We are now on our 5th night of our Sword of Truth 13 Night Marathon. Let us begin with the next book in the series…..Soul of the Fire.

Soul of the Fire by Terry Goodkind – a Review

I enjoyed Soul of the Fire, but in my opinion I thought that this was the worst of the first 5 books of Sword of Truth.  There were some good parts, some boring parts and some exciting parts.  The beginning and probably much of the middle was a little slow.  But the beginning was nice to see Richard & Kahlan together, seeing the mud people, Cara, Zedd, Ann, Chandelan, the Bird man.  The chicken not a chicken was a bit silly, but you got the point about the chimes being loose.  I understand why Zedd & Ann lied to them, but are we ever going to have them work together.   They constantly say Richard knows nothing, but Richard is more powerful then any of them, and he didn’t even need the Sword of Truth in the end. 

When they left the mud people, even if that was a bit slow, I thought it went more downhill after that.  Too slow for them to finally agree to go to Anderith. For whatever reason, especially in this book, Richard and Kahlan seemed to be disagreeing too much.

Goodkind is great with bringing in new characters, but in this book I thought there was too many new characters, and none of them were likeable.  At first I liked Fitch, but ended up not liking him later. The scene with Fitch getting the Sword so easily, it was dumb, and having Cara chase him all the way back to Anderith was a bit unrealistic. I was happy in a way that he was killed.  Beata was the only one I really liked throughout. In fact, would love to see her character come back again, more with Cara to learn. Du Chailen was an extra add on, to me though she was ok throughout and helped Kahlan at the end, but it served no real purpose. 

I felt too much time was spent on these secondary characters, which actually became the main story.  I know Goodkind was trying to show social backgrounds, the prejudices, as well as the evil leaders.   Cranboor (both husband and wife) were bad, Dalton turned out to be one of the most baffling characters.  At times he seemed nice, other times he showed no remorse to kill innocent people, so that he could get ahead.  He truly was shocked at Franca’s death, turned into a hero (for a moment) when he scalped & killed Stein, and gave Richard his Sword back.  But redeeming him was stupid, because he was the one who caused the deaths, helped Cranboor advance, and had them try to kill Kahlan. Another part I felt was unnecessary…Kahlan being pregnant, then losing it.  What was the point???

I thought Zedd’s part as the raven was pretty good.  He tried to get clues to Richard, and did try to help Franca. Even his horse was cute. Ann’s part with the sisters was boring to me, and also not necessary, except to show one of the sisters finally going back to the light.  I enjoyed the ending, with Richard coming through without power or his sword. Overall, though I liked many parts, I was bored in too many parts, and did not enjoy reading so much about these unlikable characters. The end with Kahlan was so depressing…a real downer.  I did like the chime theme, but thought Terry could have done more with it.

What are your thoughts? We really do want to know.

Reviewed by Barb