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Sword of Truth #7
The Pillars of Creation
Sequel to the New York Times bestselling Faith of the Fallen
New York Times bestselling author Terry Goodkind has created his most lavish adventure yet. Tormented her entire life by inhuman voices, a young woman named Jennsen seeks to end her intolerable agony. She at last discovers a way to silence the voices. For everyone else, the torment is about to begin.
With winter descending and the paralyzing dread of an army of annihilation occupying their homeland, Richard Rahl and his wife Kahlan must venture deep into a strange and desolate land. Their quest turns to terror when they find themselves the helpless prey of a tireless hunter.
Meanwhile, Jennsen finds herself drawn into the center of a struggle for conquest and revenge. Worse yet, she finds her will seized by forces more abhorrent than anything she ever envisioned. Only then does she come to realize that the voices were real.
Staggered by loss and increasingly isolated, Richard and Kahlan must stop the relentless, unearthly threat which has come out of the darkest night of the human soul. To do so, Richard will be called upon to face the demons stalking among the Pillars of Creation.
Discover breathtaking adventure and true nobility of spirit. Find out why millions of readers the world over have elevated Terry Goodkind to the ranks of legend.
New York Times bestselling author Terry Goodkind has created his most lavish adventure yet. Tormented her entire life by inhuman voices, a young woman named Jennsen seeks to end her intolerable agony. She at last discovers a way to silence the voices. For everyone else, the torment is about to begin.
With winter descending and the paralyzing dread of an army of annihilation occupying their homeland, Richard Rahl and his wife Kahlan must venture deep into a strange and desolate land. Their quest turns to terror when they find themselves the helpless prey of a tireless hunter.
Meanwhile, Jennsen finds herself drawn into the center of a struggle for conquest and revenge. Worse yet, she finds her will seized by forces more abhorrent than anything she ever envisioned. Only then does she come to realize that the voices were real.
Staggered by loss and increasingly isolated, Richard and Kahlan must stop the relentless, unearthly threat which has come out of the darkest night of the human soul. To do so, Richard will be called upon to face the demons stalking among the Pillars of Creation.
Discover breathtaking adventure and true nobility of spirit. Find out why millions of readers the world over have elevated Terry Goodkind to the ranks of legend.
725 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
About the author
Terry Goodkind
292 books12.4k followersTerry Lee Goodkind was an American writer. He was known for the epic fantasy series The Sword of Truth as well as the contemporary suspense novel The Law of Nines (2009), which has ties to his fantasy series. The Sword of Truth series sold 25 million copies worldwide and was translated into more than 20 languages. Additionally, it was adapted into a television series called Legend of the Seeker, which premiered on November 1, 2008, and ran for two seasons, ending in May 2010.
Goodkind was a proponent of Ayn Rand's philosophical approach of Objectivism, and made references to Rand's ideas and novels in his works.
Goodkind was a proponent of Ayn Rand's philosophical approach of Objectivism, and made references to Rand's ideas and novels in his works.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,044 reviews
March 12, 2011
A slap in the face after the grand and epic nature of the previous book. I found this book frankly, boring. When Goodkind broke from his main characters in Soul of the fire, I found it a refreshing change and necessary to the story. But these new characters are not nearly as interesting. For one, I understand how it is Richard can have a bunch of siblings he doesn't know about, but that doesn't make this an interesting plot point. I couldn't find myself caring very much, and the addition of the gimmicky "adorable animal companion" only deepened my distaste. Aside from that, the author's attempts to keep the tension high gets more and more wearing, and less convincing. Additionally, here begins the author's slow descent, wherein he devolves from a well crafted tale based on interesting philosophical ideals worth starting a conversation over, to blatant preaching. The characters reactions to Richard's ideas are less and less believable, and his espousing of them is more annoying, as he keeps repeating the same ideas over and over, while others are simply dazzled by his wisdom. This is another book in this series I would recommend skipping, as the parts of it that are integral to the understanding of later books are very few, and are covered amply by flashbacks.
April 9, 2020
I've been enjoying my reread of the Sword of Truth series but I'll admit that I took a bit of a pause after Faith of the Fallen. I was hesitant to move onto Pillars of Creation and Naked Empire as I recall being pretty disappointed with both books during my first read. The good news was the fact that I enjoyed Pillars of Creation much better this second time around. I think it was a case of forewarned is forearmed as this time I was aware in advance that Goodkind had benched Richard and Kahlan as lead characters and replaced them with Richard's previously unknown half-sister Jennsen Rahl. The first time I read Pillars of Creation I was expecting this to be a regular SoT instalment so felt a bit cheated by the bait and switch of the characters. I was likely too annoyed to properly enjoy the story as I kept expecting Richard and Kahlan to show up and it was not for happening! This time around I knew what to expect and that definitely helped contribute to my ability to enjoy the story. The truth was that Pillars of Creation turned out to be a fairly typical SoT instalment except from the fact that Richard got replaced by Jennsen as the lead character.
The story itself was quite enjoyable. Jennsen Rahl is another offspring of the evil Darken Rahl and has spent her whole life constantly on the run and in hiding from D'Haran death squads sent by her evil father. Old Darken Rahl was keen to murder all his offspring for various reasons ranging from prophecies that one of them would kill him to prophecies that others would lead to an end to the world. Alas the fool was not keen enough to actually bother with any contraceptives and since he had a penchant for both seduction and rape bastard Rahl kids were popping up all over the place. He murdered a bunch of them but half-arsed the job so others did manage to escape into hiding. Jennson, like Richard, was one such child. We followed her story as her life in isolation with her mother was destroyed after D'Haran soldiers found her hiding place and killed her mother. She escaped with the the help of her rescuer Sebastian who was a man with his own reasons to dislike the Rahl family. The story also followed the journey of a second Rahl sibling, Oba, as he too discovered the truth of his linage.
The story was enjoyable and engaging. Jennsen was easy enough to like and root for and there was a good bit of tension to the tale as the reader, unlike Jennson herself, is aware that her hero, Sebastian, is a member of the evil Imperial Order and is manipulating her into believing that Richard, like their father Darken Rahl, wants all his siblings killed! He convinces her that she needs to strike back as her own unique skill gives her a chance that others lack. Jennson is pristinely ungifted. Which means not only that she has absolutely zero magic of her own but that magic cannot touch her at all! Prophecy is blind to her and no magical spells can sense or harm her. It puts her in a unique position to be able to sneak past the defences of the most powerful wizard alive (Richard) and to kill him. To complicate matters the Keeper has the ability to whisper to the pristinely ungifted and is playing his own game in the hopes of using Jennson and Oba to help spring him free of the Underworld! Oba himself was a delusional monster in the vein of his father and Drefan. He was on his own mission to sit upon the throne of D'Hara, which he saw as his birthright, and was easily manipulated by the whispering voices in his mind.
