Wizard's First Rule

The book started quite promising and up to the 30% mark I was having a great time. Interesting characters, fascinating world and an exciting quest.

And then some patterns started to emerge that soured my enjoyment and doomed me to struggle all the way to the end.

The book is VERY derivative of other works. And while I have no issue with tropy stories, and unpredictability isn't end all be all to me, copying characters and scenes from other stories and pasting them into your own exactly the same will always be worthy of scorn. Samuel - the former seeker was basically a counterfeit of Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. There was also so much "borrowed" from Star Wars and The Wheel of Time, among other things, that I had to wonder how anyone who's ever consumed these works could possibly enjoy this one. Of course, I am no gatekeeper of the virtues of literature, so if you did enjoy it, then please disregard this rant - your enjoyment does not require my approval. :)
But even worse, when you have predictable story lines, but are dragging them around for ages as though they are big secrets, it makes me feel like I'm waisting my time. You can't create and maintain suspense when your reveals are obvious from the start. Prolonging the reveal and continuously dropping little hints only works if your “mystery” isn't obvious to begin with. And we had quite a few of those. It left me feeling as though many of the scenes were overwritten and overstayed their welcome.

If there is one thing that can turn me off from an author almost instantaneously, that is unnecessary s**ual violence against children. I'm not saying it should never be in books, but it should makes sense to be there. And if it's not needed, like in this case (literally, if you remove those parts NOTHING will change for the story), then that means the author only added it because he wanted to. And I can't help but derive conclusions based on that fact.

And lastly, the author has tried to create a highly philosophical work (my observation is that he has borrowed quite a bit from Ayn Rand in that aspect), and has for the most part succeeded. But on quite a few occasions, he has failed to maintain moral and logical consistency in his musings. Which left me with the impression of performance rather than actual conviction. And that extended to the moral triumph of the main character, which did not ring true (no pun intended).

ALL that being said, the story is vast and if you are able to ignore the obvious “influences”, could be interesting, so I feel comfortable giving it 3 stars.

Unfortunately, barring unexpected circumstances, I will not be continuing with this series.