not a parody apparently

[reddragdiva]

A plump, curly-haired woman took a step out from the others. Her round face was red with anger as she screamed. "Stop the hate! No war! Stop the hate! No war!"

"Move or die!" Richard yelled as he picked up speed.

The red-faced woman shook her fleshy fist at Richard and his men, leading an angry chant. "Murderers! Murderers! Murderers!"

On his way past her, gritting his teeth as he screamed with the fury of the attack begun, Richard took a powerful swing, lopping off the woman's head and upraised arm. Strings of blood and gore splashed across the faces behind her even as some still chanted their empty words. The head and loose arm tumbled through the crowd. A man mad the mistake of reaching for Richard's weapon, and took the full weight of a charging thrust.

Men behind Richard hit the line of evil's guardians with unrestrained violence. People armed only with their hatred for moral clarity fell bloodied, terribly injured, and dead. The line of people collapsed before the merciless charge. Some of the people, screaming their contempt, used their fists to attack Richard's men. They were met with swift and deadly steel.

so for the first time in my life i just read some text written by terry goodkind.

emphasis mine, but the whole excerpt is great. no, context doesn’t improve it.

Comments

[zotz]

So is the guy a bit of a tool, then?

I think I've mentally been conflating him with Terry Brooks, so I expected something vastly more twee.

[reddragdiva]

Libertarianism, it's a hell of a drug.

[fluffymormegil]

Goodkind is an Objectivist who thinks the CIA are awesome guys.

[tangent_woman]

I read a bunch of those because my late husband was a fan and left them within reach. Man there is some screwed up shit in there. I remember someone else describing the... third?... book as being as though someone had suddenly taken the cast of Lord of the Rings half way through the first of the trilogy and jammed them all into an S&M dungeon together.

I also find a degree of humour in the twee Freudian book titles: Wizard's First Rule is the exception, but ... "Stone of Tears"? Pardon? Can't you take a laxative for that? Then "Blood of the Fold" ... erm, back to the pharmacy for some tampax, perhaps? "Temple of the Winds" - fart joke. I stopped reading about then, when Rob got sick of the rambling and rampant Author Filibustering, though we somehow ended up with a copy of "Pillars of Creation" complete with phallic cover art.

Oh dear. Oh very deary deary dear.

[fluffymormegil]

I briefly looked at Wizard's First Rule, back in the 90s, and I think I barely got past the bit early on with the "concerned citizen" speaking in favour of the prohibition of fire.

[damerell]

Don't tell me, thinly disguised metaphor for gun control?

[reddragdiva]

Probably directly for penises.

[fluffymormegil]

Probably, since the movement for the prohibition of fire was a machination of the Big Bad.

[greylock]

I got to the same point (and I only got that far because I'd picked up all the books secondhand on recommendations of people - and the fact there was short story that wasn't terrible, and decided not to go further.

I gather they got worse.

[rosefox]

Terry Goodkind's malevolent chicken is not to be missed by any connoisseur of terrible writing.

[greylock]

Richard Cypher, the hero.... cuts down a crowd of anti-war protestors?

Sheesh.