It was more fun than it sounds! In many ways this was a typical SoT tale with all the same strengths and weaknesses as all the other books in the series. I've mentioned them enough in my other reviews so I'll not do so again in this one. Goodkind is Goodkind so if you have made it this far in the series you are already aware of them. I think that outside of the bait and switch of lead character the biggest weakness of this seventh SoT instalment was the fact that the ending felt super rushed. That is typical for SoT but this felt more rushed than normal which is saying something considering the wrap up scenes are always a problem for Goodkind. Not necessarily the outcomes of the wrap-up scenes but more the rushed nature of the scenes themselves. He does a pretty good job with the build up but then the big final conflict all wraps up in what feels like a single chapter! It always feels so sudden and that was definitely the case again in this book.
All in all I enjoyed this seventh SoT story. SoT is super readable and engaging despite its flaws and Jennson was a fun new addition to the cast.
I'm still dreading picking up the next instalment of the series, Naked Empire, as I remember that being by far the worst of the SoT books I read during my first go around with the series!
Rating: 4.5 stars. I'm rounding down the rating to 4 stars due to the typical SoT flaws that are present in the story. I likely rated this around 3 stars during my first read but a lot of that was due to the fact I was caught by surprise at the switch of lead character. I do hate surprises lol.
Audio Note: I'm still going with the N.L.B versions of the audio which are superbly narrated by Nick Sullivan. The commercial versions are narrated by the monotonous Jim Bond.
The story itself was quite enjoyable. Jennsen Rahl is another offspring of the evil Darken Rahl and has spent her whole life constantly on the run and in hiding from D'Haran death squads sent by her evil father. Old Darken Rahl was keen to murder all his offspring for various reasons ranging from prophecies that one of them would kill him to prophecies that others would lead to an end to the world. Alas the fool was not keen enough to actually bother with any contraceptives and since he had a penchant for both seduction and rape bastard Rahl kids were popping up all over the place. He murdered a bunch of them but half-arsed the job so others did manage to escape into hiding. Jennson, like Richard, was one such child. We followed her story as her life in isolation with her mother was destroyed after D'Haran soldiers found her hiding place and killed her mother. She escaped with the the help of her rescuer Sebastian who was a man with his own reasons to dislike the Rahl family. The story also followed the journey of a second Rahl sibling, Oba, as he too discovered the truth of his linage.
The story was enjoyable and engaging. Jennsen was easy enough to like and root for and there was a good bit of tension to the tale as the reader, unlike Jennson herself, is aware that her hero, Sebastian, is a member of the evil Imperial Order and is manipulating her into believing that Richard, like their father Darken Rahl, wants all his siblings killed! He convinces her that she needs to strike back as her own unique skill gives her a chance that others lack. Jennson is pristinely ungifted. Which means not only that she has absolutely zero magic of her own but that magic cannot touch her at all! Prophecy is blind to her and no magical spells can sense or harm her. It puts her in a unique position to be able to sneak past the defences of the most powerful wizard alive (Richard) and to kill him. To complicate matters the Keeper has the ability to whisper to the pristinely ungifted and is playing his own game in the hopes of using Jennson and Oba to help spring him free of the Underworld! Oba himself was a delusional monster in the vein of his father and Drefan. He was on his own mission to sit upon the throne of D'Hara, which he saw as his birthright, and was easily manipulated by the whispering voices in his mind.
It was more fun than it sounds! In many ways this was a typical SoT tale with all the same strengths and weaknesses as all the other books in the series. I've mentioned them enough in my other reviews so I'll not do so again in this one. Goodkind is Goodkind so if you have made it this far in the series you are already aware of them. I think that outside of the bait and switch of lead character the biggest weakness of this seventh SoT instalment was the fact that the ending felt super rushed. That is typical for SoT but this felt more rushed than normal which is saying something considering the wrap up scenes are always a problem for Goodkind. Not necessarily the outcomes of the wrap-up scenes but more the rushed nature of the scenes themselves. He does a pretty good job with the build up but then the big final conflict all wraps up in what feels like a single chapter! It always feels so sudden and that was definitely the case again in this book.
All in all I enjoyed this seventh SoT story. SoT is super readable and engaging despite its flaws and Jennson was a fun new addition to the cast.
I'm still dreading picking up the next instalment of the series, Naked Empire, as I remember that being by far the worst of the SoT books I read during my first go around with the series!
Rating: 4.5 stars. I'm rounding down the rating to 4 stars due to the typical SoT flaws that are present in the story. I likely rated this around 3 stars during my first read but a lot of that was due to the fact I was caught by surprise at the switch of lead character. I do hate surprises lol.
Audio Note: I'm still going with the N.L.B versions of the audio which are superbly narrated by Nick Sullivan. The commercial versions are narrated by the monotonous Jim Bond.
April 19, 2024
This book is the perfect example that once you become really popular and wealthy, your editor actually stops reading your stuff because he/she's too busy sniffing powders off surgically enhanced anatomy of certain people of questionable employment on a yacht somewhere, enjoying the handsome percentage cut your work brings in. All that money means your writing must be good, right?
Terry Goodkind pushes the limits of this statement to a special new high. He takes it to such an extreme that even Robert Jordan would feel uncomfortable exploiting the written form with so vividly contrived side plots and wickedly inane and forgettable characters deftly extracted from the colon.
The rating also reflects how I was once young and naive and believed in unsigned integers.
Anyway ...
Richard Rahl isn't in this book.
But Jennsen is. Who the fuck is Jennsen? Who cares.
And Oba. We have Oba. Who is he? Some schizophrenic dude with magic.
And that's it. That's the book.
Honest, miss.
Jennsen is hunted by Darken Rahl's men, because. Oba decides to off his mother and hunt Jennsen. There's a bunch of 'previously on SoT' moments, spanning 50-60% of the book. Somehow, Kahlan and the Keeper are also cunningly added to the plot, happy ending, WHAM! We have a complete manuscript!
Utterly pointless. I read this because I once believed in OCD-ing my way through books. I should thank Terry Goodkind (and a few other brave souls) for weaning me off my filthy habit.
Le song:
Oba, Oba, he's the man,
Oba, Oba, loves his pan,
Oba, Jennsen, Richard Rahl,
Kahlan, Keeper, mighty brawl,
Sebastian, Sebastian, a new friend,
Bullshit, rehash, the end.
Igor
Terry Goodkind pushes the limits of this statement to a special new high. He takes it to such an extreme that even Robert Jordan would feel uncomfortable exploiting the written form with so vividly contrived side plots and wickedly inane and forgettable characters deftly extracted from the colon.
The rating also reflects how I was once young and naive and believed in unsigned integers.
Anyway ...
Richard Rahl isn't in this book.
But Jennsen is. Who the fuck is Jennsen? Who cares.
And Oba. We have Oba. Who is he? Some schizophrenic dude with magic.
And that's it. That's the book.
Honest, miss.
Jennsen is hunted by Darken Rahl's men, because. Oba decides to off his mother and hunt Jennsen. There's a bunch of 'previously on SoT' moments, spanning 50-60% of the book. Somehow, Kahlan and the Keeper are also cunningly added to the plot, happy ending, WHAM! We have a complete manuscript!
Utterly pointless. I read this because I once believed in OCD-ing my way through books. I should thank Terry Goodkind (and a few other brave souls) for weaning me off my filthy habit.
