Rating: 
Summary: Where are the main characters ?
Review: Goodkind is a good writer, but this series has been based on the main characters that have been developed in the first 6 books. Those main characters are absent in this book !
Richard and Kahlan were hardly in the book at all. None of the themes from the other books were carried over. In fact, there seems to be no continuity. This book is not really part of the series, it should be a standalone book that takes place in another universe.
Rating: 
Summary: Not many words to say --- was just great
Review: No matter how much I love the old characters (Kahlan and Richard), this book will surely be a good beginning for the next adventures.Fresh blood ... and what a good one.
Rating: 
Summary: Say what !!!!
Review: Surprise! I think we have just seen a case of severe writers block. 500 pages of drivel to develop new characters. This book was such a major disappointment and me thinks I will be putting this world to rest.
Rating:
Summary: Please, not another like this!! (spoilers)
Review: In the Sword of Truth series I have become accustom to the charaters being tortured both psychologically and physically. I am not accustom to being tortured myself. Reading this book was torture. (...) There were no surprises for me in this book. (...)This is not my main gripe though. This book introduces two new main characters. Both of which are truly deficient. Oba was a complete waste of time. I found mixed emotions about his death. Too many pages were wasted on this one-dimentional and boring character for him to die. But in his death I know that I will not have to read anything else about him... Hooray!!! He could have made his debut at the end of the book, and it would have relieved atleast 100 pages of fluff. Jennsen is a better character than Oba, but just barely. I would have been ok with five pages devoted to a charater of her calibre, but no... the whole flipping book is about this self-absorbed (character). I found her (...) so painful. Jennsen utterly loathes Richard and think he wants her death. (...) It would have been acceptable on some level, except there were countless places in the story where people should have made it known to Jennsen that her ideas were (...)backwards. To top it all off, her journey with Sebastian is straight up boring. This takes up the majority of the book. In comparing this book to the others in the series... I deem this work a masterpiece of shame. The book is not all bad hence the 2 star rating. Like Goodkind's other works the writing is technically proficient. I was somewhat vindicated in finishing the book because fifty of the last hundred pages are pretty cool. Some action does occur, and the reader gets a glimpse at the Orders perspective. The only explaination for this book is that Terry Goodkind has sold out. The problem for him is that he dumped such (...) on us this time, that we will be on the lookout in the future. I really enjoyed the other SoT books. I feel betrayed by one of my favorite authors. On my scale, I would not recommend a book I rate a 3 or lower. If you are interested in continuing the SoT saga I recommend that you get a friend to summerize the important points and "skip" this book. If you have to buy this book wait for the paperback. I still can't believe I blew good money on this.
Rating: 
Summary: Just as breathtaking as the other 6
Review: Phenomenal, how Terry Gookind manages to build up the suspense of a story of which you sort of expect to know what's going to happen, but need to read it anyway... and then you find yourself in a totally different branch of the adventure. The pages race away and before you know it, you just finished the 600 and some odd pages.
Rating:
Summary: A delightful diversion
Review: What an awesome book. While some people feel that the book was terrible because it really didn't talk about Richard and Kahlan, I found it to be a good break from the same story line. It always seem as though Richard or Kahlan are in trouble and expect their significant other to help them. Also, it seems as though Jennsen will be a new major character to the story. I liked the way Goodkind intrdouced her and developed her throughout the whole book. I really liked the Faith of the Fallen couldn't keep it down. It was the same with this book and I am eager to see how Richard will defeat the Emperor and what will happen to the Wizard's Keep. This book forshadows some awesome events coming up and I can't wait to see what happens in the future.
Rating:
Summary: A Bold and Daring stroke
Review: Like many others, I'm hooked on the Terry Goodkind novels. It's taken dark fantasy in a fresh direction, which is rather refreshing.
And yes, when I started reading this, I was somewhat disappointed in the fact that Richard and Kahlan weren't in the first few chapters. I kept reading, expecting them to show up. Meanwhile, I was enjoying learning about Jenn and Oba.
I felt it was rather ballsy to keep your main characters out of it for most of the book. It was nice to see how other people in this vast tapestry were working and interacting. It was great to see the D'haran people being productive and GLAD that Darken Rahl was gone. The few bits with Nathan 'Wizard' Rahl keeping an eye on things was encouraging. The battle in the Confessor's Palace (...) was priceless. The next novel will have more with Richard and Kahlan, I'm sure of it. If anybody else recalls, Steven Brust did something of the same thing with the Vlad Taltos series. I read Athyra waiting for the perspective to change to Vlad's, but it never did. I hated the book at first, but upon rereading it, it added a bunch to the series as a whole. Give Terry a break. I extend kudos towards Mr. Goodkind for doing something daring.
Rating:
Summary: Glad a friend bought it - and not me.
Review: This book was so bad, I couldn't read the whole thing. It was all I could do to skim through the last couple hundred pages - where Richard and Kahlan finally show up in a cameo. This entire book could have been condensed to no more than 120 pages and not lost anything. Cut it to 60 and it would have fit in nicely with any book in the series that used the main characters as main characters. I am just SO disappointed! I think I'll just consider the story over. Maybe I'll get the Cliff's Notes version in 20 years or so when the series has exhausted everyone else like it has me, just to make sure that Kahlan does have a baby, and it doesn't turn out like the witch thinks it will, and most everyone lives happily ever after. After previewing my review, I have to add a couple other notes: I, too, was getting tired of the old formula of Richard and Kahlan separating and getting together again, but this was worse. All the (...)children should have been taken care of at one time. The book read like an intro for hundreds of pages.
Rating:
Summary: Major disappointment
Review: After getting totally hooked on the main characters and the usual fast pace of Book 6 and most of the previous books, this book was extremely slow going and down right boring. I hated Oba from the beginning and thought his presence was a total waste of time. I did like the new character Jennsen but really wished it would have stayed with Richard and Kahlan and introduced her in some other less time consuming manner. Waiting until the last 50 pages for your favorite characters is a real drag. I should have waited for the paperback.
Rating:
Summary: T-GOODKIND IS THE MAN!
Review: I totally understand how people could be disapointed with this book. I dont want to hear about Jennson or Oba, I want some Richard and Kahlan. So instead of being disapointed about that I looked at it from a different perspective. As readers you toatally get a different perspective of Dahara and ultamatly Richard. People in Dahara actually back the dude up. You also find out that Richard has a sister, which is pretty cool(even though shes not a very spectacular character.) But I also really liked how Terry Goodkind describes the Order and we find out how Jagang is actually a big pansie. After tredging through all the garbage in the beggining the story starts to unfold and you can see an opening for a great installment to the Sword of Truth series. He had to add a few characters and stuff to make the series more solid. Yeah, and for all the punks who bag on terry goodkind, i'd like to see you right a better book. T Goodkind knows what hes doing, and hes still the best Author on earth.
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