"The Pillars of Creation" by Terry Goodkind is a big improvement over the previous two books in the series. We are introduced to two new characters and mostly ignore whatever is happening with the other main characters Richard Cypher and Kahlan, the Mother Confessor.

The Story: A 20 year old girl gives the appearance of being very young, probably because the soldiers of Richard Cypher are hunting for her. By looking different she is able to allude the soldiers but she is tired of running and she has found an friend who has promised to help her kill Richard Cypher... her brother.

Any problems? Well... there is the obvious mystery of why Richard wants to kill this little girl. It seems out of character for Richard and remains so through most of the book. There is a third character that is very disagreeable and a number of witches. I would not let kids read this book. It's too violent and somewhat sexual in nature. (Nothing too terrible but it happens.) Most of the problem is with the violence but if you've read this far in the series you've seen a lot worse.

I liked the book a lot and would probably read it again. It has restored my faith in the author.

*Take my huge groan of relief that this massive tome is over and done with. Finally*

Ack, I knew there was a reason I was putting off continuing this saga. I remembered very little about the book in honesty other remembering Goodkind decided to bench Kahlan and Richard. Other than that, my main recollection was that it was a tiresome book that didn't live up to its potential in any way. Unfortunately, the tiny things I did remember proved to be correct. My main complaints about this is that it's long-winded and tedious with unsatisfactory character arcs that I just didn't care about. In fact, the only time I actually cared about anything that was going on was in the last chapter or so when Richard and Kahlan finally re-appeared on the scene.

I generously assumed that perhaps it was just the character switch that made me dislike this book as a teenager; after all, after six books entirely from the main protagonists point of views, it was a strange decision to suddenly leap to two unknowns. Coming back to this though, I don't think it was just the change of perspective. It's that the change of perspective was so poorly managed. Neither Jennsen nor Oba are rounded, well written characters. Jennsen is naïve and a complete doormat for most of the book, until she does a complete 360 in the final pages with very little believable build up. You have 700 pages plus of her believing one thing and then suddenly, she shifts and throws her entire understanding of her life so far to the side. Considering how much waffle there is prior to this crucial climax, you'd think Goodkind could build this in as a fundamental internal conflict, but he doesn't. It just happens and yay for things happening. In contrast Oba is a thinly written villain who is either sociopathic or psychopathic and is literally just a bad person doing bad things for the sake of them. I came to dread his chapters as they added very little to the plot, whilst managing to be both distasteful and boring at the same time. As a son of a Rahl, Drefen was a far more nuanced and interesting character.

And so we come to the narrative, which is padded out to a ridiculous 800 plus page length with no need whatsoever. For the first three quarters of the novel we just follow Jennsen as she runs from the threat she believes hangs over her and falls in love with her 'saviour' Sebastian, or we watch as Oba goes through life killing, raping and generally being a bad, bad person. There is no shock reveal about the fact that Jennsen has been deceived, because the reader already knew that from the first few pages. Credit us with a few braincells. We've read six tomes from Richard and Kahlan's perspectives; we are more than aware that he doesn't even know he has a sister, let alone would be sending quads after her. We know the Order are evil and so the 'big final twist' is a small poof on the horizon. There are a few gems of information about the ungifted offspring of a Rahl hidden in there, but even most of those come in the last few pages. It's pointless, unnecessary and boring.

Essentially, this is a huge book of nothingness. Very little happens and it adds even less to the existing lore of the series, other than the fact that there are a couple of magic black holes wandering around. That's a snippet that could have been imparted in a 70 page novella. It did not need this monstrosity set around it. I failed to engage with the characters; Jennsen is too wilfully blind and ridiculously naïve for the majority of the novel and Oba is just a cut out caricature of a sociopathic monster. Anything Oba does is always going to end in blood and pain, so after about two chapters of him I knew exactly what to expect from the rest of his encounters and was never surprised. And Jennsen's narrative could be unravelled by anyone with a single brain cell who has read the preceding novels. It was pointless.

I would also add that for the first time, I was deeply uncomfortable about one of Goodkind's sex scenes. Yes, yes, it's a miracle that this was the first time. But before he has always called rape by it's name. He has never justified it or romanticised it. Here there is one particular scene that has him doing exactly that and it left a slightly queasy feeling in my stomach afterwards. I'm seven books in, so I am more than aware of his propensity to veer towards torture porn at points and he has always used sexual violence as a narrative device to club characters around the head with. But this was more subtly wrong, and that seemed to be completely missed by Goodkind and his characters.

