Rating: 
Summary: Terry Goodkind is the best fantasy writer out there.
Review: Not even J.R.R. Tolkien can stand up to the depth and plot twists in this GREAT book. By far the best book I've ever read...until Soul of the Fire!
Rating: 
Summary: Down we go...
Review: I think I am losing interest. Does it seem like the enemies are getting less and less major as the series continues? I don't even know who the bad guy really is in this one! Goodkind is a master storyteller. The characters are truly engrossing. The magic system and the world are wonderful. But the story never slows down! The main characters haven't seen each other for a long time, and no one just sits and reflects! I'm getting tired of the hectic ruch from one crisis to another. And the crisis always seems a bit contrived. It seems like Goodkind was a bit surprised by the great reactions to the first book, and is just hanging on to the characters because they sell books. I think that Goodkind is creative enough to make some new characters and start a series with a series in mind. Start with lesser villians. After defeating the Keeper's agent on earth, a telepath seems a little weak, don't you think? If you liked the first books, read this one. But, I feel that it is much less than the earlier books.
Rating: 
Summary: A Worthy addition to a great series
Review: Goodkind has managed to take a genre that was in danger of becoming a parody of itself and injected it with new life. Wizards first rule started in a very familiar way. To be honest my first thought was "here we go again",but the author through vivid imagery and exciting action sequences proved me wrong. Terry Goodkind's writing is fresh,imaginative and compelling. The two books that followed kept the promise of the first introducing us to great characters and intriguing plotlines.Temple of the winds continues this tradition but seemed to lose some of the pace of its predecessors.It is also the darkest of the series thus far(and that's pretty dark),that said ,I still finished it in two days. If I have any complaints it would be that at times the main character just doesn't get it! Also at times the coincidenses that take place seem to be a little contrived. If you like "Wheel of Time", or "Thomas Covenant" then I would highly recommend " Sword of Truth"
Rating:
Summary: I read them all back to back and cant wait for soul of fire!
Review: People who read Mr.goodkinds books instantly compare them to the wheal of time by robert jordan and its obvious why we do this ,the similarities are just to close to be coinsidance,but while i was wating for mr.jordan to finally compleat another book i read these .Its like reading a fast paced exiting all the way through jordan novel. Not once did he(goodkind)devote an entire chapter to a main character sitting in a tavern with a spiced tea watching the people go buy waiting for someone special to show up. read this book and read mr.jordans latest A PATH OF DAGGERS,(witch has no begining and no ending and way to much in the middle.)youll stay awake a lot longer with RICHARD and KAHLAN than you will with RAND and EGWENE!
Rating:
Summary: THIS BOOK IS AWESOME!
Review: I don't know how of all of you fantasy buffs can POSSIBLY think that cool writers like Terry Goodkind and Robert Jordan play second fiddle to J.R.R. Tolkien! It's WAY IMPOSSIBLE. It is my firm opinion that any single book of the Sword of Truth Series is better than the whole of the Lord of the Rings series combined! THAT series was the most boring that I've ever read and Goodkind's books are so interesting. I really love it how there is always something new, another enemy to face, while the Lord os the Rings series takes three books to come to the point!
Rating:
Summary: A great fantasy novel!!!
Review: Temple of the winds is fantastic! If you were just a teenie eensie-weensie disappointed Blood of the Fold, you won't be with Temple of th Winds. You never what will happen next-of course, if you;ve read the other three books, you know this-and you never want to put it down. Plus, out of all four books, it definetly has the best ending. If nothing else, read it so you can read the ending! As much as I'd love to share my joy with you people, Ik won't give the ending away. So I'll just say READ IT!! and leave itat that. =)
Rating:
Summary: excellent, pulling, no better words
Review: An incredible book; very realistic unlike most; this is just a point adding to the incredible power. Helps me wish I was out of this boring world into the story. Too good for words. Forget other books. This kicks them off the mountains. I, Jairn Deathharp, Last of the Warrior bards, must and do stand along with the rest. This opens the window. Help me home. I am desperate. And I'm sick of all the technical, critic reviews that many of the rest are. Reading and experiencing is three dimensional, unlike you, mindless followers of Jagang, willing followers. Send your souls to the KEEPER. I AM DESPERATE. HELP ME THROUGH THE WINDOW AND TAKE ME HOME.
Rating:
Summary: This is my favorite book
Review: I think people should shut up about the criticism; this is so realistic and involving. In my opinion people criticizing about the action are trying to advance the idea that they are better writers, though they may never have published anything. This book, out of all books I have read in my life, moved and INVOLVED me most.
Rating:
Summary: entertainment you can feel
Review: Terry's books 1 thriugh 4 in the sword of truth were the most emotinally fired books I have ever read. The author not only puts you there, but you become envolved in the story. Truely a set of books I'll treasure a long long time.