Le song:
Oba, Oba, he's the man,
Oba, Oba, loves his pan,
Oba, Jennsen, Richard Rahl,
Kahlan, Keeper, mighty brawl,
Sebastian, Sebastian, a new friend,
Bullshit, rehash, the end.
Igor
February 15, 2018
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?
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?
August 30, 2013
This volume is a breath of fresh air in the series. The pulpit speeches are absent, the action is strong, and we have a new interesting main character introduced, along with a few minor ones such as Tom. Plus a very interesting practical reason behind Darken Rahl's practice of killing all of his ungifted children comes to light.
Some people have complained that Richard and Kahlan aren't main characters in this book, and if you think that, you aren't paying attention. Richard is the bogeyman. Jensen spends the entire book driven by her perceptions of Richard. This is important for two things. First, it shows how the people who haven't met Richard but have reason to fear Darken Rahl (which would be everyone not evil) wouldn't automatically think Richard was good, in fact they would think he was just as bad, if not worse, since he killed his own father. Second, it showed how easy it was for someone to be swayed by the Order if that person is sheltered from the truth.
An excellent read that shows how good Terry Goodkind can be if he would just rein in the politics.
Some people have complained that Richard and Kahlan aren't main characters in this book, and if you think that, you aren't paying attention. Richard is the bogeyman. Jensen spends the entire book driven by her perceptions of Richard. This is important for two things. First, it shows how the people who haven't met Richard but have reason to fear Darken Rahl (which would be everyone not evil) wouldn't automatically think Richard was good, in fact they would think he was just as bad, if not worse, since he killed his own father. Second, it showed how easy it was for someone to be swayed by the Order if that person is sheltered from the truth.
An excellent read that shows how good Terry Goodkind can be if he would just rein in the politics.
October 17, 2012
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.
June 24, 2010
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."
July 18, 2022
In a departure from the rest of the series, The Pillars of Creation follows entirely new characters instead of Richard, Kahlan and the rest. Luckily I do like Jennsen who is the main character we're following- one of Richard's half-sisters who believes Lord Rahl is trying to hunt her down and kill her. We also get the perspective of a half-brother who becomes a sadistic serial killer & rapist, though thankfully we spend a lot less time with him.
I actually like the story pretty well, but it does feel bloated and drags in terms of pacing. There is also a lot of violence towards women in this installment and I could definitely do without some of it. Not a favorite of the series, but this idea that there are people that magic doesn't work on is an interesting one.
I actually like the story pretty well, but it does feel bloated and drags in terms of pacing. There is also a lot of violence towards women in this installment and I could definitely do without some of it. Not a favorite of the series, but this idea that there are people that magic doesn't work on is an interesting one.
November 26, 2009
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.
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.
April 11, 2020
Credo che due stelle siano più che sufficienti per questo libro. Il nulla per dire due cose importanti, il resto è solo riempitivo.
January 31, 2009
Terry Goodkind is a superb author, and in my opinion, his "Sword of Truth" series is the best I have ever read. So good, in fact, that I have read the entire series three times in a row, back to back, non-stop. This series is *not* for children. The series covers many aspects of the dark side of humanity, in great detail, as the heroes try to overcome the evils in the world. Goodkind is not afraid to show his readers just what evil *really* is, that is, most often, people who perform acts of evil feel justified in their minds as to why they are doing so, if for illogical reasons, and will that those that oppose them are the evil ones. Goodkind shows his readers that the only way to overcome evil in ourselves and in the world is through use of Reason. The series is *not* light reading, but if one is not afraid to confront the reality of evil (even within ourselves), and how to really defeat evil, the one will find this series extremely rewarding.
July 28, 2014
This book is sort of a departure from the main storyline of the Sword of Truth series. It follows Richard's sister, Jensen, as she attempts to assassinate her brother, who she believes killed her mother and is now trying to kill her.
This book is very interesting, because it only has Richard in it for about 25 pages, the rest is about Jensen and the people she meets on her journey. This is a cool way to introduce a new character to a large series and give them enough time in the spotlight so that the reader can get to know them.
This book is a solid addition to the series.
This book is very interesting, because it only has Richard in it for about 25 pages, the rest is about Jensen and the people she meets on her journey. This is a cool way to introduce a new character to a large series and give them enough time in the spotlight so that the reader can get to know them.
This book is a solid addition to the series.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 26, 2010
Although I really love the interaction of the main characters, Richard, Kahlen, Cara and Zedd, I also love reading about others in this world that revolve around the main characters. This was an exceptional take on two different lives of Richards half siblings and how their up bringing affected their character and world view. Compared to the previous books, this was a relatively short story. It does not detract from the main story line what so ever. In fact, it ends up adding a new character for future books.
I love the psychological aspect of it all, after the last book which included the political aspect. I really love books that make you think. And, Terry Goodkind makes politics, philosophy and psychology easy for any reader to understand, if only they would think more deeply while reading this series.
The only thing I have noticed about Terry Goodkind;s writing style is that he tends to repeat events and thoughts that were from earlier in the same book. I could understand repeating reasonings and explaining certain things for someone picking up the series midway. But in the same book, it does get annoying sometimes.
I love the psychological aspect of it all, after the last book which included the political aspect. I really love books that make you think. And, Terry Goodkind makes politics, philosophy and psychology easy for any reader to understand, if only they would think more deeply while reading this series.
The only thing I have noticed about Terry Goodkind;s writing style is that he tends to repeat events and thoughts that were from earlier in the same book. I could understand repeating reasonings and explaining certain things for someone picking up the series midway. But in the same book, it does get annoying sometimes.
September 13, 2019
For those of you who started following me because of my reviews of this series, I apologize in advance. I finished this book over three months ago now, so my initial impression of the book has faded. Also, despite this being overall not great, I have very little ire for it. These two stars aren't a result of outrage or ickiness like usual; they're more the result of this book seemingly have very little relevance to the main plot of the series.
But, good news for you if this review disappoints, I'm starting book eight tomorrow! (Which is why I'm finally writing this review.)
I suppose your basic enjoyment of The Pillars of Creation hinges upon whether or not you think it's a good idea for Goodkind to sideline his two main characters, Richard and Kahlan, in favor of Richard's previously unheard of half-sister, Jennsen Rahl, for an entire full-length book in this series. I don't necessarily think it was a bad impulse for Jennsen to get her own story. Maybe it's just my lingering good feelings about her from the TV show, but I rather like Jennsen as a character, despite how very long it takes her to catch on to certain things in this book. But perhaps this all could have been done in a side novel or novella instead of a full doorstopper length main-series tome? I'm talking, like, Robert Jordan's New Spring, here: four hundred pages, in and out.
But, aside from it being a puzzling choice story-wise, I'm not all that mad about it. The story itself, which is more of an internal character journey for Jennsen, wasn't bad. It certainly moved faster than many of Goodkind's plots have in the past, and I wasn't ever bored with it. The main thrust here is that Jennsen and her mother have been on the run for most of Jennsen's life, as if he ever found them, Darken Rahl would kill them. Jennsen, as is the case with many of Darken Rahl's offspring, is pristinely ungifted, meaning that not only does she have no ability with magic, it doesn't affect her at all. This is dangerous to Darken Rahl for obvious reasons. The book opens with her mother being murdered by a team supposedly sent from Darken Rahl (even though we as readers know Darken Rahl is dead, and Richard is now the new Lord Rahl), and she goes off with Sebastian, the man who helps her escape.
