That’s a little on the nose, don’t you think? But Goodkind probably didn’t draw that himself. Inside the book is a small illustration of a sword, with the word “Truth” written on the hilt. I think she knows it too, that’s why she’s still standing there. On the cover, a guy beckons to a woman wearing a dress that is clearly impractical for a walk in such a scenic location. It’s massive, bigger than any other paperback I own.
#TERRY GOODKIND SWORD OF TRUTH SERIES#
Goodkind, I’d say, has bigger challenges to overcome than a hike in high-heeled boots.Wizard’s First Rule is the first book in The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Being feminist isn’t just about including women in your books, and Goodkind’s are just about the last place I’d go to find “strong women of great integrity” in my fantasy fiction – much better try Juliet Marillier, NK Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor or Monica Byrne. The bottom line is, you can’t just give a woman a major role in a series and say this makes them “strong”. (Want to see a really bad cover? Check this one out.)
It’s all just grotty and icky – and that’s not even getting to the statue that Richard carves, of himself of course, which converts everyone from socialism to capitalism with its great beauty. Fortunately, they wear red leather so the blood doesn’t show. Those Torture Nymphs – Mord-Sith – provide the vehicle for an endless run of bad, BDSM torture scenes. Richard’s dim brain is pleased with the idea that he is a man, and therefore doesn’t have to wear leather.”Īnd there is So. Later we learn about the Torture Nymphs (women, as only women can be sensitive and wear leather), Wizards (men, as only men can do math and handle pain) and Sorceresses (women, as only women can be inferior to men). Only women can be Confessors because only women can love. Seekers are men, because only men can get angry. Or as this brilliantly brutal review from the excellent Pornokitsch puts it: “Richard is a Seeker. But she is constantly having to be saved by the hero Richard, for whom she is a virgin: if she has sex with him, her orgasm will steal his soul. She also has very long and beautiful hair, for Magical Reasons. Kahlan, the heroine of Sword of Truth, is ostensibly strong – she is the Mother Confessor, one of the most powerful women in Goodkind’s world. But I don’t think he really understands what a strong woman is. Goodkind says he writes “strong women of great integrity” and that’s why he was upset. I feel that I have a moral right to object to an image that so openly degrades my work.” It’s easy for people to confuse those two things. He told the Bookseller: “I only regret that I wasn’t more clear that I was not objecting to the quality of the painting, but rather the nature of the image that misrepresents my characters and work. I objected to the sexist cover my publisher commissioned for this book … Is it too much to ask that my female characters not be portrayed as hiking for miles in thigh-high, heeled boots?” He told io9: “I write stories centred around strong female characters. Laughably bad.” After a bit of a backlash – the artist called him “totally disrespectful” – Goodkind decided he had to explain himself further and said he was upset because the cover was “sexist”. He wrote on Facebook that it was “a great book with a very bad cover. I come to 2018’s Terry Goodkind cover controversy well-versed in his writing, which is why I read his latest comments with raised eyebrows: last week, Goodkind decided to publicly shame ( he has a history of this) the cover artist of his latest fantasy novel, Shroud of Eternity. This was evil manifest.”) I can’t explain why I read so many – I read an awful lot, and quickly, and perhaps it was a necessary escape from the Serious Literature of university. (“This looked like a chicken, like most of the Mud People’s chickens. (I hadn’t known that Goodkind rates Ayn Rand, but it makes absolute sense.) I even took in that epitome of bad writing, his infamous evil chicken scene. Wizard’s First Rule distracted me from my finals, and I persevered with the Sword of Truth series for way, way too long, ploughing my way past endless and increasingly bonkers Objectivist polemics thinly disguised as plot. L et’s begin with a preface: I have read a lot of Terry Goodkind’s books.
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