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Blood of the Fold (Sword of Truth, Book 3)

Blood of the Fold (Sword of Truth, Book 3)

List Price: $7.99
Your Price: $7.19
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not the best in the series so far, but pretty good despite
Review: Terry goodkind continues to write the way we come to expect. memorable characters and despicable bad guys. However, he seemed to come up a bit short in this book.

He still retains his love for Deus ex Machina, seemingly pulling a heroic and positive ending out of nowhere and having a sudden explanation for things. What? Gars were created to battle mriswith? How convenient.

Despite that it was an entertaining read as always. Richard continues in his heavy-handed, whiny manner that we have all come to love. Kahlan doesn't show until near the end and she is as stalwart as ever.

In this book, the main plot arc is the eventual arrival of the Emporor of the Old World, Jagang. He is a Dream Walker. Dream Walkers were weapons created back during the great war, the one that caused the creation of the Towers of Perdition we saw in the last novel.

Two things really stood out in my reading though. Number one, the title of the book is of the group that hails from Adie's home country that we learned of last book. They played a decidedly small part in the book. For carrying the title of the book, they weren't even the main plot line or a major antagonist in the book. they simply supplied the glue to keep some of the plot movements together.

Secondly was the whole strange sequence of events with the Mriswith. Huh? The whole thing seemed entirely pointless. You'll see it when you read it. That whole part could have been left out of the book and it would have still made sense with some minor changes. It only seemd a device to take Richard from one place to another and back.

Other than the obvious shortcomings, is was an entertaining read and I look forward to reading the next book.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Entertaining
Review: The one problem i have with Goodkind is he is a terrible PLANNER of his books. He seems to write them book by book, having no overall plan as to where they are going. An example of this would be the main bad guys in each book. The first one has the standard evil guy. So Goodkind needs to one-up himeslf and make the next bad guy even badder. The second book (Stone of Tears) has the Keeper as the bad guy - a fearsome foe (seemed to me to be like a "devil" of the world, to those who have not read it). So in the third book he tries to make a guy more evil/powerful than the Devil himself, and comes up with... a "Dreamwalker"??!!
Though the planning and structure of these books is nowhere near perfect (see Dennis L. McKiernan's series for an example of the most well thought out series ever in my opinion)... nonetheless I do love the series. Goodkind is incredibly addictive, the story is good and I personally cannot wait until the next one comes out.
SUMMARY: read it and you'll like it. It is entertaining: treat it like a summer blockbuster movie. There's a lot of entertaining action but don't expect too much substance and don't expect a new way of looking at things.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good..not his best...bit of formula
Review: I have been fighting the critics that say Goodkind's work is simply a plagurisim of Jordan's WOT, but he came very close to losing my supprot in this text. I'm not going to go making the connections here, but there is definitely a close comparison.

He also has begun to show some of Tolkien in his work, especially at the end of the book when the Gars attack the Mriswith and save the day (sound familiar). I like his description of why the Gars came about and why they have the green eyes, but the connection to Tolkien and Jordan leaves me feeling a bit flat.

I am also becoming a bit tired of the relationship between Richard and Kahlan being so prominent throughout the text. It seems as though he is trying to convince us of their love be being repetitive and it doesn't need to be done in my opinion.

Things about this book that I enjoy are the mriswith as I think they are a very unique character. His character development has always been very good and he has been good at creating scenes and excitemnet in his previous two books but he falls a bit short in this book. I think the strength of this book and the previous has been the Mord-Sith; I think the characters are wonderful but the name and the concept seem to be a repetition of other authors.

I have laready started Temple of the Winds because I am dedicated to finishing the series. I would recommend this book if you are in my shoes and in hopes that it pick up in Temple of the Winds.

IMPRESSION: GOOD - RECOMMENDED

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Getting better
Review: It seems as if the Sword of Truth-series is growing up.

Wizard's First Rule was a bit childish, mr. Goodkind explained everything lie he would to a five year-old. Stone of Tears was a bit more adolescent, it was too long, tedious, and had a plot that was far too ambitious to be interesting.

In Blood of the Fold the series seems to find a story, finally. Emperor Jagang is an excellent villain, and the feelings between him and Richard Rahl is understandable. Whereas Richard's hate towards Darken Rahl in Wizard's First Rule was only confusing, and the villain in Stone of Tears was the Keeper of the Underground, and that's hardly the kind of charachter you can feel any connection to.

And Terry Goodkind's use of sexuality is quite intresting, and I think that's what I'll remember this series for, that he's the first best-selling author of fantasy who takes sex seriously.

Some of the problems from the previous novels still exists here. The moral lessons mr. Goodkind gives us still feels very adolescent, and his dialogues are over-explanationary. But the problems are getting less noticable. On the other hand, the good things keep getting better, especially the endings. There's no part as excellent as the Denna-part in WFR, but the ending is very entertaining. When you reach page 400 or so you have to keep reading.

