I've read Sword of Truth, now what?

Books, Movies, Theatre, Lectures Sword of Truth
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I read the first few books of The Sword of Truth several years ago, when I read a lot more fantasy than I do now. At the time I thought they were pretty good but not good enough to suck me into another series that had no clear prospect of being over (I learned my lesson with The Wheel of Time!). I also wasn’t an Objectivist at the time.

Thanks in part to how much the series has been discussed here, I ended up reading the books again, and this time I got all the way to the end. Really enjoyable, especially in the middle and end of the series when Goodkind becomes more explicit about principles in the books.

Unfortunately, now that I’ve read an eleven-book series from start to finish with no interruptions, I have no idea what to read next! I feel like I’m too emotionally exhausted from being sucked into the story for a solid month to read another fiction book. I tried starting a nonfiction book, but it seems cold and hollow after finishing Richard’s story.

So, any suggestions for what to follow a grand series like this with?

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I read the first few books of The Sword of Truth several years ago, when I read a lot more fantasy than I do now. At the time I thought they were pretty good but not good enough to suck me into another series that had no clear prospect of being over (I learned my lesson with The Wheel of Time!). I also wasn’t an Objectivist at the time.

Thanks in part to how much the series has been discussed here, I ended up reading the books again, and this time I got all the way to the end. Really enjoyable, especially in the middle and end of the series when Goodkind becomes more explicit about principles in the books.

Unfortunately, now that I’ve read an eleven-book series from start to finish with no interruptions, I have no idea what to read next! I feel like I’m too emotionally exhausted from being sucked into the story for a solid month to read another fiction book. I tried starting a nonfiction book, but it seems cold and hollow after finishing Richard’s story.

So, any suggestions for what to follow a grand series like this with?

I’m not an avid fiction reader, as I never seem to have the time (wish I did!), but Peikoff recommended a book and his recommendation peeked my interest. The book is “Enchantment” by Orson Scott Card.

Here is the Amazon link http://www.amazon.com/Enchantment-Orson-Sc…d/dp/0345416872

Listen to Peikoff’s latest podcast for details.

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You may like His Dark Materials Trilogy here by Philip Pullman.

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You may like His Dark Materials Trilogy here by Philip Pullman.

The fundamental decision is fiction vs. non-fiction. If you go with non-fiction, well, the field is so broad that you’d need to specify some specific topic in which you are interested before any meaningful feedback is possible.

A pretty good stand-alone fantasy novel I read recently was Brandon Sanderson’s Elantris. Interesting system of magic, intelligent, interesting and ambituous characters, and a good plot with a logical resolution. Sanderson has a couple of other fantasy novels out in a projected trilogy, Mistborn and The Well of Ascension, which I’m partway through and also enjoying, but the final volume isn’t out yet and that’s something to be aware of. (Sanderson is also the author tapped by Robert Jordan’s estate to finish the final novel in the Wheel of Time series.)

On the science-fiction side of things, try something by Lois McMaster Bujold. It’s popcorn, but intelligent popcorn with a good moral center that an Objectivist can enjoy. You can start with her Cordelia Vorkosigan books (Shards of Honor and Barrayar), which are really one novel in two books, or you can read some of the books about Cordelia’s son Miles. Miles Vorkosigan is really one of the great characters of modern SF, just loads of fun to read. My three favorite Miles books are Mirror Dance, Memory and A Civil Campaign, but I’m not sure how comprehensible they would be to someone who hasn’t read some of the key earlier material. You might be able to jump in at Brothers In Arms without being too confused. Bujold’s short-story “The Mountains of Mourning” is not to be missed, and will add a new layer to some events in Memory.

For historical fiction, I have to make the obligatory plug for Ed Cline’s “Sparrowhawk” novels about the genesis of the American Revolution. There’s also nothing quite like a good swashbuckler. Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers is a classic, if you can handle the archaic language. I remember enjoying Sabatini’s Scaramouche a lot as well, and The Scarlet Pimpernel has a good reputation although I’ve not read it myself.

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Unfortunately, now that I’ve read an eleven-book series from start to finish

Actually, it isn’t finished. Terry Goodkind has said that there may be more books because there are other stories he’d like to tell in that world. Goodkind has confirmed only that the Imperial Order story arc is finished. Not to mention the fact that Confessor leaves thing open for more book via Richard saying that their may one day be other evils to arise.