So, I got more or less what I anticipated from this. Goodkind has some really excellent books in this series and a few flops, but this is by far the worst so far. The bait and switch with the characters didn't work, mostly because the characters are two dimensional at best and I never cared for them. The narrative is thin and sparse, padded out intensely with completely unnecessary scenes. Oba could have been completely removed from the story with no loss at all for instance. It's boring and unwieldy and in frank honesty, a really poor book. The best scenes by far were the handful with Zedd and Adie, even if they were demoted to small side characters causing chaos against the Order. That's how poor the rest of the novel was.

For those following the series, 80% of this book follows a new set of characters, and only until near the end are we returned to the usual Richard and Kahlin tag team. I found the story OK, but I would have preferred R&K to come in much earlier, perhaps half way through. The end is also quite rushed and not well thought out, packed with too many characters, and I'm still not clear why there is a place called the Pillars of Creation (as the cover reveals, but the other meaning behind it is clear and creative). So I have to bring this to a 3 star rating. There is no cliff hanger at the end to lead to the next book, so I wonder if Goodkind had originally written this as a finale.

A final note, there is a battle scene at a city that is well done, the best part of the book. However, next to book 6 which was excellent, the quality dropped. If you're looking for a book that advances the main series storyline, this one does not, although having yet to read book 8 I could not yet suggest skipping this book. It is possible the new characters in this book continue into book 8.

The author adds a new major character. Jennsen is another daughter of Darken Rahl and her mother escaped the palace and lives in a remote mountainous area. Assassins murder the mother and 18 year old Jennsen is on the run with Sebastian, a very attractive villain introduced previously. She is determined to kill her half brother, Richard, for her mother’s death. The plot was good and the character development great. I was getting a little tired of the series, but this was a good read.

Sooooooo...while I did sort of enjoy this story, there were a few things that seriously irked me. First of all we are SEVEN books in. You can't just all of a sudden change the point of view. I'm good seeing things from other people's points of view but this story was all about Jennsen (and a little about horrible Oba) and it wasn't until like SIX HUNDRED pages in that you find out ANYTHING about Richard and Kahlan. For real. There is not one bit about them before that. They're who the story is about, and nope, we just get to follow Jennsen around for over six hundred pages. Also, I get that Jennsen has been tricked and doesn't know the truth, but WE DO, so its annoying for her to keep repeating things over and over that we already KNOW aren't true. It just got old really quickly. I was interested in finding out who/what Jennsen is and what it means but it seems like it was just kind of glossed over, I'm still a little confused about the explanation. I mean, I get it, I was just hoping it would have been more mind blowing than it was. Once Richard and Kahlan came back into the story, things really picked up and I blew through it, now I'm excited again to continue on with the series. :)

An avid fan of SOT already, and coming off the high of Faith of the Fallen, I was eager to continue the story of Richard, Kahlan, and all those characters I've come to love. But wait... the narrative is from a completely new set of characters? We don't see Richard until the last few chapters? Oh no. No, no, no no. I'm afraid this just isn't going to be as good as the others.
Such were my thoughts going in to reading The Pillars of Creation.

Because of these thoughts, I wasn't much into the beginning. It was a bit slow and vague enough for me to be confused (which doesn't happen too easily, mind you), and while Jennsen and Friedrich are likable characters, I found it excruciating to read from Oba's perspective at times. Having read evil perspectives before, in Darken and Drefan Rahl from the previous books, I really was surprised at the revulsion I felt when reading his narrative. Something about him just rubbed me the wrong way. There are a lot of flawed characters going about in this novel, which is not detrimental to the book, but it caused me to go "what the heck" more than 50 times.

As for the plot, It waits to get REALLY good around 3/4 of the way through the book, the former pages feeling more to me like a video game plot. You know... Go here for this information, sorry that info was wrong, now go here and solve this problem to get the right information. Another wrench thrown in the gears, now you have to do this before you can move forward... that kind of thing.
And then when it all makes it's way to the end, you realize... Hey now. THAT ENDING just make the back and forth of the book all worth while! And a great ending it was. A bit cheesy, and no where near as drawn out as the rest of the book, but it left me as giddy with delight as the others did. I even had a good laugh at Oba. Now I'm ready to climb up a few cliffs Terry Goodkind has me hanging off of.

