Wizard’s First Rule (Sword of Truth, Book 1) – by Terry Goodkind
Once more into the Fantasy realm I delved, and this book was certainly more faithful to the genre than others, though human’s nature and their imperfections also play a large role.
Goodkind sets the scene with two brothers, one (Michael) who is adept at the political intricacies required to take control of the reins of power, the other (Richard) is a forest boy, who has received training as a forest guide and been mentored by a wise man of the woods.
With a similar plot device to Gaiman’s Stardust & the forthcoming A Song of Ice and Fire book reviews, there is a boundary between kingdoms, put in place to protect the people.
Richard discovers a lot of truths about his origins, and struggles to understand why his life has turned out the way it has. Michael soon finds that power corrupts the soul, and is unable to stop himself from travelling down the path to ruin.
As you may have guessed from the title of this book, Richard is taught his first rule, a summary of which is ‘People are stupid, they can rarely tell the difference between a lie and truth, but are falsely sure of their skills therefore are easier to dupe’.
This is the first book in the Sword of Truth series, I’ve not yet read the others, but once I’ve finished my current collection, I’ll be looking into sourcing the others.