Soul of the Fire (Sword of Truth, Book 5)

by Terry Goodkind

Hardcover, 1999

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Publication

Tor Books (1999), Edition: 1st, 512 pages

Description

Terry Goodkind returns to the epic Sword of Truth saga in a tale of sweeping fantasy adventure bound to enthrall his growing legion of fans. In Temple of the Winds, the New York Times bestselling fourth novel in the series, the Seeker of Truth Richard Rahl and Mother Confessor Kahlan Amnell risked their lives and souls to free the land of D'Hara from the scourge of a magical plague. But in doing so they accidentally unleashed the Chimes, a magic whose threat will reach far beyond D'Hara. Now it has become terrifyingly clear that the Chimes have the potential to bring down all that Richard and Kahlan have worked to protect, and even the power of the Sword of Truth may not be enough to stem the tide of their unleashed magical force. But if the Chimes cannot be stopped, first they will ravage Richard and Kahlan, then all of D'Hara, and then the entire world....… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Caillech

This book disappoints. While the general plot was worthy of a Sword of Truth novel, the execution fell several long leaps short of my expectations. Too much of the book revolved around the dramas, both small and large, of the Ander elite. Yes, I see what the telling accomplished. The same end could

have been achieved in a manner which didn't encourage me to yawn every few paragraphs. Nor does the ending of this book excite me to read the next, Richard's attitude being so far from what has previously been seen. I will read the next book in the hopes of improvement - and yet, I'm not looking forward to continuing the series anymore.

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LibraryThing member silva_44

This particular installment of the Sword of Truth series was a bit of a downer. Albeit the best possible downer. Goodkind takes a major pause from the main storyline in order to develop a secondary storyline which has a huge impact on Richard and Kahlan toward the end of the book. I absolutely love

the way in which Goodkind presents political agendas. My favorite quote in the book is from an up and coming social climber, Dalton Campbell, who recognizes the folly of his ambition a bit too late. "Following the lead of noted people such as the Directors, ordinary people had not taken to loudly voicing the tailored notions they had been fed. Even though Dalton had expected it, he never failed to find it remarkable the way he had but to say a thing enough times, through enough people, and it became the popular truth, its provenance lost as it was mimicked by ordinary people who came to believe that it was their own idea." The book ends on a massive cliffhanger, so make sure to have Faith of the Fallen in hand well before you conclude this one.

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LibraryThing member Karlstar

In this book, Goodkind takes a bit of a different approach, and spends a lot of time creating a new country and new characters, all of who are destined to be bit players. However, the point here is to now build up to a theme that Richard is the champion of in the future books - you are responsible

for your own actions, and willingly (or stupidly) cooperating with tyranny is evil. Even if you don't participate and just go along. To some extent, Goodkind spends too much time in this book creating the background of Anderith, and not enough time advancing the story, but for once we get to see Richard and Kahlan acting as leaders, instead of just death machines.

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LibraryThing member andrewt93

The chimes have been sent from the underworld to the world of life, and they are killing thousands of people, at the same time they are destroying magic. A lot of people of the New World lose faith in Richard, and Kahlan was almost murdered. Even though it seems that everything that could go wrong

goes wrong for Richard, but Goodkind has a way to keep fantasy lovers enthralled with his books.

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LibraryThing member dbhutch

Prrof that politics is a corrupt theory. Soul of the Fire has Richard and Kahlan searching for a way to stop the chimes that were released - and pledged to Richard's soul inadvertently when Kahlan saved his life. Travelling to a land where a famous wizard once resided, where corrupt politics and

life has run amok, our champions find out how the Order manages to conquer lands with such ease - and it has very little to do with might, and everything to do with greed.

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LibraryThing member wagner.sarah35

The Sword of Truth series picks up right where it left off in the previous volume. Richard and Kahlan have finally wed, but the consequences of Kahlan saving Richard's life soon become clear. The chimes have been summoned from the underworld and are causing magic to fail throughout the world. Magic

must be returned to the world, or many may die. Richard, Kahlan, Cara, and Zedd all must play their part in defeating the chimes, all while the Imperial Order continues its relentless march and threatens the Midland community of Anderlith. A great series, I look forward to continuing to read of the adventures of Richard, Kahlan, and their friends.