I now see why Terry decided to change things up after writing what most would agree is the best book of the series (Faith of the Fallen), and drop us on our heads with a whole new set of characters to watch develop and grow. After that whirlwind, the change-up, while not really desired in the beginning, was indeed well timed.

I've not yet rated a SOT novel below 5 stars and I only do to this one because of the constant push/pull of the plot.

First of all, Goodkind writes (or used to write) fantasy.

I've heard before that since Richard, Kahlan and Zedd barely feature in this book, it is nigh-unreadable. Since I intensely dislike (and by "intensely dislike" I mean "I hate with a passion of a thousand suns") Goodkind's protagonists, to me the change of characters was what made this book almost good.

And all author's faults aside, I respect his approach to changing the perspective.

Of course that didn't change the fact that we were treated to the usual "Richard/Ayn Rand/Objectivism is always right and if you disagree, you deserve to die".

Still, Jennsen is a nice character and the main villain was probably the best villain that Goodkind has written. Of course Jagang, the Keeper and all the other typical villains remain as cartoonishly incompetent as ever.

Definitely not a great or even a good book, but good enough that I managed to enjoy it, without it being simply a "guilty pleasure" or "so bad, it's good" like the rest of them.

After reading Faith of the Fallen, The Pillars of Creation let me down.

It seems like a great big detour away from the plot. I actually don't mind that Richard and Kahlan aren't present until the end, nor do I mind the plot of this book itself. Those factors alone would have made the book fine. The book itself, however, is just poorly written.

The protagonist, Jennsen Rahl, is half-sister to Richard and a "hole in the world"--ungifted, no gifted person can detect her with the gift. Coincidentally, this gives her the potential to destroy all magic in the world. Oops.

I found Jennsen an annoying character. I don't object to having antagonists manipulate the protagonist into doing their bidding--that is fair and also fun. Jennsen is just not that likable, at least in my opinion. The way that she resolves certain predicaments was improbable. She manages to avoid a snake in a swamp--one that apparently eats everyone else who tries to get past it--and arrive on the doorstep of an expository sorceress. I'm willing to accept that her heritage bequeaths her certain abilities, but it's all very convenient.

Oba Rahl, another of Richard's half-siblings, seems entirely unnecessary to the entire plot of the book. He overlaps with Jennsen at certain points, but Goodkind shunts him off to the side during the climax (which I thought was supposed to be the most important part of the book, so I'm very glad that Mr. Goodkind has corrected me on that). Oba shares traits with Darken Rahl: he is ruthless and has a taste for cruelty. Unlike his father, however, Oba is not cunning. And he hears voices, which can often be bad for your health.

It's a shame that this book wasn't better. I enjoy it when a series takes the time to portray the main characters from the point of view of secondary ones. But at the end, the story was just not very satisfying.

"If you want to be a slave in life, then continue going around asking for others to do for you. They will oblige, but you will find the price is your choices, your freedom, your life itself. They will do for you, and as a result you will be in bondage to them forever, having given your identity away for a paltry price. Then, and only then, you will be a nobody, a slave, because you yourself and nobody else made it so."


I've been slacking on keeping up with my reviews lately, so I wanted to get this in before I forget everything. Despite the many negative reviews on here for this book, I actually enjoyed it a lot. While it was another character-departure story for the most part like Soul Of the Fire was, I felt invested in Jennsen and Sebastian's story unlike SOTF's characters. Part of it may have been because I was excited to have another show character introduced into the books (watched the show before I read the books), so I was excited to see how differently things played out in the source material. Terry Goodkind is once again not very subtle with his political and philosophical views, but after how intensely he shoved them down your throat in the last book, I've gotten used to it and it wasn't quite and strong for most of this one.



**SPOILERS BELOW***

Jennsen is naïve and easily manipulated as she was in the show, but it's for good reason. She spent her whole life secluded away from society on the run with her mother from Darken Rahl and has hardly ventured out into the rest of the world. Once The mysterious stranger Sebastian comes along and he ends up protecting her as her mother is horrifically murdered by the men that have chased them all their life, things start go get interesting.

I was wary of Sebastian for most of the book, and just as I was starting to trust him, Sebastian seemingly forced himself on Jennsen and then just continued to go downhill. Rape continues to be Goodkind's go-to horrible thing that he seems to inflict or almost inflict on any and all female characters. The villain of this book, Oba, uses it frequently as a way to show his physical power. Oba is demented and slow enough to think that women are just falling all over him. The scene where he attempts to rape the Mord Sith in the jail cell was disturbing, but when she finally kicked his ass, I wanted to cheer!