Rating:
Summary: Immensely engrossing! The finest Fantasy tale ever published
Review: Having read all the reviews (on this website) until today of the four books in the 'Sword of Truth'-series (SOT) Terry Goodkind has published to date I fairly soon noticed something all of you seem to have missed entirely or just barely touched upon, but which adds significantly to the very special quality of this Fantasy series: I think Terry Goodkind writes with a rare mastery of suspense, in the way Hitchcock showed us all before in film. Many of his suspense scenes are intensely throat-gripping, not so much in the actual descriptions of the dangers at hand, but much more in the unnamed threats and almost physically felt dreads, like you are right there in the scenes yourself. When reading I found all four of his books very hard to put down, eager as I was to find out what would happen next to my two great heroes, Richard and Kahlan, and all of the characters surrounding their incredible tale. The sheer inventiveness Goodkind displays describing their fast-paced, thriller-like, compelling and extremely engrossing adventures hardly ever disappointed me. More and more I came to admire the caleidoscopic range and sometimes quite humorous encounters they had on their great journey covering Westland, the Midlands, D'Hara, and the Old World, in these four books now spanning slightly over a year. You almost automatically come to like the heroes and hate the villains he puts on the stage, which is no small feat to accomplish. On one occasion I even found myself becoming emotional, when one of the Mord-Sith died of the plague (as well as a lot of other people) as a result of the Andolian Legate Rishi's love of sustained drunkenness taking him a lot of time extra on his journey to arrive at Richard with 'a message from the winds', thus finally giving him a clue on how to conquer the plague's horrors (Book 4: Temple of the Winds). Goodkind does not shy away from being graphic and explicit in some of the scenes he describes, though they too are sometimes a bit hard to swallow. Right now I'm wondering whether it would have been be a great miss from the story-line if they wouldn't have been there. But then I also realize that there would be no Mord-Sith, and I would never have learned to love Denna the way Richard learned to do, thus finally giving him salvation of her dominance over him. Now that would have been a miss! So I conclude that these scenes are there to at least show some interesting character development, but also to show what people of all time (and Universes?) are probably capable of doing to eachother (think of the origin of Mord-Sith: them being created and trained to be this way by Darken Rahl, Richard's evil father). I also do think that Goodkind is not of a 'sick' mind in this, but quite realistic, if not soft. Don't be put off by it though, because that's what life in reality also is, even in Fantasy. In all of the four books, only two episodes I found to be somewhat disturbing or incomplete in the way they were depicted (Book 3: Blood of the Fold). First, when Kahlan and her Mud People protection officer Chandalen walked through a once-great city which had only just been wasted by their enemy, the army of the Imperial Order, finding bodies of men, women and children sprawled all over, the dead witnesses of the terrible atrocities the soldiers of this army had done to these people, they were talking at length on economics and politics. Well, I found this to be in no way fitting the shameful, painful and gruesome situation they were dealing with at that point in time. The next one (in the same book) was when Kahlan got a report from her soldiers of an older man and woman travelling their country, possibly threatening Kahlan's and her army's secret position to their enemy, the Imperial Order, for which she ordered them to be executed. Unknown to her, these two people travelled incognito, and were in fact Richard's grandfather, wizard Zedd, and his temporary companion, bone woman Adie, escaping their mutual enemy (at least, that's what I read, or thought to have read, between the lines in the story). I really found their imminent death to be a great loss in the story and mourned their ending this way, however strangely surreptitious it was (by the hand of Kahlan, who, at the same time, was so desperately seeking Zedd to save Richard!). However, much later in the book Zedd and Adie reappeared without so much as a scratch! But in no way Goodkind explained how this could have been, apparently having escaped the execution. So, that was a bit disappointing to me. All in all I have thoroughly enjoyed these four books and eagerly look forward to the next one in the series coming up shortly. After some 15 years of not seriously having read any book at all until, a few years back, I finally succumbed to the charms of Clive Barker's 'Imajica' (which I then thought to be the best book ever) I must now admit that even Raymond E. Feist's 'Magician'-series and his and Janny Wurts' 'Empire'-series (so much loved by the audience and quoted often next to Robert Jordan's 'Wheel of Time'-series), which I subsequently read, are well overpowered by the by Terry Goodkind's SOT. 'Imajica', 'Magician', 'Empire', and SOT are all very different from eachother, however, only SOT has the fast-paced suspence that I have not enjoyed so much in any of the others listed. I still like 'Imajica' very much because of its daring and ground-breaking survey in religion (none of which I found in SOT). I still like 'Empire' very much because of the fantastic survey in an alien civilization with strange customs and a Japan-like culture and a great heroin (hardly any magic there). Now I only still like Feist's first one ('Magician') and dislike to ever have read or tried to read its sequels (but gave up in the middle of his third), because the level of writing became worse and worse and the action was getting slower and slower. I've tried Robert Jordan, but don't like his writing style. Too much page-filler for me there, too little action. Yes, Goodkind develops the scenery and his characters exceptionally well, making them have all kinds of very recognizable human traits. They can be very smart and sometimes decidedly stupid in their actions, but I love them for it. In the past three months I have read the 4 books in the series all one time now and will probably reread them within a year (it's not my habit but for some very special books I have found to make exeptions for, e.g. 'Imajica'). Mr Goodkind, keep up the good work! And to all people choosing to be disrespectful with Mr Goodkind in their reviews I would say: grow up! You should first READ the book(s) before reviewing them!
|