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LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C

There are people who loved Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series from beginning to end. But a lot of people who loved it through the first four books feel this is where the series jumped the shark. Goodkind is a devotee of Ayn Rand; he's open about that on his website. But although you could see

libertarian themes in the earlier books, this is the one where it's more than subtext easily ignored. If that is what bothers you about this book, to the point you didn't find it enjoyable, you might want to stop here, because in Faith of the Fallen that line becomes even more explicit and beyond that even I, who am mostly sympathetic to his philosophy, finds Goodkind unbearably preachy and just plain unbearable.

But this book, even if I do see it as falling off in enjoyment from the earlier books, is still very entertaining as Richard and Kahlan combat the power of the chimes leaching magic from the world. There are still characters I love here, and there's still humor, and there's still imagination in Goodkind's world-building to burn. And I do like that there are consequences here to actions from previous books. So even if here I could see the shark's fin protruding from the water, he hadn't jumped for me. Yet.

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LibraryThing member harpua

Book 5 of the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind focus’s more on political intrigue than on action. There is still plenty of action, but the politics of the world become more important and more prevelant to the story. Here we also begin to view Terry’s political philosophy based on Ayn

Rand. This really doesn’t distract from the story though if you are completely opposed to Rand’s philosophy you may find the writing as a bit of preaching. I didn’t mind so much since as a conservative some of Rand’s ideas fall in line with mine. But that discussion is better saved for a different blog.

Because of the change from action to politics, the book was a slower read for me. There were times I just couldn’t motivate myself to read, but plugging through leads to some rewarding reading the last few chapters, leading to a climax with ramifications that will impact future novels.

Overall, not a bad book, not the best so far, but an important transitional book.

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LibraryThing member clstaff

This is the fifth installment of the Sword of truth series and the story and my interest are still going strong. 7 books in the series to go. I will copy and paste this review into all subsequent reviews of this series, except the last, in which I will hopefully say how awesome the whole series was.

LibraryThing member clong

I had mixed feelings about the first four books of the Sword of Truth series. They were reasonably entertaining. At the same time, there was something annoying and simplistic about them. The main characters, both good and bad, were static, lacking in any depth, and often clueless. And, sex (much of

it of the brutal, sadistic, raping kind) can only carry a book so far before you actually have to write an interesting story.

This book, however, was just plain bad. After reading Soul of the Fire I decided not to waste my time with any more Goodkind.

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LibraryThing member LindaLiu

Very addictive from the moment I started. The story continues straight after the last novel, the day after Richard and Kahlan's wedding. On their first day married strange things start happening around them starting with the death of a chicken!

LibraryThing member Michael_Rose

This series was introduced to me by a then girlfriend (my first serious one). My review applies to all of his books that I've read.

His stories are engaging enough, so that's not an issue. They are extremely pornographic in their depictions of sex, rape, torture, and war...if that's your thing. It's

just the fantasy element has been attached. They're also very masturbatory (or "autoerotic", if you prefer) when it comes to all things Ayn Rand ("objectivism"). One book in particular (I forget which one) was decidedly anti-democracy in its ethos. There was also the author's justifications for the slaughter of innocent people (because, in his eyes, they're not innocent, even if they're non-combatants). I enjoyed the books well enough as a high schooler, though I've since grown up (and grown beyond them, though I still enjoy the fantasy genre).

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LibraryThing member antao

(Original Review, 2002)

"Hissing, hackles lifting, the chicken's head rose. Kahlan pulled back. Its claws digging into stiff dead flesh, the chicken slowly turned to face her. It cocked its head, making its comb flop, its wattles sway. "Shoo," Kahlan heard herself whisper. There wasn't enough

light, and besides, the side of its beak was covered with gore, so she couldn't tell if it had the dark spot, But she didn't need to see it. "Dear spirits, help me," she prayed under her breath. The bird let out a slow chicken cackle. It sounded like a chicken, but in her heart she knew it wasn't. In that instant, she completely understood the concept of a chicken that was not a chicken. This looked like a chicken, like most of the Mud People's chickens. But this was no chicken. This was evil manifest."

In "Soul of the Fire" by Terry Goodkind.

Goodkind is responsible for the worst thing ever written by a human being; the now legendary evil chicken scene (above).

