Confessor (Sword of Truth 11)
£40.99
Oh dear - The final book in one of the greatest epic series of all time - aye right. I read the first few and gave up when the plot was lost early on. Epic series? No, just like the Shannara books latter days, it has is going for the buck.
A huge disappointment - what happened to Terry Goodkind? - My condolences to all readers of Confessor.Firstly to those that actually finds this tripe digestible. I pity that you are able to enjoy the stale writings and musings of a totally self absorbed man. But I emphathise with your loyalties, it certainly has been a long journey to get to this finale, 12 years, 11 books and £100 s spent. But I must ridicule your critique (or lack of) for this truly awful book. How many times have we seen this in popular culture, where a legendary franchise has opted for the quick buck and mass exploitation of its fans over the protection and integrity of its art? AND STILL SOME OF YOU LAP IT UP! Perhaps, with such an insatiable public appetite for sub-mediocre fiction we should all start to release our own philosophies dressed up as unexciting, predictable stories? Secondly to the readers of this fiction, akin to me, who have patiently stuck with it, in desperation rather than hope, to see a fulfilling end to a one-time compelling saga. Alas, our instincts were correct, Goodkind was never going to achieve redemption, the crimes of the previous 6 books (with the exception of Faith Of The Fallen) were too great and our better judgment lost out to curiosity and loyalty. I sympathise with you, I emphathise with you and in especial, I question with you, How could such inventive stories and vividly realised characters finally morph into Confessor? I would say laziness, arrogance and greed.And lastly I would like to send my condolences to Voyager, the poor publishers who agreed to print these books. To those at Voyager, I pity your proof readers, the PR people, the printers and all the professionals that had to deal with Goodkind and his latter day SOT series. I would not be surprised if this effort is Goodkind s last. He now seems devoid of any invention and enthusiasm for his work and probably grew to hate the SOT over the last few years, it would certainly explain his dire performances as an author. I can now put him on the `could-have-been-great-but-sacrificed-earlier-brilliance-for-immediate-exposure pile along with the Wachowski brothers and countless others.
Ok - so it s on to the next thing then... - This is the last book of three, Chainfire, Phantom and Confessor which marks the end of an 11 book series. The trilogy tells of Richard Rahl s search for his missing wife Kahlan, the continuing war with the Imperial Order, of magic being destroyed and contaminated, and a spell that has wiped certain memories from the populace.Though I was disappointed with the preceding book Phantom I read this with the hope that the author would return to his earlier skill as a storyteller. Unfortunately it wasn t to be. Again the lectures on politics, history and magical lore were repeated too often and the descriptions of the violence and hatred seemed to become more and more elaborate and increasingly nauseating.Though the ending should have given a sense of satisfaction, by that time the characters that I had so admired at the beginning of this series I had ended up disliking, and so I really didn t care what happened to them. The philosophical monologue bored me as it was the same few phrases paraphrased and repeated, which on reflection, sums up the rest of the book.I was glad when it was finally finished and the dreariness could disperse.
Rubbish - First three books were great, all the darken rahl stuff was really entertaining. But it all went down hill from there, and ended in this pile of mush. I was highly dissapointed with the crappy ending, all that oh you re not worth it rubbish, FFS richard he wanted to ravage your woman beat the sh*t out of him!!! But no just loads of rubbish dialogue and a rubbish ending to what could have been a rival to other fantastic epics. Thank god im only 23 and i only had to wait a couple of months for this, as i only started reading the series a few years back. I think if i was older and had followed it for ten years plus like others i would be plotting assanitation right now.
And it started so well.... - This series started brilliantly and somewhere down the line began to take itself way too seriously. The amount of waffle by the characters in this book makes you think you are reading a play. The author seems to want to draw things to a close by making all of his characters give incredibly longwinded explanations to things that have happened in previous volumes. I am glad that this series has finished, the main character Richard starts off as an easy going sort of bloke trying to do the best he can and falling in love, it ends up with him preaching so long and hard about the virtues of mankind, freewill, and the tyranny of all those that oppose it that he actually becomes more annoying than the forces he opposes, who are doing the same thing from the other side!! He would have made Cromwell s staunchest Ironside seem like a card carrying member of the Stringfellows club! Give this series a miss, unless you have already begun - in which case I wish you luck seeing it through to the greatest anticlimax in fantasy writing history!