Turns out, though, that Sebastian is a spy from the Imperial Order, which he willingly tells Jennsen. He immediately begins trying to turn her away from the Midlands and to admire the Emperor and the Order. The result of this is that we spend most of the book with a Jennsen who thinks the Order is benevolent, that her brother Richard is evil and trying to kill her, and the Midlands he rules are corrupt. One of the only things that actively annoyed me about this book is how long it took Jennsen to catch on to Sebastian's ploy. On the one hand, it was sort of fascinating to see the series and its characters from this new angle, especially since Jennsen is so sheltered and rather an easy target. On the other, because this is Terry Goodkind, this premise (which I'm sure he engineered for expressly this purpose) also leads to a lot of very unsubtle political ideology often taking the place of actual character development or plot. This is, of course, becoming an increasingly bigger problem as the series goes on. Often it seems more important for Goodkind to use his characters as avatars of objectivism than to make sure they're behaving like actual people.
I haven't even talked about Oba yet! Let's talk about Oba. Oba is Richard and Jennsen's other half brother. Oba is a psychopath. Raised by an abusive mother, he manages to kill her and the local sorceress, and set off for his own parallel adventure that brings him into orbit with his siblings. Oba is the main villain in this book, with baddie Jagang taking a secondary role as villain. Oba is actually not all at that interesting. Your standard violent misogynist, only very big and strong, and like Jennsen, immune to magic. I wanted to talk about Oba because of something he does in the second half of the book.
Lastly, I wrote in a status update the following regarding the last chapter: "This last scene is a real turd. 💩"
Unfortunately, I no longer remember exactly what my specific complaints were, or what I wanted to say. I do remember that it was pretty terrible executed. Richard and Kahlan finally appear and Jennsen sees the light and Oba is defeated. If I'm recalling correctly, the dialogue was abysmal and laughable, as in I'm pretty sure I laughed at how bad it was.
And now, I will be reading book eight, which even major fans of the series agree is a huge waste of time, and is very didactic, so I've got that to look forward to at least.
[2.5 stars, rounded down for now, might round up later]
But, good news for you if this review disappoints, I'm starting book eight tomorrow! (Which is why I'm finally writing this review.)
I suppose your basic enjoyment of The Pillars of Creation hinges upon whether or not you think it's a good idea for Goodkind to sideline his two main characters, Richard and Kahlan, in favor of Richard's previously unheard of half-sister, Jennsen Rahl, for an entire full-length book in this series. I don't necessarily think it was a bad impulse for Jennsen to get her own story. Maybe it's just my lingering good feelings about her from the TV show, but I rather like Jennsen as a character, despite how very long it takes her to catch on to certain things in this book. But perhaps this all could have been done in a side novel or novella instead of a full doorstopper length main-series tome? I'm talking, like, Robert Jordan's New Spring, here: four hundred pages, in and out.
But, aside from it being a puzzling choice story-wise, I'm not all that mad about it. The story itself, which is more of an internal character journey for Jennsen, wasn't bad. It certainly moved faster than many of Goodkind's plots have in the past, and I wasn't ever bored with it. The main thrust here is that Jennsen and her mother have been on the run for most of Jennsen's life, as if he ever found them, Darken Rahl would kill them. Jennsen, as is the case with many of Darken Rahl's offspring, is pristinely ungifted, meaning that not only does she have no ability with magic, it doesn't affect her at all. This is dangerous to Darken Rahl for obvious reasons. The book opens with her mother being murdered by a team supposedly sent from Darken Rahl (even though we as readers know Darken Rahl is dead, and Richard is now the new Lord Rahl), and she goes off with Sebastian, the man who helps her escape.
Turns out, though, that Sebastian is a spy from the Imperial Order, which he willingly tells Jennsen. He immediately begins trying to turn her away from the Midlands and to admire the Emperor and the Order. The result of this is that we spend most of the book with a Jennsen who thinks the Order is benevolent, that her brother Richard is evil and trying to kill her, and the Midlands he rules are corrupt. One of the only things that actively annoyed me about this book is how long it took Jennsen to catch on to Sebastian's ploy. On the one hand, it was sort of fascinating to see the series and its characters from this new angle, especially since Jennsen is so sheltered and rather an easy target. On the other, because this is Terry Goodkind, this premise (which I'm sure he engineered for expressly this purpose) also leads to a lot of very unsubtle political ideology often taking the place of actual character development or plot. This is, of course, becoming an increasingly bigger problem as the series goes on. Often it seems more important for Goodkind to use his characters as avatars of objectivism than to make sure they're behaving like actual people.
I haven't even talked about Oba yet! Let's talk about Oba. Oba is Richard and Jennsen's other half brother. Oba is a psychopath. Raised by an abusive mother, he manages to kill her and the local sorceress, and set off for his own parallel adventure that brings him into orbit with his siblings. Oba is the main villain in this book, with baddie Jagang taking a secondary role as villain. Oba is actually not all at that interesting. Your standard violent misogynist, only very big and strong, and like Jennsen, immune to magic. I wanted to talk about Oba because of something he does in the second half of the book.
Lastly, I wrote in a status update the following regarding the last chapter: "This last scene is a real turd. 💩"
Unfortunately, I no longer remember exactly what my specific complaints were, or what I wanted to say. I do remember that it was pretty terrible executed. Richard and Kahlan finally appear and Jennsen sees the light and Oba is defeated. If I'm recalling correctly, the dialogue was abysmal and laughable, as in I'm pretty sure I laughed at how bad it was.
And now, I will be reading book eight, which even major fans of the series agree is a huge waste of time, and is very didactic, so I've got that to look forward to at least.
[2.5 stars, rounded down for now, might round up later]
April 8, 2011
Pillars of creation was probably the most different of Goodkind's books that I've read. Different in this case is good, but not great. The Wizard Rule posited in this book is "Life is the Future, not the Past."
Works pretty well with the theme of this book I suppose, considering that Goodkind puts away Ubermensch Richard Rahl and UberWife Kahlen Amnell and instead focuses his pen around the relatively unremarkable, yet spunky young lass Jennsen Dagget. Seriously. We see Richard and Kahlen for approximately 40 pages in this book. Zedd for even less.
So life is the future, not the past. Meaning don't cling to old tropes. Use reason to make sound judgement. Goodkind takes this to heart and tells a new story against the backdrop we've grown accustomed to. This is pretty cool - because for once he doesn't spend every other paragraph re-explaining to us the backstory of the seven other books that came before it. For people new to the story, this is an easy book to take in. For those of us who have been here the whole time, we know how it REALLY is and we get a lot of the in-jokes.
All-in-all it's really a pretty boring book. There was no time where I was ever SO captivated that I couldn't put it down. I didn't lose 2-3 hours of sleep on any given night because I couldn't close the book and put my head on the pillow. It was OK.
