Customer Reviews

Blood of the Fold (The Sword of Truth)

5 star:		(124)
4 star:		(72)
3 star:		(39)
2 star:		(23)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

Many of these reviews have really bashed Goodkind's book, so I would like to say my piece. I have not read Robert Jordan, but I have read David Eddings and many other such fantasy quest writers. I have enjoyed them all. I would like to point out that "there is nothing new under the sun." So everyone complaining about how Goodkind borrows such and such needs to shut-up. Most of the fantasies I've read have been very similar in plot and character, but each is very good according to how the author goes about it.

I must say that I find Goodkind unique. I do feel that the story could use less violence because some of it is gratuitous. But I find his characters very real and touching. They are very easy to empathize with. I found myself actually crying with the characters.

Many fantasy authors I have read are fun to read but I have no trouble putting down most of their books (with the exception of Tolkien and Brooks) when I have to. Goodkind, on the other hand, keeps enough mystery in his series to keep you hooked. It's got lots of action and even romance, albeit a troubled one.

I see many of you complaining because the characters are flawed--some of them are really flawed.I really like this because if we're honest with ourselves, we don't always go around pure as the driven snow. Everyone has a really bad side to them even if they do have to dig deep to find it.

Goodkind has presented characters who are struggling to do what's right against powerful odds. Yes the Confessors are a strange group to belong with the good guys. But I don't think Goodkind is trying to present the 'good guys' as being perfect. He's saying, 'OK, here's somebody willing to compromise. Let's get a wedge in there and maybe we can change the whole system.' Kahlan is that wedge. Yes she is the Mother Confessor but she is very burdened by this and would like to change the way a lot of things are done. If some of you would read a litte more carefully you would realize that she doesn't like the way the Confessors have ! been operating. Another example of change is the way Richard is trying to influence those chicks with the torturing rods. He has also made quite an impact on the Sisters of Light. They are the scariest 'good guys' I've ever seen!

Goodkind's world is not always pretty. In fact, it's often downright ugly and scary. This makes it seem all the more real and fascinating. Perfection is boring.

Goodkind has created an entertaining series that is sure to win more and more fans. His characters are real and most are dynamic not static. He keeps the revelations coming on top of more mysteries. He presents a world, though superficially different than ours, that is actually quite close to home. But his protagonists are characters who can and do rise above adversity. They are not perfect and make their share of mistakes, but you love them for it. Why, because Goodkind has created characters we would like to be.

Thank you, Mr. Goodkind, for your series.

There is no question Terry Goodkind can write a spell binding fantasy adventure. Like the first two books, Goodkind combines magic, action, and good old human frailty and self doubt into a page turning story which makes the reader desperate to find out what happened to these characters after the book ends.

That said, this book was not up to the quality of the first two installments of the Sword of Truth series. First, the action sequences were too short and not well connected to the rest of the plot. But more importantly, by having his main characters spread all through his Old and New Worlds, not knowing what each of the others were doing, lead to a disconnected plot. There were simply too many unknowns, which despite the 600+ page length, were never meshed into a coherent story.

Finally, Goodkind spent far to much of the book first setting up the penultimate battle between good and evil--actually two battles--and then spent too much time setting up what were obvious tantalizers to the next installment in the series.

On the positive side, we did learn all about Gars and Mirswiths--making them seem like thinking, sentient beings rather than just creatures of magic programmed to be good or evil.

All in all, a good read--but definitely don't start the series here. Must read one and two first, or this book will be a waste.

Although overall I love this series, I have some misgivings. My score reflects my distress with the sexual themes in the book. I don't care for the description or innuendo. That part of the books appears to be a titilation device to net more teenage readers. I could not recommend these books to my 10 year old son (as I could Tolkien) and that's the real tragedy here. I've not been so enthused in epic fantasy since I first read Tolkein or Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series. Even though I do not care for all the sexual themes in the book, it is interesting how the author uses sex to define the good and evil. Thus Richard blushes at the view of a woman's bare chest while Darken Rahl and the rest of the bad guys are sexual psycopaths. Now for the positive. I discovered this series about two weeks ago and have read all three in paperback already. One night I was up until 3:30 AM reading "Stone of Tears." I've read a lot about Goodkind "borrowing" from others. He is in good company. Many of Shakespeare's writings are reworks of earlier material. Tolkien's middle earth is so captivating because it uses our already existing vague fears of goblins and dragons and our love of heros and wizards and magic and ordinary people making a differance. In a Sword of Truth world of blatant sexuality, it is refreshing to see a hero who blushes at too much bosom showing and a heroine who is still a virgin. I like Goodkind's use of near miss meetings (ala Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors). I don't know how many times I have mumbled under my breath, "Go that way, dummy," when help was just over the next hill or disguised in a coach on the road. Because the meeting is missed, the task at hand becomes far more difficult and yet the characters find the strength within themselves to accomplish the task. That's a neat message in a real world that is always blaming someone else for its problems. Although the plot drags a bit from time to time, I have overall rate these book as some of the bast epic fantasy I have read. They will go on my bookshelf next to "Thomas Covenant" and "Lord of the Rings" but with a PG-15 sticker.