Richard and Kahlan do finally come into the picture much later into the story, though you don't get anything from their perspective. I was enjoying the book on it's own, so it was fun when they were finally re-introduced.

Things I liked:
-Althea's backstory. Sad, but she was badass.
-The 'holes in the world' plot. Richard (or all-knowing Mary-Sue!Richard as we should call him)'s explanation for why they existed was cool. The beginning of a bloodline of non-magic that may eventually eradicate it altogether.
-Being inside Jagang's battle plans as well as the battle with the invisible army.

Things I didn't like:
-soooo muchhh rapppee
-the ending felt a little cheesy with the friggin goats coming in, but it was a happy ending at least.

This one is not quite as good as the rest. I really think the author should have stayed with Richard. Nice to know what other people think of Richard. You can see how blind Jennsen really is.

Jennsen is a nice girl. The journey she goes through is very intense. She suffers a lot. Her mother dies. Sebastian befriends her who really isn't her friend. He tells her half-truths.

Obo is very frightening. He kills everybody he runs into. He is one of the crazy sons of Darken Rahl. He only cares for himself and about wealth. He has some big fantasies that won't happen like becoming king.

Richard and Kahlan don't come into the book until the very end. I wish they were in there more.

I don't think I'm going to write out a full review for this one, sorry. Every time I sit down to go over my notes and figure out what to say, I just find myself looking for something else to do. So, rather than write out my semi-professional-ish review format, I just posted my notes that I took while reading below. I tend to use more profanity in my notes, and much less professional ways of saying things, than I do in my actual reviews, so be warned about that. I may also repeat things multiple times, as the same thing may annoy me at different parts of the book. Ironically, I repeat myself complaining about how much Goodkind repeats himself, a bit here. Haha. Anyway, this book was a chore to read, and I doubt I will ever pick it up again after this.




Well, I think it's about time I got this one over and done with. I'm about 10 pages into my reread of this one, but I had to stop and take a break already. Why? Good lord, the stilted dialog in this thing! Even by Goodkind standards this dialog is bad. These are not people talking to one another, they're emotionless drones spouting the words of the author. Just... like... has Terry Goodkind EVER, in his entire life, listened to two people talking to each other? Ever? Because holy crap. These conversations feel really, really fake and forced. And these people do not act like actual people while they're talking, and certainly don't talk to each other as such. This just reaffirms my growing suspicion that Terry Goodkind is some sort of alien who knows nothing of human social interactions.

I think I have the audiobook on my Audible account. I may need to listen to this one... at 2x speed...


Okay 45% through... Gawd, where do I even start? So, I've read this book twice before. Once when it came out. And once when I reread the entire series before the final book came out. I hated it the first time, because we came off of Faith of the Fallen, easily the best book in the series, with some pretty huge things happening in the story. Richard has overthrown the Imperial order and started a rebellion in Emperor Jagang's own home city. And then we wait 2 years for the follow up to the best book of the series, and then this thing comes out. It's not a Sword of Truth book. It's a spin-off at best, and for some reason, it was released as part of the main series. I was very annoyed and pretty bewildered when this book came out. The second time, I was ready for it, and I had the whole rest of the series to read afterward, so I didn't mind that aspect of it so much. I remember thinking that if you think of it as it's own thing, a stand-alone non-Sword of Truth book, it was decent-ish.

Oh good god was I wrong about that. Holy freaking crap. This book is as badly written IF NOT WORSE than some of Goodkind's more recent books. The repetition in the dialog here is absolutely ridiculous. I mean, there is a scene where a woman says the exact same freaking sentence twice in a row. Word for word. She doesn't repeat it as reaffirmation. She doesn't repeat it more forcefully than the first time. She just says the same sentence to no point or purpose twice in a row. WTF Goodkind? Seriously. WTF? And in NO WAY do ANY of the lines of dialog sound even halfway natural. It is as though Terry Goodkind has never, in his entire life, had an actual conversation with another human being. PEOPLE DO NOT TALK LIKE THIS TO EACH OTEHR!!! I mean, holy crap, The part where Oba kills Laythea (spelling? dunno, listening to the audiobook). My god. Laythea manages to say the exact same thing about fifteen freaking times, each time making Oba more angry, without actually clarifying what she means by it, and by that time, it's too late, because he's mad enough to kill her. Hell, I was about to murder her by that point! Seriously, quit repeating the same vague garbage over and over and over again, and just spit out what you mean lady!!! I mean, really, could Goodkind not think of ANY other way to make Oba angry enough to kill? I can think of about seven off the top of my head right now. Did we really need what probably amounts to about seven or eight pages of the exact same repeated dialog between them? Quit artificially forcing the drama you talentless hack!!! Drama that feels forced does NOT feel dramatic.

