand-new but has some interesting ideas. Make them both hash out a book together, with the stipulation that (a) it has to be a certain length and get done on a deadline and (b) they can both add whatever they want, they can't take away what the other wrote. Let the new author focus on coming up with exciting, original ideas, while the experienced author turns them into a readable manuscript (and have an editor pass over it at the end). I have no idea how that would turn out, but that's the impression I get from reading and re-reading this book and, in my opinion, it makes for one hell of a ride.

Rather than one single clear narrative, Wizard's First Rule is a fascinating mixture of at least four different stories all mixed together. One part stock fantasy swords and sorcery with an extra helping of violence, one part fairy-tale romance, one part sexual fantasy with a strong S&M kink, and one part great-man hero worship that tries very hard to justify killing people. I wouldn't want to read any one of those stories on its own, but this book caught lightning in a bottle by combining all of them. Give it a try if you're ever in the mood to read a great hot mess of a 90s fantasy epic, and spare a moment to think about how sometimes flaws can make art better.