The good thing about this book compared to the last is that it wasn't overly soap-boxy. There was definitely a bit of Objectivism grandstanding in it, but far, FAR, *FAR* less than the last book that may as well have been called "Faith of the Fountainhead".
That said, there was one aspect that REALLY ground my gears. We spend the whole book driving to one BIG "I WILL KILL YOU" confrontation between Jensenn and Richard and - litterally - in 3 pages, she changes her mind COMPETELY and is cool with traveling with this dude that she spent the WHOLE book plotting to kill.
REALLY?
So yeah. Good? Not particularly. But another fun read, anyway.
Works pretty well with the theme of this book I suppose, considering that Goodkind puts away Ubermensch Richard Rahl and UberWife Kahlen Amnell and instead focuses his pen around the relatively unremarkable, yet spunky young lass Jennsen Dagget. Seriously. We see Richard and Kahlen for approximately 40 pages in this book. Zedd for even less.
So life is the future, not the past. Meaning don't cling to old tropes. Use reason to make sound judgement. Goodkind takes this to heart and tells a new story against the backdrop we've grown accustomed to. This is pretty cool - because for once he doesn't spend every other paragraph re-explaining to us the backstory of the seven other books that came before it. For people new to the story, this is an easy book to take in. For those of us who have been here the whole time, we know how it REALLY is and we get a lot of the in-jokes.
All-in-all it's really a pretty boring book. There was no time where I was ever SO captivated that I couldn't put it down. I didn't lose 2-3 hours of sleep on any given night because I couldn't close the book and put my head on the pillow. It was OK.
The good thing about this book compared to the last is that it wasn't overly soap-boxy. There was definitely a bit of Objectivism grandstanding in it, but far, FAR, *FAR* less than the last book that may as well have been called "Faith of the Fountainhead".
That said, there was one aspect that REALLY ground my gears. We spend the whole book driving to one BIG "I WILL KILL YOU" confrontation between Jensenn and Richard and - litterally - in 3 pages, she changes her mind COMPETELY and is cool with traveling with this dude that she spent the WHOLE book plotting to kill.
REALLY?
So yeah. Good? Not particularly. But another fun read, anyway.
March 29, 2012
I dug up an old review I wrote on Amazon for this in 2004, when I was 16 and had just finished reading it:
This book... had a very evil feel to it. The characters weren't as well-defined as in the other books, or perhaps just not as appealing. I thought Jennsen was quite determined to be stupid throughout her journeys, but her character was saved in the end. The scene with Oba and the Mord-sith is not one easily forgettable, it's enjoyable in the most sadistic of ways. You definitely could not read this book and get everything out of it if you hadn't read a few of the others preceeding it, so you had a feel of what was going on with the Order and Richard. I did find myself greedily awaiting appearances from Richard and Kahlan, because those two characters are the kind one can read about forever and identify with... Jennsen, I wanted to hurt; although that does say something about how brought alive the characters were. Still, definitely an evil feel to it. I love the terms "hole in the world" and "pillars of creation", such chilling thoughts. The kind that remind you of something, far off and long ago that you just can't place but it made you scared perhaps without cause. This is a book that will make you think and wonder and probably leave you more confused than you were at the beginning, and wanting to write a review about just how much you disliked it. The fact is, you will probably dislike it as you're reading it, and want to put it down but you will not be able to. You'll read it through till the end and then perhaps think it a waste of time, and you should have stopped reading when you felt like it... but of course you couldn't. This is a page-turner if I ever heard of one. Maybe you're better off not wasting hours on it but I still recommend it.
This book... had a very evil feel to it. The characters weren't as well-defined as in the other books, or perhaps just not as appealing. I thought Jennsen was quite determined to be stupid throughout her journeys, but her character was saved in the end. The scene with Oba and the Mord-sith is not one easily forgettable, it's enjoyable in the most sadistic of ways. You definitely could not read this book and get everything out of it if you hadn't read a few of the others preceeding it, so you had a feel of what was going on with the Order and Richard. I did find myself greedily awaiting appearances from Richard and Kahlan, because those two characters are the kind one can read about forever and identify with... Jennsen, I wanted to hurt; although that does say something about how brought alive the characters were. Still, definitely an evil feel to it. I love the terms "hole in the world" and "pillars of creation", such chilling thoughts. The kind that remind you of something, far off and long ago that you just can't place but it made you scared perhaps without cause. This is a book that will make you think and wonder and probably leave you more confused than you were at the beginning, and wanting to write a review about just how much you disliked it. The fact is, you will probably dislike it as you're reading it, and want to put it down but you will not be able to. You'll read it through till the end and then perhaps think it a waste of time, and you should have stopped reading when you felt like it... but of course you couldn't. This is a page-turner if I ever heard of one. Maybe you're better off not wasting hours on it but I still recommend it.
June 28, 2013
Goodkind continues his downward spiral with this disaster of a novel.
To start, this novel doesn't even focus on characters we've met. For some reason, Goodkind felt that it was necessary to introduce a completely new character: Richard's half-sister Jensen. Oh, and don't forget her pet goat that she takes literally everywhere even while she's running for her life. Jensen has nothing to do with the plot of the series up to this point, and she ends up being completely inconsequential in later novels, too. Really, Goodkind introduces a superfluous character and then writes an entire flipping book about her.
If you read this book, you'll be treated to very long and pointless journey by a completely pointless character. To make matters worse, Jensen is painfully stupid and ends up repeatedly making stupid decisions and trusting obviously suspicious and bad people over and over. The entire book is just a set-up for Richard to swoop in in the last few chapters to deliver preachy, moralizing lectures to show Jensen the error of her ways while also beating on those evil fundamentalist commies in the Imperial Order.
This book does set up the next novel, but that novel proves equally pointless in the grand scheme of the plot. Like I've said before, you can really just skip straight from Soul of the Fire to Chainfire and not miss a single thing since books 6, 7, and 8 are all just pointless authorial tracts on why Objectivism is the best philosophy ever.
To start, this novel doesn't even focus on characters we've met. For some reason, Goodkind felt that it was necessary to introduce a completely new character: Richard's half-sister Jensen. Oh, and don't forget her pet goat that she takes literally everywhere even while she's running for her life. Jensen has nothing to do with the plot of the series up to this point, and she ends up being completely inconsequential in later novels, too. Really, Goodkind introduces a superfluous character and then writes an entire flipping book about her.
If you read this book, you'll be treated to very long and pointless journey by a completely pointless character. To make matters worse, Jensen is painfully stupid and ends up repeatedly making stupid decisions and trusting obviously suspicious and bad people over and over. The entire book is just a set-up for Richard to swoop in in the last few chapters to deliver preachy, moralizing lectures to show Jensen the error of her ways while also beating on those evil fundamentalist commies in the Imperial Order.
This book does set up the next novel, but that novel proves equally pointless in the grand scheme of the plot. Like I've said before, you can really just skip straight from Soul of the Fire to Chainfire and not miss a single thing since books 6, 7, and 8 are all just pointless authorial tracts on why Objectivism is the best philosophy ever.