And later, when Jensen goes to Althea (again, spelling?) This conversation has about three relevant sentences in it. They're just repeated so many freaking times that Goodkind managed to get a pretty lengthy chapter out of them.

And holy shit the recaps. He recaps previous books EVEN THOUGH NONE OF THE FREAKING CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK WERE THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He even starts recapping things that happened in THIS book? Seriously? Fuck you, Goodkind. Now you're just insulting my freaking intelligence! I think I can manage to remember something that happened 50 pages earlier in the same goddamn book, you twat! And explanations of things. Okay, we've gotten explanations of magic, and the grace, and blah blah blah so many times in the series before now, do we really need several more of each in this book? I think I can manage to remember, even with just a small reminder, or, you know, without any, really. Not being beaten over the head with reiterations of the same damn explanations seventy-three fucking times in the same damn book!!! Jensen says, or thinks about, what people think her red hair means like 80 fucking times in the first half of the book. WE KNOW!!! WE GET IT!!! TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE ALREADY!!! What makes this worse is that I just read an EXCELLENT book by James Islington that was the second book in a series. It did not recap the first book once. It did not repeat explanations that had already been given in the first book. It did not repeat the same conversations over and over and over again. And it was excellent. Probably one of the best new books I've read this year. To go from that to this.... gawd it hurts.

And another thing that is really annoying me here, is that Jensen, a supposedly empowered female character, taking her fate into her own hands and such, is basically just a doormat throughout the first half of the book, and a gullible one at that. She does everything she's told, and doesn't have a single thought to herself that someone didn't suggest first. I think that is the most insulting part of this story, not the ridiculous amounts of repetition, and the insane amount of recapping.

Also, there is a lot of busywork going on in the first half of this book. What I mean, is that the characters seem to go places and do things, but none of those things serve a purpose to the story. They just take up space. You could cut a good third of this book out in the first half and no one would know the difference. What editor worked on this thing? Seriously? Whoever it was must have been asleep on the job, rushed by the publisher to just get the damn book out so they can start collecting money on it, or too cowed by Goodkind himself to do his damn job.

This is book 7 in the series. You would think that what can and cannot be done with magic would have become pretty solid by now. NEWP! Goodkind just keeps pulling more random powers people can have right out of his ass to fit the story, instead of molding the story around what he has already shown us magic can do. Inventing new powers for an already existing magic system, in my opinion, is usually the sign of a very unimaginative author, or a very lazy one. Using the same powers in different ways, is always far more interesting and believable than random people just having completely new powers that have never been mentioned before now, and just pop up because the story says so.

Also, I don't think Goodkind really understand the concept of a sociopath. You should definitely make your villain a sociopath when you don't have the slightest clue how sociopaths function. I mean, it's really strange to me that he failed to do even the slightest bit of research on the subject, considering that he clearly is one himself. Whatever. It just makes him look, even more, like he's talking out of his ass.

From just the first half of this book alone I would call it the worst book of the original 11 SoT books... except for the fact that Naked Empire is a thing that will soon have its day in the sun. This book is just a complete mess of absolutely stupid concepts, ridiculous amounts of repetition and recapping that rival the worst books of the Richard and Kahlan series, and characters doing completely pointless busywork errands to take up space in the story. I mean, what the hell editor looked at this mess and said "Perfect, let's publish it!" I get that Goodkind's ego is a storied thing of eald, but good god, man, grow a pair and do your damn job!!!

I actually miss Soul of the Fire and Temple of the Winds now. They were bad, but at least they were laughably bad. This one is just boring and insultingly bad instead.


78% done.

Okay, so, in this book, people talk to each other, and it usually goes something like this:

Person 1: Says something.
Person 2: I don't understand.
Person 1: repeats.
Person 2: But I don't get why it can't be the way I want it to be.
Person 1: repeats.
Person 2: repeats.
Person 1: repeats.
Person 2: repeats.
Person 1: repeats.
Person 2: repeats.