It’s popcorn

What do you mean by “IT’s popcorn?”

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I’m reading Zeleazny’s “This Immortal” now, it seems very good. You may try it too, if you haven’t read it already.

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Sparrowhawk Series by Ed Cline!!

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If you want something funny, then Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series is a good read if you haven’t already read the Discworld books. Strictly speaking the series has no end in sight other than Practhett’s eventual death, but each book is a stand alone novel, so the problem with The Wheel of Time does not exist for that series. However, the series has what you could call a few “sub-series” (The Watch, Death (the seven foot tall skeleton in black robes), Rincewind (a wizard that cannot use magic), the witches, and maybe one or two others that I cannot recall right now. However, the novels in each “sub-series” are all stand alones in that the stories can be read as a series or alone and each plot is self-contained. Discworld also has some one-off characters and stories. All in all it is a funny series that is fast approaching 30 books.

There is a spin-off series with 3 books, The Science of Discworld, The Science of Discworld 2, and The Science of Discworld 3. The series looks at real world science and religions through the eyes of some of the Discworld characters (namely the senior wizards at the major wizard college of Discworld, Unseen University). The series is very much pro-science and anti-religion and talks about the necessity of reason in both science and everyday life, though they do make some mistakes in their attempts to apply it.

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What do you mean by “it’s popcorn?”

I mean that it’s comparatively lightweight reading, not profound literature. I can burn through a Bujold book in about a day of dedicated reading. But they’re fun.

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I mean that it’s comparatively lightweight reading, not profound literature. I can burn through a Bujold book in about a day of dedicated reading. But they’re fun.

Ah, ok, thanks. So it isn’t like Atlas Shrygged, which took me several months to read? :wink:

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The fundamental decision is fiction vs. non-fiction. If you go with non-fiction, well, the field is so broad that you’d need to specify some specific topic in which you are interested before any meaningful feedback is possible.

Right…my tastes in nonfiction are pretty eclectic, but since I’m in the healthcare field, I enjoy reading about medicine most.

For historical fiction, I have to make the obligatory plug for Ed Cline’s “Sparrowhawk” novels about the genesis of the American Revolution. There’s also nothing quite like a good swashbuckler. Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers is a classic, if you can handle the archaic language. I remember enjoying Sabatini’s Scaramouche a lot as well, and The Scarlet Pimpernel has a good reputation although I’ve not read it myself.

I’ve read all of these, and loved them. I’d say The Scarlet Pimpernel and books 1 and 2 of Sparrowhawk are my favorite of that list.

I’m not that interested in getting back into SF/fantasy on a regular basis (what I loved about SoT was the heroics, not the magic), but I just might try some of the ones recommended here!

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Right…my tastes in nonfiction are pretty eclectic, but since I’m in the healthcare field, I enjoy reading about medicine most.

Have you read Gen LaGreca’s Noble Vision? It’s a novel about a conflict between a doctor who has invented a new nerve regeneration medical technique, which he wants to use to save the woman he loves from blindness, and a socialized medical care system that refuses to allow him to do so. Not bad.

On a historical front, I enjoyed The Century of the Surgeon and The Triumph of Surgery, both by Jurgen Thorwald. They’re very lightly fictionalized accounts of major medical and surgical developments between roughly 1850 and 1950 (when they were written). At the start, people are arguing over things like anesthesia and antisepsis. A hundred years later they’re doing heart transplants. The difference is mind-boggling, and inspirational. Both books are out of print, but I found copies through Amazon without much difficulty.

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Have you read Gen LaGreca’s Noble Vision? It’s a novel about a conflict between a doctor who has invented a new nerve regeneration medical technique, which he wants to use to save the woman he loves from blindness, and a socialized medical care system that refuses to allow him to do so. Not bad.

Yes, and I enjoyed it very much. I gave it to my niece, who wants to become a doctor, to introduce her to moral selfishness in the realm of medicine.

On a historical front, I enjoyed The Century of the Surgeon and The Triumph of Surgery, both by Jurgen Thorwald. They’re very lightly fictionalized accounts of major medical and surgical developments between roughly 1850 and 1950 (when they were written). At the start, people are arguing over things like anesthesia and antisepsis. A hundred years later they’re doing heart transplants. The difference is mind-boggling, and inspirational. Both books are out of print, but I found copies through Amazon without much difficulty.

