Rating: 
Summary: Another swerve by Mr. Goodkind
Review: Just when you think you've got this series down, and think you can get ahead of the game. Mr. Goodkind changes tactics in his writing, and storytelling....I loved Soul of Fire from the first page through the final page. From the changing face of the New World, to the growing threat from the Old World in the form of the Imperial Order. This book is about more than only that, we watch as Richard further comes to learn and understand about his magic that he cannot control, all while attempting to stop probably the deadliest plague visited on the lands by the chimes. This book picked up where Temple of the Winds left off, and left you ready for it's follow up Faith of the Fallen.
Rating: 
Summary: All I can say is, "How Unfortunate..."
Review: I was first given Wizard's First Rule quite some time ago, and while it wasn't exactly the highest quality fantasy, it was slightly different from most things in the genre, and I enjoyed the story immensely. Unfortunately, it seems like this series is simply the rehashing of the same plot line over, and over and over... ad naseum. With this installment of the series, I finally threw in the towel. Goodkind took what could have been a fresh, original and interesting series, and, to be brutally honest, utterly destroyed it. The main characters are no longer interesting at all, and the relationships are like something out of a supermarket romance paperback. If only Goodkind had developed some of his more interesting ideas instead of giving us hundreds of pages of poorly-disguised political diatribe, this might have been at least on par with the other Sword of Truth novels. As it is, this is by far the worst out of all of them (With WFR being the best, and the quality steadily declining since...). This is one of the only fantasy series that I have been able to just drop partway through without having any interest at all in the outcome. Hundreds of pages of political thought that have already been expressed better elsewhere, followed by a huge deus ex machina for the conclusion just doesn't cut it...
Rating:
Summary: The magic is fading
Review: While Richard battles to restore magic to the world of life, Goodkind battles to restore magic to his writing. I am not entirely sorry I started the series -- yet.
Rating:
Summary: A good story, drowning in too many words
Review: ** Note to self: be wary of any series that starts with a foreword by the author telling how his characters woke him up at night with more stories to tell. **This book is a love story, but not necessarily between the characters. Instead, it is a story of an author in love with his characters -- so much so that he can't bring himself to shut them up -- and an editor too intimidated by his successful author to actually edit his work. It's a shame, because there's a good story buried inside this book. The plot, when I could find it, was the only reason I forced myself to wade through the agonizing pages of vacillating self-doubt, self-made ethical dilemmas, and the blinding stupidity of some of the characters. The author apparently does not trust his readers to come to a conclusion on their own, so he does it for them. He finds a point he likes, drives it home once, twice, three times, then makes it again twenty pages later for good measure. ** Wizard's Second Rule: No pithy observation about humanity is so clear it doesn't bear repeating. ** One other issue that I have with this book: the main characters never learn from their experiences. Just once, I would have like to have seen Kahlan think, "Hmm, Richard always turns out to be right in the end. Maybe I should trust him instead of insisting that he doesn't know what he's talking about." ** Wizard's Third Rule: Past performance is no indicator of future ability. ** This book would have been really enjoyable if it had been half as long. To paraphrase one of my favorite lines from Amadeus: "Too many words. Get rid of a few, and it will be perfect." ** Reader's First Rule: Just tell the story and leave the emotional anguish and thoughtful conclusions to us. **
Rating: 
Summary: GOODKIND IS STILL A MASTER STORYTELLER!
Review: This 5th installment may not be the best of the series, but all of Terry Goodkind's novels are still well written with very well written and fleshed out characters of all kinds. Now, to me personally, this is the least of my favorite in the series, but it is by no means a bad read - OH NO! The pace sometimes is so fast and exciting, it more than makes up for the pages that have no action, adventure, and tons of magic that is usually associated with this series. Also, Gratch and the dragon are sorely missed, but Richard, Kahlan, and Cara are such colorful and always interesting characters that I literally flipped thru pages that seemed endless without them, just to see how much further I had to read to get back to them!! But overall, it was still a good story and I would recommend it, even though its not THE BEST, it is still a chapter in a big series and must be read.
Rating:
Summary: Too many new characters, same old theme.
Review: I have to disagree with the majority of reviews that I've read on this book who enjoyed the new character developement in this installment. My main complaint is that this book was almost a story unto itself instead of a continuation of what started out as the most satisfying series I've read in years. Several new characters are developed in this story, while several old ones are relegated to nominal mention. The worst part is that 99% of the new characters, won't be seen again. Easily 70% of this book is new character development. There is another problem I have with this book that I was hoping wouldn't happen. I am a big fantasy fan. I like lots of magic in my reading. This series started out with lots of magic, talking about magic, theory, etc... but as it's progressed, magic has been pushed down to little more than a few pages. Why do most fantasy writers think that people want to read about war and battle all the time? I realize it is prevelant in our history, but I read fantasy because it's different; or at least it should be. Richard Rahl is a war wizard; Jedd is a wizard; Kahlan is a sorceress; yet each of them use their magic maybe once each. This book is about the loss of magic so it's no big surprise that this story contains less magic usage than it's predecessors, but only Addictive magic is gone. Richard could have/should have used his Subtractive Magic more in this issue. It would have been a more enjoyable read. Do us a favor Terry G., get back to what made the series great. Give the characters a chance to excite us again. Bring back the magic.