November 2, 2010
I have to stop with the series at this one. After reading a few chapters, it was already getting excruciatingly painful to read. The others didn't get like that until the end. The suffering makes the ending that much more exquisite, but I can't tolerate an entire book of it.
Plus--Richard and Kahlan aren't the main characters?? What's up with that. I can see wanting to get a different perspective, but not the entire book...not for me anyway.
I stopped reading after the first chapter with Oba and decided to check out what I was in for by looking it up on Wiki. That's when I decided not to read any more in the series.
He really started to lose me in Faith of the Fallen when he started to really go off on this Objectivist philosophy of reason vs faith--reason good, faith bad--and you can't have both. Up until that I loved his philosophizing and profound wisdom speeches and themes. The richness and depth is now gone. This new anemic philosophy leaves the story flat and dull.
The joy no longer outweighs the pain.
Plus--Richard and Kahlan aren't the main characters?? What's up with that. I can see wanting to get a different perspective, but not the entire book...not for me anyway.
I stopped reading after the first chapter with Oba and decided to check out what I was in for by looking it up on Wiki. That's when I decided not to read any more in the series.
He really started to lose me in Faith of the Fallen when he started to really go off on this Objectivist philosophy of reason vs faith--reason good, faith bad--and you can't have both. Up until that I loved his philosophizing and profound wisdom speeches and themes. The richness and depth is now gone. This new anemic philosophy leaves the story flat and dull.
The joy no longer outweighs the pain.
June 27, 2007
Originally this series was a complex and interesting collection of literature. I think the author needs to stop spending his newfound wealth on crack. This was one of the WORST books I have ever read. I cant help but feel like he was stealing lines from other authors such as Robert Jordan and George Martin.
July 2, 2011
Well, to say this book surprised me would be the understatement of the year. When I cracked the spine of this baby, I fully expected to pick up where the sixth book had left me. That would be with Richard and Kahlan in the Old World.
Instead I found myself with a girl named Jennsen, and later on with a brute called Oba, about whom the previous books didn't breathe a word and who, if I may be honest, didn't interest me one bit (in the beginning at least). But this doesn't mean that the book didn't provide a nice read. Goodkind somehow always manages to build such strong characters. I didn't give a damn about Jennsen and Oba at the beginning of the book, but nonetheless I was cheering and shouting for Jennsen to make the correct choice at the end of it all.
Nevertheless, I would have liked to have read more about Richard and Kahlan. And Cara too, of course. Which is a first for me. I find it quite a challenge to read book after book about the same characters. But somehow Goodkind always manages to drag me back into Richard and Kahlan's world.
Anyway, back to the missing trio... I was psyched when they finally showed up. In between the lines it was made clear that they had been on quite a moving journey themselves (there is even this sort of bantering between the 3 of them about something that didn't turn out well because Cara "touched it") but Goodkind never explains where they have been and what they have been up to. Maybe he'll include this in the next book? I do hope so. I'm curious!
In short: I liked the book, though it will probably never be my favourite book of the entire series. Goodkind managed to capture me with new characters (even though some of them were evil enough to make you want to strangle them... or at least make you recoil in disgust) but most importantly, he gave us a look at the war between Jagang and Richard from Jagang's perspective. I loved the chapter where quite a bit of Jagang's army was slaughtered by Zedd and Adie. And I loved Betty! You should definitely read the book, if only to meet the ever adorable Betty!
Instead I found myself with a girl named Jennsen, and later on with a brute called Oba, about whom the previous books didn't breathe a word and who, if I may be honest, didn't interest me one bit (in the beginning at least). But this doesn't mean that the book didn't provide a nice read. Goodkind somehow always manages to build such strong characters. I didn't give a damn about Jennsen and Oba at the beginning of the book, but nonetheless I was cheering and shouting for Jennsen to make the correct choice at the end of it all.
Nevertheless, I would have liked to have read more about Richard and Kahlan. And Cara too, of course. Which is a first for me. I find it quite a challenge to read book after book about the same characters. But somehow Goodkind always manages to drag me back into Richard and Kahlan's world.
Anyway, back to the missing trio... I was psyched when they finally showed up. In between the lines it was made clear that they had been on quite a moving journey themselves (there is even this sort of bantering between the 3 of them about something that didn't turn out well because Cara "touched it") but Goodkind never explains where they have been and what they have been up to. Maybe he'll include this in the next book? I do hope so. I'm curious!
In short: I liked the book, though it will probably never be my favourite book of the entire series. Goodkind managed to capture me with new characters (even though some of them were evil enough to make you want to strangle them... or at least make you recoil in disgust) but most importantly, he gave us a look at the war between Jagang and Richard from Jagang's perspective. I loved the chapter where quite a bit of Jagang's army was slaughtered by Zedd and Adie. And I loved Betty! You should definitely read the book, if only to meet the ever adorable Betty!
September 19, 2011
Unlike the first six books of the series, Terry Goodkind decides to drift away from the perspective of major characters to instead focus on completely new characters that he has dreamed up. Oba and Jennsen. Two young adults (no big surprise there) forging their life and being entwined into the weave of Fate which sends them on their way through the pages of Goodkind's novel. So, to make it abundantly clear, if you have your heart strings completely wrapped around Richard and Kahlan's decisions, then you are not going to like this book. It does not focus on them and for a majority of the book you have no idea what they're doing in the Old World. One has to be willing to open their eyes to a larger perspective of people while simultaneously neglecting Richard and Kahlan.
With that being said, it is a very different take on the series. Jennsen and Oba, having never dealt directly with anything that has happened in the course of the series, provide a completely naive perspective on Richard, Kahlan, and their cause against the Imperial Order. It also shows just how powerful a view coated in darkness can turn people's ideas of the world with powerful, enormous force. It is strikingly realistic to a comment on society and how lies can be fed so easily and swallowed so quickly that stopping and questioning one's own instincts becomes unimportant. Yet it is probably the most important task any individual is charged with doing.
Unfortunately, this novel in the series of The Sword of Truth is hard to follow and a bit confusing in that things don't line up at the end. I feel as if a vital bit of information was left hanging somewhere and never fully implemented so that the ending remains slapdash and peculiar. Despite this, it is still a part of the series and has to be slogged through. Thankfully, the characters of Oba and Jennsen are intriguing and interesting, making the book travel at a good pace. Just don't expect a success like Faith of the Fallen. This is a bit more akin to Soul of the Fire, though not nearly as oddly distasteful.
With that being said, it is a very different take on the series. Jennsen and Oba, having never dealt directly with anything that has happened in the course of the series, provide a completely naive perspective on Richard, Kahlan, and their cause against the Imperial Order. It also shows just how powerful a view coated in darkness can turn people's ideas of the world with powerful, enormous force. It is strikingly realistic to a comment on society and how lies can be fed so easily and swallowed so quickly that stopping and questioning one's own instincts becomes unimportant. Yet it is probably the most important task any individual is charged with doing.
Unfortunately, this novel in the series of The Sword of Truth is hard to follow and a bit confusing in that things don't line up at the end. I feel as if a vital bit of information was left hanging somewhere and never fully implemented so that the ending remains slapdash and peculiar. Despite this, it is still a part of the series and has to be slogged through. Thankfully, the characters of Oba and Jennsen are intriguing and interesting, making the book travel at a good pace. Just don't expect a success like Faith of the Fallen. This is a bit more akin to Soul of the Fire, though not nearly as oddly distasteful.
