I've read the entire Sword of Truth series now, and thought i'd post a more extensive review:
After reading some views on other forums I think there are valid points from both the haters and the lovers of the book series. I quite like the book series despite some serious reservations about it. Call it a guilty pleasure.
The characters and the stories are engrossing. But the actual writing is pretty horrible in the first books, but improves a fair bit (at least becoming passable) as the series progresses. Terry Goodkind is extremely redundant and his books could have used heavy editing. He sometimes also employs laughably juvenile writing techniques which are supposed to be dramatic, and dialogue that is sometimes repetitive and pedantic.
These books are great if you like your fantasy with a heavy dose of Sex and Violence, often described in tedious and gruesome detail. Yet Terry has a knack for describing Martial Arts (the Dance with Death as ne calls it) which gets me past some of the more tedious and gruesome scenes. It probably would appeal to fans of Heavy Metal magazine, and it can come off as cartoonish at times, and deep at other times.
The Good: is it's intricate and in depth examination of things such as Prophecy vs Free Will, and blind adherence to religious dogma of all stripes, and its system of Magic. Goodkind is also really good at describing military and political strategy (though he is hopelessly muddled when it comes to political ideologies). He has impressively Strong (and well developed) women characters and an almost feminist and pro-choice perspective. And he promotes Reason over Blind Faith (though it remains to be seen how reasonable his Reason is
).
The Bad: includes an outlandishly cartoonish and, dare I say, propagandist view of Economic Theory and ideology. The "bad guys" seem to be depicted as Socialists, but it's not a Socialism any political scientist would recognize. Goodkind instead resorts to the Right Wing propagandists technique of conflation: Profits equals Earnings in his distorted view, and no distinction is made between Small Business and Big Business.
He presents a myopic view of Collective Action and Democracy, conflating Religious Good Works and Political/Economic systems that provide for meeting peoples basic needs. He posits Taxes as Theft, without making distinctions between fair and unfair taxation. Top Down authoritarian economic structures are conflated with Democratic economic structures. In short, Terry Goodkind uses his books to propagate an impossible Ayn Randian version of Free Market Theory, using dishonest tactics to boot.
Essentially, Goodkind comes off through his books as a right-wing libertarian of sorts, with all the contradictions that entails. He kind of lets the cat out of the bag with a dedication of one of his later books to the United States Intelligence Community which he claims is unfairly maligned
(I guess he just overlooks the documented history of actual criminal behaviour and support for Tyrants
).
In the end, insofar as Rowling uses the Potter books to cast a discerning eye on the failings of our own modern institutions, I see nothing wrong with using a Fantasy story to express one's political/economic views. But at least she does it honestly, and without browbeating the reader. Where Rowling Reveals, Goodkind Obfuscates.
I guess the Sword of Truth series is a mixed bag. As it IS Fantasy, I can more easily overlook a lot of the ideological failings myself, and write off the distorted views of the villains as being purely fictional in the context of the books. And I recommend any reader with at least half a brain to read it with a grain of salt.
To those without even half a brain I cannot recommend it at all, for they might actually buy into the misrepresentations of ideology within
.
, but the outright brutality of extended and vicious torture is hard for me to take too 
. But having read some "Victorian" Lit, and a bit of De Sade, I can understand the principles that Goodkind is dramatizing. I just wish he didn't dwell on it so much and graphically draw it out blow by painful blow.