After reading Wizards First Rule, and Stone of Tears I was, to put it lighty, intrigued by the Sword of Truth series. Yes, I realized it's obvious faults and blantant silliness, but I turned to reading Goodkind after having my mind weighed down by to much philosophy and heavy reading; I needed to think less and observe more. In the first two books, my expectations were met. I was captivated by the story, but to be honest his writing ability does not seem to excede that of a middle school level. Imaginative though. Let's face it, if I had a problem with reading childish gobbledy gook, I wouldn't be be attempting to read fantasy novels, so I continued to "Blood of the Fold" out of a sense of duty as well as an interest. Though about 400 pages shorter than its predecessors, "Blood of the Fold" took me at least twice as long to read. The themes reaked of redundancy, as well as the plot line. I suspect that perhaps Goodkind wanted to save new-comers to the series the trouble of reading the first two novels. This is the only hypothesis that I can form as to why he would write numerous sixth-gradish paragraphs quickly recapping on past novels.

I was, to say the least, disapointed with "Blood of the Fold". The Sword of Truth series takes a plunge for the worst here, and in my opinion, never resurfaces.

...Sad, but true. The series seems to be spiraling in a direction I don't like. I long for the days that Kahlan and Richard hiked the woods together on their hapless way to fight evil. It hasn't happened for two books since Wizard's First Rule and I don't think it going to happen anytime soon.

This book, the third of the series, is the worst so far. Easily.

Without spoiling too much, the story has all the heroes separated, once again, for the entire book. Kahlan and Richard are apart.. again. [Sigh] Part of what made the Wizard's First Rule so good was the interactions of Kahlan, Richard and Zedd. Reading them all on their own is really lacking. It wouldn't be as bad if there was more of a grand reunion. But this book, like Stone of Tears, fails at that miserably. The main characters are, for a second time, rushed back together at the end to do a hurry wrap up and they seemingly act as if they were across the street from one another. I really think Goodkind has trouble painting a picture of the big crescendo moments. Richard, Kahlan and Zedd are fighting this whole book to get back together... When they finally do, it comes off as ho-hum. It shouldn't be like that.

Antagonist time. So it was Darken Rahl in book one, the Keeper in book two ...and now a guy name Jagang trying to take over the world in book three. This guy gets NO introduction except how he cows down the six Sisters of the Dark that fled in book two. Of course he has them naked and being raped in no time. Goodkind sure does love his gratuitous molestation and rape as this continues his overly descriptive ways from the second book. One thing I find myself thinking now in having read these books is that when strife rears up and a female character gets captured or even is in danger of getting captured, I wonder how they are going to get molested this go around. Seriously. Poor Kahlan. Everytime that girl gets in trouble, someone is trying to rape her. It's something that has become very predictable since book one. Girl + trouble = guy (or guys) try to rape them. Its moving from uncomfortable reading to a tad ridiculous and gratuitous.

So thats all you get on Jagang. He's a "Dream Walker" that is wicked powerful if he breaks into your mind. And he ain't too kind to females. Then he disappears for the rest of the book. The other two predominant baddies are heading up the Blood of the Fold. Tobias and Luneta. Incestuous brother and sister that are all sorts of crazy. Tobias is.. well, flat out insane and Luneta is addled in a sad, childlike way. The kind in which she really didn't know any better. So you get the honor of reading two perspectives of crazy people. Honestly, I didn't find them interesting at all and in the end they didn't serve much of a point. But you can't talk about Tobias and Luneta without the highlight of their existence in this book. As you likely have read in a review or two, Tobias gets control of his enemies by.. wait for it... cutting off their left nipple and carrying it around in a box with him. Yeah.. Thats really all I have to say about that.