I read along the fantasy cliches and admittedly fascinated by the creepily detailed sex and torture scenes - wow, there are adults who write this sort of smut in fantasy? A woman who can’t have sex because she’ll have an orgasm which will destroy her partner (and why can’t she just masturbate beforehand?)? A hero who gets deflowered by a sexy S&M torture nymph? Torture, torture, torture, big hulking Teutonic soldier men, graphic sexual violence, wow how does this sort of thing get published next to Tolkien? But one book is a bad taste curiosity, a whole series of increasingly unhinged writing is just appalling. His books are ranty ultra-conservative bullshit with bizarrely detailed descriptions of near rape, child dissection, sexual torture, child killing, sexual assault, kicking children in the face, rape, cheesy romantic sex, evil chickens, intelligent goats, and attractive women in either skintight dresses (somehow their curves always got described, of course) or skintight leather (how do they sneak up on enemies in the dark? How much talc do they have to wear?). It is near explicitly described that these things are what happens to society when it doesn’t follow Objectivism, and I’m not kidding. I just hope the covers put people off..

Goodkind is not only a hack, he's an Ayn Rand hack. "Wizard's First Rule" is the only book that I have purposefully abandoned at a train station, hoping that it would go to some "Lost Items" limbo. Maybe it’s still there...

[2018 edit: Urgh, did not need this reminder of the crap I read back in the day.]

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LibraryThing member jrg1316

A good continuation of the series. I was a little disappointed with the beginning, but once it got going, the story moved quickly.

LibraryThing member leslie.98

I am putting this 5th book in the Sword of Truth series aside, perhaps permanently. I started it immediately after finishing the previous book, "Temple of the Winds", and then put it aside for the holidays when I was too busy to read. When I picked it back up, I was unhappy about the imminent rape

scene about to be described and stopped again. A week later I tried again, starting several pages back; this time I was uncomfortable with the fictional culture of Anderith particularly in light of the events in the U.S. at this time.

Wikipedia describes this culture this way: "Both the Anders, black-haired people who govern the city, and the Hakens, red-haired people under the boot of Ander oppression, occupy Anderith. From an early age, Hakens are kept under control and disrespected by the Anders and are taught that this oppression is a necessity to protect the Hakens from their violent ancestral ways. Most Hakens have bought into this idea and willingly subject themselves to the oppression."

In the book, this oppression of the Hakens is clearly attributed to the idea that at some past point in their history, the Hakens had been the dominant race and their current situation was in retribution for their crimes towards the Anders at that time.

Whether Goodkind meant this parallel or not, it was too close to the way white supremists here view the U.S. - that whites are being (unjustly) oppressed by people of color in payment for historical injustices. I don't want to be reading anything right now that feels like justification for white supremists!

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LibraryThing member jms001

Not exactly my favorite from the series. A lot of stupid decisions, IMO, made by various characters. But I suppose it's for the betterment of their development.

LibraryThing member SGTCat

I enjoyed the exercise in world building that this book seems to represent. The author laid out the history of Anderith and then used that foundation to give us a story about political intrigue and domination.

I also enjoyed how things played out at the end, though I'm not sure it made much sense.

The common people would be the ones to suffer the most, while the elites who manipulated them in the first place would likely escape retribution, like Dalton. So, could that really satisfy Richard's desire for vengeance? It does make his actions seem more juvenile. What he's doing at the end of the story is pretty juvenile too. "They don't like me so I'm going home!" Isn't this guy supposed to be Lord Rahl? Wouldn't his past experiences have hardened him up and made a man out of him by this point? Are his actions believable?

I feel like Goodkind spends a lot of time building new characters up and developing them in really creative ways, only to have them meet their ends in extremely anti-climactic situations that felt rushed and left me wondering what the point of learning about them was in the first place.

That rushed feeling permeates the last 60 pages or so of the book. One moment everything is fine, and then suddenly the enemy is there and everything quickly wraps up in catastrophe. It doesn't feel measured. It doesn't feel like good storytelling. It feels like the author put too much time into the build-up and then realized he only had 50 pages to find some sort of conclusion. The ending was choppy and unsatisfying. Goodkind also puts too much weight on weak storylines. The prime example is using Franka's situation at the end of the book to explain Dalton's change of heart, but for that to be believable Dalton's relationship with Franka should have been more deeply examined.

The story could have been better if Goodkind had spent less time detailing characters and a culture that were disposable and had spent more time developing the main characters instead. Throughout the story, all of the main characters fail to work together. The actions they take aren't believable given their situations. Kahlan doubting Richard and the mud people elder about the chicken is the most glaring example. Why would they lie about it, and if it had turned out to be untrue, so what? They'd have checked and maybe killed a few chickens and then they could have settled things. Instead, she gets portrayed as a doubting, whining bitch that slows down story progression, which isn't fair to her considering who she is supposed to be. Richard has his turn to be an idiot when he doesn't trust Kahlan's opinion later on in the story.

The story just feels like a wasted opportunity, or like filler material.

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