I'm looking forward to part four, Temple of Winds.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Blood of the Fold
Review: Personally my favorite book in the sword of truth saga. All my friends and I have a few things in common. This is one of them. We all relate to the characters and sistuations within the covers of this book. Thank you Goodkind!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I'll be the mediator.
Review: I will try to be the mediator here. Please, those of who who say these books are for mindless adolescents, could you try to refrain from insulting people who buy this book, and start insulting the book? That is what a review is; you are not supposed to review the people who buy it. If you can't think of anything to say about the book, you should not be writing a review. And those of who who rate the book excellent, don't demean others for their opinions. I enjoyed the series. I must say, however, that there are only so many things a fantasy novel can contain. One of these things is impossible odds. The army of 5000 defeated the army of 50000 because it is a FANTASY NOVEL. FANTASY. Also, did you ever think that maybe what Goodkind is getting at is that it isn't numbers that always counts. It is strength of character and the brain power to come up with something you don't even know will work. They didn't know, but to protect the people, they were willing to try. They won for their good intentions. And yes, this might not be possible, but that is why the book is a FANTASY NOVEL. Okay, maybe the 'eating genitalia' part could have been edited out, but that is one of only a few things that doesn't need to be there. Once you get past the veneer, you begin to find deeper meanings than the words on the page. I have read all the Robert Jordan books up to this point, and like them very much, but why does the Dark One do what he does. We see him precious little, he doesn't have a personality, you can't relate to him, yet he is the main antagonist. He fights against 'the Creator' if you will, for balance. The same as the Keeper. There must be a balance in all things. Without life, there is no death, and without death, there can be no life. Quite simple. Some of you look too deeply into things, others of you not deep enough. All I ask is that, if you didn't like the book, criticize the book, not the people who buy it. That's a cheapshot.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What the hell?
Review: Originally i came on this sight to refresh my memory of the other books in the series but instead i had to stop and comment on some of these reviews. These are some of the harshest reviews I have ever read. All the books in this series were remarkably good and I thought, much better than Robert Jordan. Terry Goodkind manages to add whole new concepts and ideas that add little twists to the plot. And the action makes it more exciting then most Robert Jordan novels which tend to take forever to get one thing done.I have a collection of over 200 fantasy novels and i thought this was one of the best series. Please ignore any errors it was one in the morning when i wrote this review.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Quite a bit better than the first 2
Review: After reading and not really enjoying 'Stone of Tears', I had large doubts about Mr Goodkinds ability to write quality fiction. 'Blood of the Fold' however made me reconsider my harsh verdict on him as an author, with the book turning out to quite an improvement on the 1st and especially the 2nd novels he has written.

'Blood of the Fold' is barely half the length of 'Stone of Tears' yet advances and explains the story of Richard and Kahlan much clearer and better, with the storyline building on those of the two previous books to begin to create an epic fantasy scenario in the traditions of Robert Jordan and David Eddings. The story is pretty much a direct continuation of the last book with most of the characters and plotlines introduced in 'Stone of Tears' continued and developed. In particular 'Blood of the Fold' sees the characteristics and nature of the Imperial order, The Blood of the Fold and the Mrswith explained and developed a lot more, with Mr Goodkind taking the time to give us a bit more of an description of where these enemies come from and their place in the grand scheme of his world (something he neglected and was very fuzzy about in his previous books).

Indeed in general 'Blood of the Fold' is a much better book than the previous two with a better quality of writing and narrative, a faster pace and more meaningful action, better development of the background of his world and a more comphrehensible plot. In particular 'Blood of the Fold' has less of the meaningless fat and waffle that was in 'Stone of Tears', with Goodkind (or his editors) showing much better planning in the writing of this book, with the consequence that the pace and purpose of this book is a lot quicker and more meaningful.

This all serves to make 'Blood of the Fold' a much better book than the previous ones and shows that Mr Goodkind is improving significantly as an author as he gains more experience, thus I would recomend it too anyone who is not really sure whether to keep reading his books after the 1st two novels. However I still feel that Mr Goodkind still puts in too much explicity sadistic violence (though significantly less than S of T), and too lttle work into developing the texture and background of his fantasy world. This combined with the relative unoriginality of some of his ideas and story elements makes me feel that his books do not really compare favorably to those of other big series fantasy authors such as Robert Jordan, George R.R Martin, David Eddings or even Raymond E. Feist. Still a good book and a series worth reading.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: That's Not A Dragon Its A Mrwisth
Review: Okay, Okay, I don't know how to spell that monster. But, on the cover of this book there is a red creature which, I hoped, was Scarlet. Scarlet, you may recall, was the Dragon in the first book. What happened to her anyway? In fact, the way Richard Rahl befriends animals, and the fact that he was a ranger, I thought he was going to be an "animal wizard."

Nope, he is still a war wizard, and it shows in this book. There is more fighting and magic in this book then the first two. We have new creatures and some old friends including Nathan, Zedd, Gaaarcth and Ann. The writer has really reached his stride. This book is better then the first two, and they were great.

There really is everything here. Richard's romance with Kahlan continues and, perhaps, he has a new love. We are introduced to a new villian who hunts down and kills people with magic. There are some horrible, but great, battle scenes as some cites are sacked and the residents pay the price. And, at the end of the book, there are two great epic battles - with Monsters. If you don't like this book, you just don't like fantasy. I like fantasy and, as I said I loved this book, it was simply great.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Repetitive, Repetitive, Repetitive,.......
Review: I thought the first two books were excellent...and as a frequent reader of series books, I could not WAIT to move on to Book 3. HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT. All T.G. does in this book is recap the first two books and the entire history of each person, object, place, etc. EVERY TIME it is mentioned. It was so annoying that I couldn't wait to get through it. I will tell you that I only got into Book 4 about one chapter before I returned it. T.G. started the same stuff as he did in Book 3 with repeting and explaining everything. In addition, the characters in the first two books were detailed as far as we knew them intimately. The third book just showed us glimpses of each character. It was difficult to relate to any of them. Overall, I was very disappointed.


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