read it twice, that’s not obsessed, I’ve read Lord of the Rings 247 times (started in high school back in 1976), I read it continously for 1 year, that was 43 times in only 1 year. I found Sword of Truth series when they came out with Chainfire, and I’m on my 8th complete read, adding in the last 2 books when they came out.

That aside, to say I was a hugh LOTR fan would be understating it, but look how great that series came out. It’s possible to take a great book and do it justice on the screen, we’ll all be keeping our fingers crossed. Sam is a very talented Director and the fact that Terry signed on to the deal he must have been satisfied and confident that it would do justice to his series.

When I first hear that this series was being made into a TV show, I laughed, and then cried, because this series is terrible, plainly, and I couldn’t believe that anyone would give it a TV show. The series maintains readability through book 6, and all are decent. After and including book 7, they are utter trash and worthless. Since there are now almost an even number of good books and bad, I’m just going to call this whole series garbage. They deserve to be in the romance novel section of the supermarket, which is where I’ve seen them in my local supermarket over the past several years. That’s where I first saw that he had written Chainfire. I’ve read all of them, just to see whether there was another gem in there, like Faith of the Fallen, or Wizard’s First Rule, but no, they’ve degenerated into nothing but preaching capitalist economic ideology for pages at a time. Literally, 4-5 pages in a single speech, decrying the perils of communism.

As for the TV show, if it is indeed only Wizard’s First Rule, then I have hope that it might be ‘ok’, but I don’t really believe that it will be able to be translated into episodes. It’s a linear story, and it just doesn’t seem to be dividable. They may be able to pull something together, and get something that works, but I don’t know how. Every episode is going to have to end with a cliffhanger, and that doesn’t translate well to casual watching. I think it’ll be something like the Chronicles of Narnia movies, at least in how people react to them. It’s going to be terrible for those who have read and loved the books. If people have not read the series, then they’ll probably like it, because they won’t be aware of anything other than the the TV show.

Also, if anyone still cares, IMDB has listed the actors that are going to play Richard and Kahlan.

Richard: Craig Horner
Kahlan: Bridget Regan

IMDB Entry: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844653/

I have to agree with John, the books jumped the shark long before the story was done being told. My personal feeling is that the first few were too successful, and no one told the author how lousy the latter ones were because of his early success. He easily could have cut out two of those books just leaving out the constant repetitive preaching about “living your own life,” and the evils of socialism. There were entire huge events produced in some books that turned out to be completely of no account by the end … heck, the main plot of the first book (one of the better ones) was entirely negated by the last.

However, condensing the story to a TV show might be the best thing for it. Goodkind, simply put, was too wordy for his own good. What he really, badly needed was a good editor roping him in and truly polishing the storytelling down to its essentials. Perhaps a TV screenplay will do that.

[...] mentioned in a previous post back in January that The Sword of Truth fantasy series by Terry Goodkind was picked up by Sam Raimi [...]

Hopefully everyone will give it a try. The TV show will have some slight alterations to the story, to fit the ongoing format of a series. I’ve read the first three scripts and have noted the changes and they work great. It should be exciting, action packed and good fun.

Some cool new pics here:

http://www.terrygoodkind.com/

I think this will be great! I just saw the promo and based on that I just can’t wait for this show to start airing. Then again, they usually put the best and the only best bits in a trailer, but the special effects look worthy enough.
Craig Horner is easy on the eye( translation: Hot!) and Bridget Regan is pretty; and I think they look accurate enough for their roles. If the main actors can act the show will be a success.

Have been watching the “Legend of the Seeker” for a while now, and I am not happy about the way they have distorted the storyline. The series so far is only based on the first book, and they have gotten so far off track I find it hard to believe that it is based on the series of books by Terry Goodkind. Maybe I should write to the Producers, and Directors. I read somewhere that Terry was involved in the project and that he backed out. My guess is it was because of the way they decided to butcher his series of books.