There is the potential of a huge war in this book which doesn't really come to as grand a head as you would think. Tobias and Luneta have the Blood of the Fold army, Jagang has the Imperial Order and Richard has D'Hara. At their disposal seems to be millions of soldiers. Yet another thing I have issue with here. Goodkind loves making his armies INSANELY huge. Every time he mentions armies here or there, its always in the area of 200,000 troops. In one part of the book Richard informs one of his generals to take 100,000 troops and go look for Kahlan. WHAT!? Does Goodkind understand how many freaking people that is or what it would take to maintain a mass of soldiers that big? He treats 100,000 as if its 50 guys traipsing through the woods. The Midlands, Westland and D'Hara are, in my estimation, smaller than Middle Earth in Tolkien's novels. Seeing what it took to move armies around in that world that were a tenth the size of Goodkind's makes the army talk in this book all the more silly. It kills immersion when he throws out unrealistic numbers like he does and the words lack weight when its made to sound so trivial. "Move 100,000 men over there and take 250,000 men to my house while the remaing 75,000 will go to the store and get some milk". Ugh.

This is really turning into a rant-fest so I'll wrap up saying that this book wasn't bad. It added to the depth of the series introducing the Blood of the Fold and hearing more about the Sisters of the Light ..but it just wasn't very exciting. It took weird turns in places like, for instance, introducing Lesbianism into the medieval setting. Richard and one of his Mord Sith have a long heart-to-heart on being a lesbian. Talk about weird and out of place. Its things like that, that kept this book from being as immersive as the other two.

If you are this deep in the series you most likely will go on (like I will). But you have to be getting scared since the books really are going downhill fast. And if you're like me and have read some reviews on the last book in the series, seeing things like 'the first four books are the only ones worth reading', etc... you have to be real scared. Oh well.. onto Temple of the Winds. Can you feel my excitement? Wonder who's going to try and take over the world in that one?

I'm new to the fantasy genre and just recently stumbled upon the SOT series -- and I'm hooked. I'm finding that I'm staying up all night more and more because I can't wait to find out what happens next. I'm currently on the Temple of the Winds, and Blood of the Fold seems a distant memory -- even though I only finished it last week. While Blood of the Fold has not been my favorite, it was great nonetheless.

One of the things I love about this series is that Goodkind manages to constantly introduce new characters -- I thought I only cared to read about Richard and Kaylan -- but now I'm also excited about Verna, Warren, etc. and look forward to Goodkind developing those characters. (I probably have the spelling wrong because I'm only listening to the audio tapes). I also love the humor via the Mord Siths. And I don't want to give too much away, but the way Richard takes control of things is very satisfying.

There are, unfortunately, subplots which I did not take to. I thought too much time was wasted on the blood of the fold -- it didn't really lead anywhere. The storyline about the Mriswith was also not very well developed -- it was tossed into the mix with little explanation.

Oh well, I better stop before I give too much away.

I can't say which of this set I think is the best... they are all great books. This one I would like to say is the best, but then again they are all great. I have read through most of the others reviews and I am learning very quick not to believe everything I read. I have enjoyed reading the first three books in the series and fully intend on reading every single one until the end of the series. As for Terry Goodkind coping others story lines and ruining it for us well take it as you will but he has great twists and if you ask me a apple is a apple but each has a different taste, so don't judge so harshly!

Once again Richard, Kahlan, Zedd and the rest of the gang are back tring to save the world from evil. This time the threat isn't the keeper or the evil wizard Darken Rahl, but Emperor Jagang and clan of mriswith. While Kahlan is hiding with the death spell on her ( the death spell was put there by Zedd) waiting for Richard to meet up with her, Richard is once again distracted with his instinct and draws the midlands together to fight against the new evil team the "Imperial order". The blood of the fold, believing anthing with magic is evil is after the mother confessor, and abducts her and takes her to the sisters of the dark.

Once again I will say it as I have in my past reviews, if you liked the first two books you will like this one just as much if not more!

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.

He's got the one dimensional character thing down pat. Goofy, but extremely powerful wizard who does nothing. Big, handsome doofus. Guy with lots of weapons. Lesbian sado-masochists... Is this supposed to be interesting? Or did Terry have a D&D campaign that got really weird? Why does everyone get more or less powerful depending upon what moves the plot? Adie kicked the asses of numerous undead creatures on her own, yet her and Zedd couldn't take down the reanimated remains of something that Adie had already slain herself! Why is it that Gars can't see an elephant unless its running at top speed, yet they can see a mriswith 500 miles away? Stop the Contradictions!

I really liked it a lot. I loved the portrayal of Nathan, Ann and Zedd. I really liked the battle at the end with Richard fighting the mirswith. The only thing was Terry got rid of a interesting feature he had going for him The Palace of the Prophets. Also in my opinion he hurt the book by adding certain points about the mord-sith and their particullar sex preferences. Also I felt that Goodkind centers just a little too much on sexual themes. Other than that it was a great Gooooodkind book.