This can go on for PAGES before one of them finally says something different that steers the conversation toward its conclusion. And every single conversation in this entire book is exactly like this. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. It gets tiresome after the first one or two. Three quarters of the book later it's fucking torturous. 90% of this book is comprised of people repeating things they just said. It's fucking ridiculous. The fact that this book was published at all is fucking ridiculous. Were I an editor at Tor, or one of any number of other people to have handled this manuscript before publication, I would have sent it back to Goodkind saying, "nice joke pal, now where's the real book?" This is not how good, or even decent fiction works. Hell, even most bad books don't repeat themselves to zero point or purpose as much as this one does. What in the absolute fuck was Goodkind thinking as he wrote this? You don't need a massive 800 page tome to impress me, dude. Especially when the majority of it is padding to make the book look bigger than it actually is. What you do need is good characters, a believable story for them to take part in, and a world for it all to take place in. It doesn't matter if the book is 200 pages or 2000, so long as it has those things. This book lacks good characters, and a believable story. And the world seems really drab and washed out compared to how vividly Goodkind described in in previous books. Characters endlessly repeating the exact same things over, and over, and over again is not a discussion. It's a broken record. And you know what's pretty damned annoying? A broken record. People do not talk like this. Can you think of any time in your entire life where you sat with someone saying the exact same thing back and forth for 20 minutes before someone finally broke the chain? I sure can't.

And people comment on my reviews of the Richard and Kahlan books telling me I don't know what I'm talking about when I say that the dialog is ridiculously repetitious. LOOK AT THIS BOOK. LOOK AT THE CONVERSATIONS IN IT. LOOK AT ALL THE DIALOG. TELL ME WITH A STRAIGHT FACE THAT THERE IS NO REPETITION. SHOW ME ANY OTHER AUTHOR THAT WRITES CONVERSATIONS LIKE THIS. SHOW ME ANY SINGLE PERSON ON EARTH THAT WANTS TO FUCKING READ CONVERSATIONS LIKE THIS. Pull your heads out of your asses, Goodkind defenders. There is no defense for this. At all. period. This is bad writing. Period. The man that wrote this does not deserve your praise, he deserves only your contempt. I used to get annoyed at the incessant preaching Goodkind does... Now, I'm just annoyed that he repeats every single fucking conversation 47 times before getting on with it.

Again, I have to call Goodkind out for his absolute lack of understanding as to what a sociopath is, and how they actually function. It gets worse later in the book as we get more, and more chapters of Oba inflicted on us. This guy is pretty pathetic as a villian, especially because Goodkind does not seem to understand the very real psychological ailment that this man has. He's clearly trying to describe sociopathy, but didn't bother to spend ten minutes reading even a basic description of what it actually means.

And, uh, Sebastian raped Jensen. I never really picked up on that before, but he kinda did. He basically forced himself on her, she kept trying to say no, but he kept kissing her so she couldn't talk. And then she just decides that whatever, he saved my life so he deserves to have his way with me. Okay... so... do I actually have to explain what's wrong with that, or are we good? If both adults are not consenting, it is rape. This was sex between an adult who wanted to fuck, and an adult that did not, but felt like she was trapped into an obligation to do so. That is rape. It may not be the violent clothes-tearing, sobbing horror many people picture when they think of rape, but it was still against her will. He raped her, and she justified it to herself. That's how the human mind works. You are on the receiving end of something traumatic, your mind goes to its happy place and tries to ignore it ever happened, and make justifications for it. No woman should ever--EVER--feel obligated to bump uglies with ANYONE regardless of the reason, unless it is something she, herself, wants to do, and doesn't have to justify it to herself. It was going to happen whether she justified it or not. He was not going to stop, regardless of what happened inside her head. That is not sex between two consenting adults, it is a man forcing himself on a woman, and a woman going with it because she feels indebted to him. He could have saved her life a thousand times. It doesn't mean he has any business rooting around in her panties. She doesn't owe him her body. I mean, kudos to Goodkind for actually getting the mindset of rape victims something resembling correct here for once... but he can still go fuck himself because I'm pretty certain that it was completely by accident.

