Terry Goodkind
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Terry Goodkind is an American writer, author of the Sword of Truth series of fantasy novels.
Contents |
Published Writings
Currently the following books have been released:
- Wizard's First Rule (1994)
- Stone of Tears (1995)
- Blood of the Fold (1996)
- Temple of the Winds (1997)
- Soul of the Fire (1999)
- Faith of the Fallen (2000)
- The Pillars of Creation (2001)
- Naked Empire (2003)
- The Chainfire Trilogy:
The 2001 Legends anthology, edited by Robert Silverberg, features a short story, Debt of Bones, set a few decades before the events in the main series. Later the same year, it was published as a stand-alone novella.
Career
Terry Goodkind has been called one of the most phenomenally successful of all the new fantasy writers of the 1990s, an international bestseller. According to his Web site, www.terrygoodkind.com, he is driven to excel in whatever he turns his attention to doing. Goodkind was born (in 1948) and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, where he also attended schooling in art and Catholic Catechism Instruction.
Suffering from dyslexia, which in high school brought him "constant ridicule and humiliation from his teachers," he dropped out of college and worked as a carpenter, a violin maker, a marine and wildlife artist, and a restorer of rare and exotic artifacts and antiques, before turning his thoughts to writing while constructing his home on the forested Mount Desert Island off the coast of Maine in 1983 with his wife, Jeri. After years of planning, he began to write his first novel, Wizard's First Rule, in 1993, and his writing career was launched with its publication in 1994. In addition to his home in Maine, Goodkind and his wife have created a second home in the desert southwest where he now spends the majority of his time.
Influence
Terry Goodkind has been largely influenced by the books of Ayn Rand and is a strong supporter of her works and of the Objectivist Movement. Some claim that his interpretations and beliefs in her works increasingly pervade the narrative and themes of later books in the series, calling them too "preachy". Goodkind, however, denies this, claiming they were there from the beginning. To these criticisms and others, Goodkind had the following response: "Their goal is not to enjoy life, but to destroy that which is good... These people hate what is good because it is good... They even hate that my books exist, that I write things that dare to uplift and inspire."
Fantasy Author or Novelist?
Recently there has been some debate as to whether Goodkind should be regarded as a fantasy author or a novelist. In an online chat<ref>[1] Response to online chat in which Goodkind talks about the nature of his work.</ref> with fans he stated, "I am a novelist; I am not, in the essential sense, a fantasy author. To define me as a fantasy writer is to misunderstand the context of my books by misidentifying their fundamentals... My books are novels that deal in important human themes involving the faculty of reason. I tell these stories through heroic characters." Goodkind supported his claims by stating that his novels dealt primarily with human thought and emotion. According to Goodkind, "What I have done with my work has irrevocably changed the face of fantasy," which he described as a "tired empty genre."
Goodkind went on to explain that it was never his intention to market his books in the fantasy genre, but that this was done due to business considerations. He also went on to explain that his books were further classified as fantasy due to their cover art, among other things. Goodkind has since replaced the cover art for a number of his novels.
Awards
1995 - British Fantasy Award, Icarus (Newcomer) (Nomination)
1995 - Wizard's First Rule Locus Poll Award, Best First Novel (Place: 7)
1996 - Stone of Tears Locus Poll Award, Best Fantasy Novel (Place: 15)
1996 - Stone of Tears SFBC Award, The Science Fiction Book Club's Book of the Year Award (Nomination)
1997 - Blood of the Fold Locus Poll Award, Best Fantasy Novel (Place: 18)
1999 - Locus Poll Award, Best SF/Fantasy Author of the 90's (Place: 49)
2004 - Prometheus Award - Naked Empire (Place: 4)
Footnotes
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External links
- The Official Terry Goodkind website
- A site endorsed by Terry Goodkind Here you can find various topic of discussions about the Sword of Truth Series, current comments from Terry Goodkind himself, as well as up to the moment information.
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