Terry Goodkind
Terry Goodkind is an American writer. He is known for the epic fantasy series The Sword of Truth as well as the contemporary suspense novel The Law of Nines, which has ties to his fantasy series. The Sword of Truth series sold 25 million copies worldwide and was translated into more than 20 languages. Additionally, it was adapted into a television series called Legend of the Seeker, which premiered on November 1, 2008, and ran for two seasons, ending in May 2010.
Goodkind is a proponent of Ayn Rand's philosophical approach of Objectivism, and makes references to Rand's ideas and novels in his works.
Biography
Goodkind was born in 1948, and his home town is Omaha, Nebraska. Because he has dyslexia, he found little interest in school, and therefore has no formal education. In 1983, Goodkind moved with his wife, Jeri, to a house he built in Maine and later made his residence on the coast of Lake Las Vegas, Nevada, his primary home.Goodkind has dyslexia, which initially dissuaded him from any interest in writing. Before starting his career as a writer, Goodkind built cabinets and violins, and was a marine and wildlife artist, selling his paintings in galleries. In 1993, during the construction of his and Jeri's home on the forested Mount Desert Island, off the coast of Maine, he began to write his first novel, Wizard's First Rule, and his writing career was launched with its publication in 1994.
Goodkind has competed in various forms of amateur and semi-professional auto racing, and currently drives a Radical SR8 SM-500 race car for his own Rahl Racing team.
Career
Goodkind's first book, Wizard's First Rule, was auctioned to a group of three publishers in 1994 and sold for a record price of $275,000. He has subsequently published 16 other novels and one novella. All of his books, with the exceptions of Stone of Tears and Wizard's First Rule, have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list. Of his recent novels, Chainfire debuted at #3, in January 2005; Phantom at #1, in August 2006; and Confessor at #2, in November, 2007.Goodkind's 12 books in the Sword of Truth series have sold 25 million copies and been translated into more than 20 languages.
In 2018 Goodkind himself described the cover of his just-published novel Shroud of Eternity as "laughably bad", and invited his fans to mock it, offering free copies of the book to ten randomly selected responses on Facebook. Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme identified himself as the uncredited artist, describing Goodkind's behavior as "totally disrespectful", and defending the art as "exactly what I was told to do" by the publisher. Goodkind subsequently apologized, but later characterized the work as "hackneyed", stating that the character's boots were "sexist".
Genre and influences
Goodkind perceives his novels to be more than just traditional fantasy because of their focus on philosophical and human themes. Goodkind believes that using the fantasy genre allows him to better tell his stories and better convey the human themes and emotions he desires to share with readers.Goodkind has been influenced by the work of Ayn Rand and Objectivist philosophy. Writing about the series in The Atlas Society newsletter, Willam Perry states that Goodkind's "characters, plots, and themes...are clearly and directly influenced by Rand’s work, and the book’s heroes occasionally invoke Objectivist principles". Perry notes the Objectivist themes become most obvious in Faith of the Fallen, which made the novel controversial among Goodkind's fan base; moreover, the novel contains several scenes that echo the plots of Rand's books The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.
Reception
Some of Goodkind's political views have provoked controversy, notably the dedication to his novel The Pillars of Creation :Don D'Ammassa described Goodkind as part of a "host of brand new writers no previous experience writing fiction but who could turn out one large epic adventure after another", taking advantage of publishers' realization in the mid-1990s that traditional fantasy literature was a highly lucrative market. D'Ammassa described the series as having an inconsistent background that was reinvented and expanded in each new book, "regardless of how well it meshes with what he has previously established." D'Ammassa stated that Goodkind possessed "undeniable storytelling skills and a talent for inventing detailed and interesting societies", but described his characters as lacking depth, with a confusing morality that has "heroes performing acts every bit as heinous as those of the villains, sometimes with no apparent justification", and he ascribed much of the popularity of the series to its "perverse sexual undertones" and sadomasochistic scenes described in "excruciating detail". D'Ammassa also stated that the "rules" found in the books are actually witticisms and concluded Goodkind's books to date were unlikely to produce anything of interest beyond their present popularity.
Robert Eaglestone described the books as a "depressing read" due to the series' overarching cynicism, with a weakness being the heroic characters are only likable in comparison with utterly murderous villains. Eaglestone notes that Goodkind brings "a sense of evil that is genuinely disturbing, deriving from twentieth-century monsters like Hitler and Jim Jones" to the post-Tolkien epic, also noting that Goodkind's use of sadomasochistic imagery was interesting, generating a genuine sense of perversity.
Published works
;The Sword of Truth Series: Story Arc #1 - Darken Rahl#1 - Wizard's First Rule
#2 - Stone of Tears
The Sword of Truth Series: Story Arc #2 - Imperial Order
#3 - Blood of the Fold
#4 - Temple of the Winds
#4.5 - Debt of Bones
#5 - Soul of the Fire
#6 - Faith of the Fallen
The Sword of Truth Series: Story Arc #3 - Pristinely Ungifted
#7 - The Pillars of Creation
#8 - Naked Empire
The Sword of Truth Series: Story Arc #4 - Chainfire
#9 - Chainfire
#10 - Phantom
#11 - Confessor
The Sword of Truth Series: Story Arc #5 - The Darklands
#12 - The Omen Machine
#13 -
#14 - The Third Kingdom
#15 - Severed Souls
#16 - Warheart
;The Nicci Chronicles
- Death's Mistress: Sister of Darkness
- Shroud of Eternity: Sister of Darkness
- Siege of Stone: Sister of Darkness
- Heart of Black Ice: Sister of Darkness
- The Scribbly Man
- Hateful Things
- Wasteland
- Witch's Oath
- Into Darkness
- Nest
- Trouble's Child
- The Girl in the Moon
- Crazy Wanda
Goodkind wrote a novella titled Debt of Bones for the anthology Legends, which was edited by Robert Silverberg. It is set in The Sword of Truth universe, a few decades before the events in the main series. In 2001, the story was published as a stand-alone book.
The last book in the last story arc, titled Confessor, was released on November 13, 2007.
In June 2008, Goodkind signed a contract to publish three mainstream novels with G.P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Books. The first of these novels, titled The Law of Nines, was released August 18, 2009.
In April 2010, Goodkind signed a contract to publish three more novels with Tor Books, the first of which revisited the world and characters of the Sword of Truth series. Tor Books published the first new novel, The Omen Machine, on August 16, 2011. Goodkind self-published the second new novel, The First Confessor: the Legend of Magda Searus, on July 2, 2012; the book was ranked #28 on the Kindle bestseller list by the next morning. Tor Books released the sequel to the Omen Machine, The Third Kingdom, on August 20, 2013, and the third novel, Severed Souls, which continues where The Third Kingdom ended, on August 5, 2014.
In January 2017, Goodkind's newest novel in the Sword of Truth Series was released, titled "Death's Mistress".
In January 2019, Goodkind's continuation of the Sword of Truth series was announced, titled "The Scribbly Man".