Ooh, those do sound good. Thank you!

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Some of the best authors write for teenagers, maybe because that is the last stage before adulthood, when reading might potentially diminish in exchange for a career. Robert Cormier is phenomenal as a nihilist…his The Chocolate War, is the most popular, but I prefer I am the Cheese. Douglas Adams, of course, some of his lesser known fiction is interesting. Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead are justly famous, though after those two I think he draws the story arc out to long. If you like high fantasy, try Ursula Le’Guin.

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Sparrowhawk Series by Ed Cline!!

Here is a review of “Sparrowhawk 1: Jack Frake” I wrote on my blog:

This book was so exciting! Ed Cline is a writer who is able to create a book as philosophically sound and exciting as Atlas Shrugged

Set in England in the late 18th century (at the first stirrings of the American Revolution), young Jack Frake is a pure, intelligent egoist of a young lad, whose life takes some crazy turns, and he ends up joining the Skelly Gang, who smuggle goods into England in defiance of the heavy taxes imposed by the Crown. Skelly and his men embody the “Live free or die!” spirit that powers the American Revolution, and are great men who value their life and liberty above all.

The Skelly oath: “I pledge, upon my soul, to be always a true and mindful patriot and obey all laws in this kingdom that secure my rights as an Englishman to life, liberty and property and to flout and oppose, with wit or weapon, at every chance all those that befog, confound or belittle them.”

The heroes were worth affirming through-and-through, and are great examples of philosophical unity and virtue in action. Cline fulfills me in a way that other Romantic novelists have not been able to. Cline does NOT have a malevolent universe and there is NO mind-body dichotomy or moral grayness in the heroes (a problem I often come across in characters by such writers as Hugo, Henry James, and Dostoyevsky which hinders my ability to TRULY affirm their works and characters completely). At first, I was slightly put-off by Cline’s extravagant vocabulary, but after getting into the book, his use of obtuse words tapers off, as well as my frustration when I came across words I didn’t know – I was so excited to keep reading, I wouldn’t even bother looking them up. I find myself laughing happily at Cline’s cleverness as well as the joy that I felt while reading some of the dialogue or action in Sparrowhawk… it made me that happy! I read the last 200 pages all in one go, because I was so riveted by the story. Cline does a wonderful job of building complex and exhilarating action, as well as realistic and lovable characters. I cannot recommend this book enough!

I can honestly say, with full confidence that Sparrowhawk 1 is the best book I’ve read since I finished the Fountainhead, and Cline is my second favorite author. I am already finished with Sparrowhawk 3! I love this series, West and I hope to talk to Ed Cline IRL @ some point.

PS:

I haven’t written a review of Sparrowhawk 2: Hugh Kenrick, but I adore Hugh (and if I had the romantic attention of either, I would very much choose Hugh <3 <3 <3 ) AHH I LOVE THIS SERIES :lol:

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If your interested in medicine, I may recommend Richard Preston. His best works are The Hot Zone and The Cobra Event. The Hot Zone is a print equivalent of a docudrama about a real life outbreak of the Ebola virus at a monkey house in Reston, right next to D.C.

The Cobra Event is a novel about a female CDC agent attempting to stop a sociopath and eco-terrorist from unleashing a virus he designed upon Manhattan in an attempt to cripple the human race and save it from self-destruction. The virus is a chimera of ebola, smallpox, and insect virus that literally turns its victims to mush. The virus attacks the brain and causes the victims to go insane and often murder those near them, and then self-destruct in a usually horrible manner. One man scalps himself and then dies of a Grand Mal seizure as he begins eating the top of his own head.

Rather good books. Spiked my interests in virology.

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Actually, it isn’t finished. Terry Goodkind has said that there may be more books because there are other stories he’d like to tell in that world. Goodkind has confirmed only that the Imperial Order story arc is finished. Not to mention the fact that Confessor leaves thing open for more book via Richard saying that their may one day be other evils to arise.

It is true that there certainly is more that could be added to the story-line… Such as Shota’s threat to destroy any male child that Richard and Kahlan have. I certainly hope to see something resolving this at some point in the future.

However, at the moment, Terry Goodkind is writing a contemporary thriller, not yet titled, based in an American city, to be published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

He has agreed to write three books for them.

Hopefully his new books will be just as good as the Sword of Truth series was.