July 23, 2026
I press forward into my Sword of Truth journey with what is arguably the most infamous novel of the original eleven-book run. The reason is immediately obvious: this book barely features our beloved protagonists. Zedd, Cara, Kahlan, and even Richard make only sparse appearances, functioning more as side characters to an entirely new cast of "heroes." And yes, the quotation marks are very much intentional.
The Pillars of Creation picks up directly after Faith of the Fallen, meaning readers are already intimately familiar with the Imperial Order, the Dream Walker Jagang, and their mission to eradicate magic. So when our new protagonist, Jennsen, is quickly swayed by a high-ranking member of the Order through blatant deception, the novel immediately establishes its most divisive element.
Why is it divisive? Because if you hate the miscommunication trope, you will absolutely despise this book.
From Jennsen's perspective, nearly the entire plot is driven by misunderstanding, manipulation, and deception. Likewise, if you struggle with ignorant or foolish protagonists, this novel is going to test your patience.
We all know the classic epic fantasy setup: the humble farm boy living in isolation is secretly royalty or destined for some grand prophecy. The Pillars of Creation cleverly flips part of that trope on its head. Half of it is true, while the other half goes so completely in the opposite direction that it borders on parody.
Unfortunately, the "ignorant protagonist" portion remains fully intact.
Before the events of this novel, Jennsen has lived in such complete isolation that the only human being she has ever regularly spoken to is her mother. Her best friend? A goat. She knows absolutely nothing about her homeland, its politics, the ongoing war, or the larger world around her. I understand why Goodkind needed a character like this to tell the story he wanted to tell, but it became incredibly frustrating to read. So many of Sebastian's lies are painfully obvious to the reader that even Adie could have seen through them, yet Jennsen continues believing almost everything she's told simply because she's in love.
Maybe I'm being overly harsh, but this type of narrative device has always irritated me.
Thankfully, Goodkind's prose remains as enjoyable as ever. I genuinely had a good time reading the novel, but I attribute that almost entirely to my love for the world, the overarching story, and Goodkind's writing style—not necessarily to the characters introduced here.
Speaking of which...
Jennsen is essentially a "chosen one" and "Mary Sue" archetype that's been partially inverted. She's naïve, beautiful, and astonishingly quick to master nearly everything she attempts. While the premise behind her character is interesting, I never found her particularly compelling.
Oba is, in my opinion, the weakest villain Goodkind has introduced so far. I genuinely couldn't tell whether he was intended to be developmentally delayed or simply unbelievably stupid. Either way, it stretches credibility. Unlike previous villains whose brutality served a purpose, Oba's cruelty feels random and gratuitous. Darken Rahl committed horrific acts because they fueled his magic. The Sisters of the Dark pursued power and served their master. Oba... was biting the heads off rats before he was even relevant to the plot. It never felt meaningful—just unpleasant.
Lathea and Althea function mostly as narrative devices rather than fully realized characters. Althea at least succeeds in filling the role of the mysterious, cryptic sorceress well enough that I didn't mind her.
Sebastian is serviceable but ultimately generic. He's another manipulative antagonist exploiting an inexperienced young woman to further the goals of the Order. He's not offensively written, but there's very little depth to him either.
Then there's Tom.
Where the hell did this guy even come from?
Don't misunderstand me—I actually kind of like him. It just feels incredibly strange that several established characters know him despite him never even being mentioned before. I'm hoping future books expand on him because, as it stands, he feels like he appeared out of thin air.
Finally...
Betty the Goat is easily the best new character in the novel.
No further questions.
I know I've been extremely critical throughout this review, but that's because I genuinely love The Sword of Truth. I enjoyed reading The Pillars of Creation, not because I found its cast especially compelling, but because I love Goodkind's world, his prose, and the larger story that's unfolding around these characters.
This isn't a bad book.
It's simply the weakest mainline Sword of Truth novel I've read so far.
Rating: 3/5 stars (a very low 3).
It could have been much worse.
But it also should have been much better.
Check out my other Sword of Truth reviews below:
Debt of Bones: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Wizard's First Rule: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Stone of Tears: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Blood of the Fold: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Temple of the Winds: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Soul of the Fire: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Faith of the Fallen: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Pillars of Creation picks up directly after Faith of the Fallen, meaning readers are already intimately familiar with the Imperial Order, the Dream Walker Jagang, and their mission to eradicate magic. So when our new protagonist, Jennsen, is quickly swayed by a high-ranking member of the Order through blatant deception, the novel immediately establishes its most divisive element.
Why is it divisive? Because if you hate the miscommunication trope, you will absolutely despise this book.
From Jennsen's perspective, nearly the entire plot is driven by misunderstanding, manipulation, and deception. Likewise, if you struggle with ignorant or foolish protagonists, this novel is going to test your patience.
We all know the classic epic fantasy setup: the humble farm boy living in isolation is secretly royalty or destined for some grand prophecy. The Pillars of Creation cleverly flips part of that trope on its head. Half of it is true, while the other half goes so completely in the opposite direction that it borders on parody.
Unfortunately, the "ignorant protagonist" portion remains fully intact.
Before the events of this novel, Jennsen has lived in such complete isolation that the only human being she has ever regularly spoken to is her mother. Her best friend? A goat. She knows absolutely nothing about her homeland, its politics, the ongoing war, or the larger world around her. I understand why Goodkind needed a character like this to tell the story he wanted to tell, but it became incredibly frustrating to read. So many of Sebastian's lies are painfully obvious to the reader that even Adie could have seen through them, yet Jennsen continues believing almost everything she's told simply because she's in love.
Maybe I'm being overly harsh, but this type of narrative device has always irritated me.
Thankfully, Goodkind's prose remains as enjoyable as ever. I genuinely had a good time reading the novel, but I attribute that almost entirely to my love for the world, the overarching story, and Goodkind's writing style—not necessarily to the characters introduced here.
Speaking of which...
Jennsen is essentially a "chosen one" and "Mary Sue" archetype that's been partially inverted. She's naïve, beautiful, and astonishingly quick to master nearly everything she attempts. While the premise behind her character is interesting, I never found her particularly compelling.
Oba is, in my opinion, the weakest villain Goodkind has introduced so far. I genuinely couldn't tell whether he was intended to be developmentally delayed or simply unbelievably stupid. Either way, it stretches credibility. Unlike previous villains whose brutality served a purpose, Oba's cruelty feels random and gratuitous. Darken Rahl committed horrific acts because they fueled his magic. The Sisters of the Dark pursued power and served their master. Oba... was biting the heads off rats before he was even relevant to the plot. It never felt meaningful—just unpleasant.
Lathea and Althea function mostly as narrative devices rather than fully realized characters. Althea at least succeeds in filling the role of the mysterious, cryptic sorceress well enough that I didn't mind her.
Sebastian is serviceable but ultimately generic. He's another manipulative antagonist exploiting an inexperienced young woman to further the goals of the Order. He's not offensively written, but there's very little depth to him either.
