 Robert Eaglestone described the books as a "depressing read" due to the series' overarching cynicism, with a weakness being the heroic characters are only likable in comparison with utterly murderous villains.Eaglestone notes that Goodkind brings "a sense of evil that is genuinely disturbing, deriving from twentieth-century monsters like Hitler and Jim Jones" to the post-Tolkien epic, also noting that Goodkind's use of sadomasochistic imagery was interesting, generating a genuine sense of perversity.