After reading 9 of the books in this series I have become comfortable with the flow and style (story starts confusing, Objectivist musings, understand what's going on, wizard's rule, story arc end). This one was a bit different in that it begins a mini trilogy within the overall storyline. This one was good in that it keeps the reader on his/her toes really trying to figure out exactly why the events are happening. Obviously if you've gotten this far in the Sword of Truth series you are either sick of it or excited to see how it unfolds. At this point, it doesn't really matter about the individual book as much as it matters about how it fits into the overall series. I think this story arc is shaping up for an interesting conclusions...once we get through all of the Objectivist Propaganda, of course.