h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

At home we've been enjoying this miniseries on the Sci-Fi channel. It's based on the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind which I have read up to about book 8ish.

It has been a bit of a revelation for two reasons.

1. There's been (gasp) something _good_ on the sci-fi channel for once.

2. It's enthused me for the Sword-of-Truth world again.

I got pretty fed up with the books, I think there are three more I haven't read and whilst they remained pretty cool in many ways towards the end of my reading they were also getting really irritating in many more ways. First, the 'will they won't they' thing with the two main characters began to get *really* tiresome. Second the level of sanctimony and preaching of the author's obvious political views got extremely tiresome. Thirdly, when you begin to hate the 'purity' of the main character it's not so good and finallyI think they were just running out of steam frankly. I haven't had much inkling to read the rest of the series (from Chainfire onwards) although I guess seeing the Dreamwalker get his comeuppance would maybe be nice but I've yet to see any kind of review that changes my mind.

The TV miniseries is good on a couple of fronts. First it does not remotely follow the book. The main thrust of the series is the same as Wizard's First Rule but the plot is totally different meaning you actually get something new. There are Mord-Sith straight out, many more wizards and confessors than in the books and even relatives of Richard that don't appear for about 7 books in the series.
Secondly it's actually done pretty well, none of the naffness that really puts me off the more run of the mill fantasy series on TV.

Finally, the Mord-Sith costumes (and Kahlan) are and Darken-Rahl is played by Haldir from Lord of the Rings.

Finally some TV fantasy worth watching. Now when will the do the Wheel of Time...?

I've sort of been catching it every now and then. It's not bad. I was never into the Terry Goodkind, always thought it was far to 'pulp fantasy' for me, not interesting or innovative enough. In fact just far to AD&D really.

As for the series - I agree it is probably the slickest fantasy series I've seen. And it isn't too bad. Bit formulaic (but then very little fantasy isn't) and obvious but no worse than much else I watch.

I dunno, I should like it. But something just doesn't quite engage me about it.
Although it has to be said that from my mid teens to mid 20s I read most scifi and fantasy out there. Which probably spoiled my enjoyment of the genre as there are only so many plots and when you've read one plot twist for the umpteenth time it does wear a bit thin. So I think the problem is probably more with me than the series. Very good at what it does though.

And Krod Mandoon makes a bit more sense now as well

(btw, I'm very impressed that the spell check in Opera recognised 'umpteenth' as a word!)

>I dunno, I should like it. But something just doesn't quite engage me about it.<

Ah, well there is the thing with the sword of truth I think. Terry Goodkind is very preachy (and has arch-right wing views - the 5th book was pretty much straight out dedicated to the CIA and the great work that they do ) and that sanctimonious crap is still there a bit in the series. So I can understand that, although I may be wide of the mark of where it's at for you.


I still haven't finished watching Krod Mandoon to be honest. I sky +'ed it a while back and is still on there waiting to be seen. That's the trouble with PVRs (as was the case with VCRs as I recall) in that once its on tape/disc one somehow never actually gets round to it. I do mean to finish it though, I did see your journal comments about it being a piss take of something else and can see why it might make more sense then.

Yes SoT is a bit formulaic but very much better than the average as you say. The Imperial Order I thought made an absolutely excellent enemy though, especially the Dreamwalker himself (if you even know what I'm talking about...). Although when they basically turned into the People's Republican Army (or Red Army...) it started to get on my nerves.


Firefox's spell check constantly annoys me as it wants to 'ize' everything, to the point where it wants me to spell 'realise' with a z.