By the end of this book I wanted to strangle Jennsen and her goat. Truly. Jennsen who? Isn't this series about Richard and Kahlan? Not in this book, which isn't just an outlier in this series, it feels like filler. This is where I really felt Goodkind's clumsiness as a writer. What? You read six doorstopper tomes before this and didn't notice? Not really. Because I loved many of the characters, not just the two leads, but such secondary characters as Zedd, Nathan, Ann, Cara and Nicci, up to now I found myself glued to the page. Sure, I saw faults. Goodkind had become increasingly preachy, Richard increasingly Marty Stu, and the devices used to somehow keep Richard and Kahlan from consummating their love ridiculous. Some think the series had jumped the shark with the fifth book--or the sixth. Not me. Whatever their flaws I still found the books up to this one enjoyable and their doorstopper length wasn't felt by me. But this one? With all the characters I had grown to care about barely there until the end? Well, Jennsen really isn't enough to hold me for 736 pages. I rated the last book before this, Faith of the Fallen, four stars. This book gets one star. That's how much a fall off I felt in the quality of this book. The series doesn't so much decline as fall off a cliff--and it never recovered for me after that.

L'auteur arrive à nous surprendre, même après six gros volumes dans un genre labouré par de nombreux auteurs. On sent l'envie de sortir des sentiers battus de la fantasy, et c'est assez réussi.
Ici, il arrive à raconter une histoire sur 500 pages (sur 600) sans qu'on voit les personnages principaux de la série !
Certes, ils sont mentionnés ici et là, surtout comme épouvantails, du point de vue des sujets de Jagang. Mais ils n'interviennent que vers la fin.

Le volume se concentre sur l'histoire de deux demi-frère et sœur de Richard, enfants de Darken Rahl. Surtout sur celle de la sœur, ayant gardé son cœur pur, contrairement à son demi-frère, gagné par la perversité de son père.

J'aime bien comment Terry Goodkind peint le portrait psychologique de Jensen, la fille, craignant Richard comme successeur de son père, la persécutant car elle n'a pas le don magique de la famille (mais elle a un pouvoir particulier). Il sème quelques doutes dans son esprit, face au discours ambigu de l'empereur, en contradiction avec ses actes.
Jensen change un peu trop vite d'avis à la fin, mais c'est bien amené quand même.

Il ne néglige pas l'intrigue principale, la faisant avancer quand même.
Un bon épisode, gardant une certaine fraîcheur à cette saga.

1.5 stars. I can sense the end of my relationship with Goodkind coming with this phenomenal let down. Easily the worst of the Sword of Truth series. Only interesting aspect is the introduction of the concept of the "holes in the world."

While for the bulk of this book I found it a constant struggle to care about the main characters, as always, it finished strong and picked up eventually.

This book was a test in agitation and tolerance for me. I not once cared for Jennsen. I found her infuriatingly ignorant, and while that was a constant annoyance, I recognize the importance of her being that kind of character. I could never attribute that as a fault to Goodkind; he wrote this book as skillfully as ever - he is just really good at creating characters. Jennsen was unbearable in her ignorance and obstinate nature, but she was created believably and consistently. Goodkind's skill was surely present throughout this book, it just happened that the book was populated by the evil and the easily deceived.

Of course, as always, the book had a great ending. After 500+ pages of following these characters I could care less for, it was nice to finally see Richard, Kahlan and Cara again. It took long enough, but longing makes the heart grow fonder, no?

4 out of 5, in that I simply did not want to spend as much time with Jennsen, Sebastian, or even Oba as I was forced to through this book. 5 stars would have seen a more equal distribution of scenes and character appearances.

Honestly, going into this book I didn't think I was going to like it. I had read tons of reviews were people had hated it and the idea of leaving Richard and Kahlan for nearly 600 pgs wasn't putting me in a happy place. However, I'm happy to say that even with mild irritation with the main characters, that only came from their sheer hatred for characters that were beloved to me, they're not horrible and the book was pretty enjoyable!

The only thing that I ever truly caught myself doing was wanting to yell at the characters for being wrong, but at the same time you can't judge them for their reasoning, and Goodkind does do a good job of allowing the reader to understand Jennsen's pov; and also because Jenn doesnt have the information that the reader does. Plus she turned out to be a surprisingly stronger women than I thought she was going to be. So as a SoT reader, I hope other readers don't go into this novel dreading it.

Credo che due stelle siano più che sufficienti per questo libro. Il nulla per dire due cose importanti, il resto è solo riempitivo.

Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series is utterly maddening.

Following the first two books which I would hold up as two of the best fantasy novels ever written, the stories IMMEDIATELY became derivitive and dull. A big issue sweeps the land, Kahlan almost gets raped, Richard saves the day in the last hour because he's the only non helpless person in this universe. This was just awful in books like Blood of the Fold, but it wasn't until the Emperor Jagang story kicked in that the books became actively hard to read, all joy sucked out of the pages. So it was with great shock that I read Faith of the Fallen and discovered that Goodkind had taken a dramatic left turn and in doing so may have done his best work to date with the genuinely moving Faith of the Fallen. So I was all ready for Pillars of Creation to pick up where it left off and continue on from there.

Instead I got a book about a little girl almost entirely unconnected to the plot until nearly the end of the book. It dragged, it had no resonant quality and it was most assuredly not moving and the choice to abandon his main characters for a full book with so many questions revolving around their well being was, while gutsy, entirely a disaster. All the momentum he earned with Faith of the Fallen was flushed and the books from there proceed with the same dreary monotony the ones before had.

A completely failed chance to revive this series, this book is best forgotten entirely.

The book became acceptable around page 532. Yes, its viewing the events in the other sides through the propaganda of the Imperial Order. But did it have to do so with a sledgehammer, over and over again, with no real movement other than 'oh, she has to figure it out *this* time' or 'wait, she's having a twinge that something isn't right' but then those twinges never develop, nor does the character. Until the very end when magic happens and all is right.

As a way to introduce a new character or two, it would have worked as a short story, under 40 pages.

Tenhle díl poukázal na to, jak je důležité učit se stále novým věcem (i když jste třeba vyšinutý šílenec posedlý svou vlastní důležitostí nebo jen ztracená osoba, která je přesvědčena o své vlastní bezvýznamnosti).

Jelikož nebyl tehle díl psaný z pohledu Richarda, konečně jsem měla možnost zjistit, jak ho ostatní vlastně vidí a vnímají. Což mi umožnilo významný pohled na jeho jedinečnou osobnost.

Nějdůležitější věcí, která se v této knize objevila (kromě dalšího z vždy přítomných čarodějových pravidel) je, že každý musíme k poznání dojít sám. Jak jinak by pro nás přece takové poznání mohlo získat větší váhu?

i liked this book a lot even though it was mostly about Richards sister it was still a good read.

Many people who read this were annoyed that Richard, Kahlan, and the other major characters from previous volumes do not feature prominently (at least not "on-screen") in this one, which isn't so much a weakness of this book as evidence of the strength of those characters and their portrayal in books 1 through 6.

Jenssen was an interesting and likable character (although admittedly irritating at times), and it was kind of fun to see the world through the enemy's perspective. I also enjoyed learning more about D'Hara. Oba, the other main character in this book, was less interesting and definitely not likable (by design).

I enjoyed this book more than I expected to.

Динамичная часть.