Then there's Tom.
Where the hell did this guy even come from?
Don't misunderstand me—I actually kind of like him. It just feels incredibly strange that several established characters know him despite him never even being mentioned before. I'm hoping future books expand on him because, as it stands, he feels like he appeared out of thin air.
Finally...
Betty the Goat is easily the best new character in the novel.
No further questions.
I know I've been extremely critical throughout this review, but that's because I genuinely love The Sword of Truth. I enjoyed reading The Pillars of Creation, not because I found its cast especially compelling, but because I love Goodkind's world, his prose, and the larger story that's unfolding around these characters.
This isn't a bad book.
It's simply the weakest mainline Sword of Truth novel I've read so far.
Rating: 3/5 stars (a very low 3).
It could have been much worse.
But it also should have been much better.
Check out my other Sword of Truth reviews below:
Debt of Bones: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Wizard's First Rule: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Stone of Tears: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Blood of the Fold: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Temple of the Winds: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Soul of the Fire: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Faith of the Fallen: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
August 8, 2009
Goodkind has surprise after surprise in this one. It takes a while to figure how everything will play out, but there are plenty of action scenes and mysteries to worry about to not get too disappointed by the long wait. Though there were a few moments that I wished I could read about my all time favorite characters, these all new characters did not disappoint at all. The villain is such a fun, Koontz-like read. The plight of the main character is even better, because she is ignorant of her circumstances. Can she reconcile this with truth in the end? It was nice having the old characters make their appearances and get judged, especially if wrongly. I was hoping the ending would have just a little more explanation for the benefit of certain new characters, but it worked just fine. The concept of the title and the greatness that is sure to lie ahead really makes the ending leave you wanting some more.
April 9, 2009
So, this is like that obligatory once-a-season episode of Doctor Who, which he's only in for, like, two scenes. I won't pretend like I wasn't itching to finally reach a Kahlan/Richard/Cara scene (and hadn't flicked through the book to make sure they were in it), but this book wasn't nearly as terrible as it could've been.
Liking it really hinges on liking Jennsen. (Or, god forbid, Oba didn't make you want to smash your head in)
Pillars of Creation kind of felt like a flip of the previous book. Jennsen has reason, but she doesn't have the truth. The people of Altur'Rang had a distorted version of truth, but very few had reason.
In a way, this book was Terry Goodkind shaking the reader, going "HAVE YOU REASON?!" Everything is written subjectively, either from Jennsen's naive innocent POV or from Oba's narcissistic, psychopath POV; the reader knows the truth and TG's guiding where it gets applied.
SRSness aside, GO ZEDDD! The confrontation at Aydindril kicked so much ass! LOLOL@Cara poking Jennsen with her Agiel.
Liking it really hinges on liking Jennsen. (Or, god forbid, Oba didn't make you want to smash your head in)
Pillars of Creation kind of felt like a flip of the previous book. Jennsen has reason, but she doesn't have the truth. The people of Altur'Rang had a distorted version of truth, but very few had reason.
In a way, this book was Terry Goodkind shaking the reader, going "HAVE YOU REASON?!" Everything is written subjectively, either from Jennsen's naive innocent POV or from Oba's narcissistic, psychopath POV; the reader knows the truth and TG's guiding where it gets applied.
SRSness aside, GO ZEDDD! The confrontation at Aydindril kicked so much ass! LOLOL@Cara poking Jennsen with her Agiel.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 2, 2012
The Sword of Truth book 7 takes a departure from the other books as the main characters are a unknown step sister and step brother of Richard Rahl.
For me the most fascinating aspect of this book was that the characters were making logical decisions based on what they knew. But anyone who has read any of the other books will know just how wrong they are. Mr Goodkind weaves this story very well and leaves the reader thinking "No no no" most of the way through. It's a page turner to be sure. My only complaint was that the ending felt a bit rushed with the final climatic confrontation taking up only 40 or so pages.
If you are a Sword of Truth fan then you will probably read this book. If not, then it would not make any sense as a stand alone. Several people have expressed an opinion that this was their least favorite of the Sword of Truth series. Usually the reason given is that there was not much of the Richard and Kahlin story. Personally I did not so and it holds up well as part of the series.
For me the most fascinating aspect of this book was that the characters were making logical decisions based on what they knew. But anyone who has read any of the other books will know just how wrong they are. Mr Goodkind weaves this story very well and leaves the reader thinking "No no no" most of the way through. It's a page turner to be sure. My only complaint was that the ending felt a bit rushed with the final climatic confrontation taking up only 40 or so pages.
If you are a Sword of Truth fan then you will probably read this book. If not, then it would not make any sense as a stand alone. Several people have expressed an opinion that this was their least favorite of the Sword of Truth series. Usually the reason given is that there was not much of the Richard and Kahlin story. Personally I did not so and it holds up well as part of the series.
May 28, 2020
I've read a lot of reviews bashing this book because it doesn't focus on Richard and Kahlan. People who write those reviews are those who can't adapt to change and don't understand the complexities of writing a novel series.
Firstly, this story is so necessary to understanding what I'm sure will come next in the series. Really important concepts and discoveries are made that will affect Richard and Kahlan in the later novels. Secondly, Jennsen is a really cool character! She's brave, intelligent, caring, and misinformed on several topics; and watching her grapple with new information and how it affects her feelings and world view is fantastic. Goodkind has created a brilliant character in Jennsen. Thirdly, we are rewarded at the end of the novel by meeting up with our beloved protagonists again! All the storylines tie up, and we're left wanting to dive into the next book immediately.
So really, don't listen to those who bash this book. A long series always needs to change and grow, and Goodkind does that very well by adding diverse new characters whom we grow to love.
Firstly, this story is so necessary to understanding what I'm sure will come next in the series. Really important concepts and discoveries are made that will affect Richard and Kahlan in the later novels. Secondly, Jennsen is a really cool character! She's brave, intelligent, caring, and misinformed on several topics; and watching her grapple with new information and how it affects her feelings and world view is fantastic. Goodkind has created a brilliant character in Jennsen. Thirdly, we are rewarded at the end of the novel by meeting up with our beloved protagonists again! All the storylines tie up, and we're left wanting to dive into the next book immediately.
So really, don't listen to those who bash this book. A long series always needs to change and grow, and Goodkind does that very well by adding diverse new characters whom we grow to love.
July 5, 2010
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.
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.
December 16, 2017
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?
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?
June 20, 2017
Za malo pa cetvorka. Ovaj covek zna da pise ali u neki delovima se toliko ponavlja i razlaci da je to cudo. A najgluplja stvar u knjizi je jedna koza. Dokle bre vise sa tom kozom ajde. Inace svidja mi se ova postavka knjige koja mesa dobro i zlo da se ne zna ko je i sta je ko do kraja knjige mada se od sredine vec pomalo naslucuje ko bi tu mogao ko da bude
November 12, 2015
Jennsen was easily manipulated and Oba was just creepy. However, it introduces us to other characters that are affected by the previous ruler and this new army. It was a good thing to branch away from Kahlan and Richard.
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