Also, I have to question why Goodkind even bothered with trying to add in plot twists here. They don't work, like, AT ALL, because, well, I'VE READ THE 6 BOOKS THAT COME BEFORE THIS ONE!!!! Were this a standalone novel, not set in the world of SoT these plot twists would work. But the simple fact that we, as readers, already know who the good guys and bad guys in this series are completely negates all impact that they might otherwise have had. Imagine a story about someone hunted all their life, and then it turns out the one she thought was hunting her is actually benevolent and knew nothing of her existence, while the one who helped her all along was just using her to get to him. That could be a pretty damn powerful plot twist in literally ANY OTHER STORY BUT THIS ONE. But since we already know who the good guys and bad guys are, these twists hit completely without impact. Set outside of the SoT series, and maybe in the hands of an author who actually knows how to write halfway decent dialog, this book could have been pretty good. But it was written into a pre-existing series, which removes literally all impact from pretty much everything that happens in the story, and was written by a man who seems to think people sit around repeating the exact same lines at each other for two hours before getting bored and finding something better to do. GAWD THIS BOOK IS FRUSTRATING!!!! Because it could have been a pretty good book, but Goodkind pretty much mangled the hell out of it.

And, oh yeah, EVEN MORE RECAPS OF THINGS THAT HAPPENED IN THIS SAME DAMNED BOOK!!! I find this actually pretty insulting. In a really complex book with lots of plotlines and characters, it might be necessary to give a brief reminder that event A happened to person B. This is not a complex story, it has two plotlines, and three characters that spend any amount of time under focus. WE DON'T NEED RECAPS OF THIS!!!

I am so ready to be done with this book. Seriously. It is FAR worse than I remember it being.


85% done...

Okay, look... either Jensen CAN see magic, or she CANNOT. It CANNOT be both. Pick one and stick with it. Seriously! The sheer number of continuity errors in the scene where Jagang's army takes the Confessor's Palace are insane. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't have magical fire, lightning, light, and huge explosions from the point of view of a character that cannot see them. Either she can see them and they're pretty cool. Or she can't see them and they are not described in the text. A character who can't see them... CAN'T SEE THEM!!! What were people doing while this book was making its rounds at Tor? Jacking off instead of, you know, ACTUALLY DOING THEIR DAMN JOBS?


100% done...

Okay, soooooo, Jensen thinks she loves Sebastian. She feels that she owes him her life several times over. And she has lived in fear of Lord Rahl all her life. She sees the truth of what's happening here, and figures out Sebastian's role in it awfully quickly and easily. It's almost as though the plot says she changes her mind, rather than the author showing us any real internal struggle over the issue of who to trust, and who to hate. It gives the whole story centering around her a hollow, pointless feeling. What was the point? Why did we go through this journey with her, if she was going to see the figurative light without really grappling with the dilemma that Goodkind set up? That's not how good character development works. We need to see her working through the problem, and suffering to find the answers, so that when she finally does come to accept the truth, it FEELS LIKE THE CLIMAX OF THE STORY THAT IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE!!! Sebastian's betrayal needed to happen earlier in the book, leaving Jensen with time to actually deal with the emotion of that betrayal, and begin to wonder if maybe Lord Rahl might not be the villain she thinks him to be, BEFORE SHE MEETS HIM. It doesn't work if it all happens at the same time. She had no time to work it out, and so it's far too rushed, and gives the appearance that Jensen doesn't really have any free will or choice in the matter, she's just doing what the author wants her to do. When you can visibly see the author's hand at work making changes to the way that characters think and act, the author has failed to suspend disbelief. If people don't act like people, they don't feel like people, and when they don't feel like people, what's the point of even reading about them?

This book may be absolutely terrible, pointless, and a complete waste of everyone's time, but it does have one single redeeming moment in it. This book contains Richard's single most badass moment in the entire series. Rides his horse to death chasing after Kahlan, who has conveniently been kidnapped... again... for fuck's sake... Jumps off, strides toward a freaking army. Blasts them all to hell without even breaking stride, and continues on his way to rescue her. Man, if only that moment had a better story to be a part of.

And if only WE HAD NOT SEEN THIS FROM JENSEN'S POINT OF FREAKING VIEW!!! Because, uh, JENSEN CANNOT SEE MAGIC!!!! IT DOES NOT EXIST FOR HER!!!!! And yet all of the magic, the flash of light, the magical lightning, the soldiers messily flying apart, SHE SEES THIS! Dafuq Goodkind? It's called continuity. Look it up, would ya?

Never read a book like this one before. It was different but peaked my interest with the main character and how important she was. Her struggles with herself were something that every person faces in their life even if it is in a fantasy world. The only thing I really hated about the book was that it was number 7 in a series and I did not realize that. Guess I have to go back and read the others.