Rating:
Summary: Political statement masquerading as a fantasy novel
Review: 'Soul of the Fire', the 5th book in Goodkind's 'Sword of truth', continues on directly from the end of 'Temple of the winds', with the story starting the day after Richard and Kahlan's marriage in the Mud people village. From there Richard, Kahlan and company then proceed on a journey to try and find a way to banish the magic destroying Chimes (released late last book) from the world. Intertwined with this are several minor characters and subplots, set in a southern Midlands country. Personally, I found 'Soul of the Fire' to be a significantly better written book than Goodkinds previous 4, with Mr Goodkinds writing style and technique improving to a much better average. The book's action also wasn't that badly written with the story telling and character representations a bit more sophisticated and skillful than Mr Goodkinds previous, sometimes shoddy and 2 dimensional efforts. This serves to make 'Soul of the Fire' a bit more of a enthralling (though still not quite intellectually stimulating) read. However the book still experiences some major problems in the overall plot area, with Mr Goodkind devoting some 1/2 of the book to what is largely a non-plot advancing, political statement by the author (though I still found these bits pretty entertaining). Indeed in this book, one sometimes gets the feel that the main series characters Richard and Kahlan are only mentioned at all because of the fact that Mr Goodkind feels obliged to put them in. The effect of this is that 'Soul of the Fire' much more closely resembles a Robert Jordan or George R.R Martin book (though not as well written), with the book continually switching to and from minor characters and subplots, rather than the predominantly Richard/ Kahlan centred previous books in the series. To make matters worse these minor characters and subplots predominantly serve to weave together a somewhat harsh right-wing political statement by Mr Goodkind about what is wrong with American society and democracy in general. Indeed it is pretty flaming obvious that this book was written during the 'Lewinsky scandal', with many poorly covered allusions to Bill, Hillary and Monica in the book. While this is all good and nice, it does give the plot a disjointed feel with the overall result being that the series central plot (Richard vs Imperial Order) seems to be neglected and does not develop much. This problem is compounded by the fact that the conclusion *again* seems rather overhasty and slap-dash making it rather unsatisfying after reading 500 odd pages. Despite this however, I found 'Soul of the Fire' to be quite entertaining (best Goodkind book i read yet) and much better written than the last 4 books. The comparative lack of sadism was also a plus, as was the increased character development, though Mr Goodkinds penchant for spending much of the book introducing and building up minor characters, only to kill them off or discard them at the end, was again highly annoying. However despite all this, I think core Goodkind fans will probably find this book a bit disappointing as it lacks much of the fantasy action and Sado-erotiscm that they may have enjoyed in the previous books.
Rating: 
Summary: A drastic change from the previous books
Review: While I have enjoyed the series to this point, I have found that my enthusiasm has been waning as the series progresses. With Soul Of Fire, it came to a crashing stop. I actually stopped reading the book and didn't pick it up again fro a year. I guess by that time I had forgotten why I had stopped in the first place. Could it have been the plodding pacing amongst the Mud People? The main characters themselves were thrown into ludicrous situations, everyone in turn beginning with Zed and the cave, Kahlan and the field, Richard and the months he spent in Anderith, Ann with Jajang's camp, and Cara with the Sword. All for what? When Richard pulls off the deus ex machina at the end we can all marvel at how the pieces come together? Well maybe if they had been more carefully plotted and woven together in the first place, but they weren't. Another sore point is that the last 50 pages seemed rushed and jumbled together leave us wondering if deadlines needed to be met. Finally this book did not have a positive or upbeat ending for me. None of the Major characters were better off at the end, and some were in significantly worse shape. Now I love a tragedy like the next person, but I did not feel a tragic sense of loss here. Why? Because I did not sympathize with the the main characters since they seemed so out-of-character to me. Hopefully this is just a aberration.
Rating:
Summary: Still A Good Series but....
Review: Soul of Fire starts where the last book ended. The Empeor Jajang is still invading from the south and Richard and Kahl need to stop him. Added to this mix is something called "the Three Chimes." If allowed to be free, they will destroy magic completely, leaving most of Jajang work completed. (His goals have been world conquest and a destruction of magic.) Like most of the books in this series, Soul of Fire is a good read, much better then most of the other books currently out and available. However, the story is getting a little weaker. I missed Nathan, one of my favorite charactors, from earlier books. Zed is almost missing from this book as well. Worse, the author is definitely getting a little preachy. About 1/3 of this book is dedicated to some new charactors who live in a southern Kingdom. The book goes over and over about the split between the two people found there. I didn't care. I don't believe this part of the story added to it much, if at all. I hope that the author doesn't go down this path more. His books have been great so far, because of the magic and people. I don't want a ethics or moral lession everytime I read. If he has to do that with this series, maybe he should start writing about something else. Still, the overall book is good. I think most people who enjoyed the others books in this series will like this one too. I doubt, however, that people will enjoy it as much.
Rating:
Summary: Frustrating and Annoying Beyond Belief
Review: I couldn't believe how annoying and frustrating this book became. I remember enjoying the first 4 books, so about 100 pages into this one I questioned whether or not I had simply grown out of the series. It became a chore to read. I typically spend a couple hours reading every night, but I could only stand about fifteen minutes to half an hour with this story. Maybe it's just me, but I've given up on this series (and the original version by Jordan as well).
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