Product Description

Sequel to the New York Times bestselling Faith of the Fallen

New York Times bestselling author Terry Goodkind has created his most lavish adventure yet. Tormented her entire life by inhuman voices, a young woman named Lauren seeks to end her intolerable agony. She at last discovers a way to silence the voices. For everyone else, the torment is about to begin.

With winter descending and the paralyzing dread of an army of annihilation occupying their homeland, Richard Rahl and his wife Kahlan must venture deep into a strange and desolate land. Their quest turns to terror when they find themselves the helpless prey of a tireless hunter.

Meanwhile, Lauren finds herself drawn into the center of a struggle for conquest and revenge. Worse yet, she finds her will seized by forces more abhorrent than anything she ever envisioned. Only then does she come to realize that the voices were real.

Staggered by loss and increasingly isolated, Richard and Kahlan must stop the relentless, unearthly threat which has come out of the darkest night of the human soul. To do so, Richard will be called upon to face the demons stalking among the Pillars of Creation.

Discover breathtaking adventure and true nobility of spirit. Find out why millions of readers the world over have elevated Terry Goodkind to the ranks of legend.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26695 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-18
• Released on: 2002-11-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 736 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780765340740
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Seven books into his Sword of Truth series, author Terry Goodkind continues to expand and enlarge the fantasy realm D'Hara. But with the Pillars of Creation he takes a detour from his usual approach, leaving his primary protagonists in the background to spin a story of one woman's battle to discover the truth of her heritage.

Told in vivid and often gruesome detail, Goodkind's fable grabs the reader with a familiar archetypal theme: a young woman, Darken Rahl's illegitimate daughter Jennsen, flees her home in the wake of murderous forces rising from her lineage. She runs in the shadows of Lord Richard Rahl's domain with a spy sent by Emperor Jagang, the enemy of D'Hara. With his help, she journeys across the entire realm, chasing rumor and misinformation to ultimately discover the truth of her heritage.

Loyal readers, who know the truth that Jennsen seeks, may find this book tedious as they wonder when Lord Richard Rahl and Mother Confessor Kahlan are going to swoop in and save the day. But Goodkind appears to be challenging readers, and perhaps himself, to see the benevolent administration of Richard Rahl from its underside and from an opposition perspective. The change in perspective works up to a point. Goodkind has created a fast-paced adventure story that might be appreciated by diehard fans if they can leave their longing for the status quo at the door. --Jeremy Pugh

From Publishers Weekly
Fantasy bestseller Goodkind brings his usual strong sense of place and distinct characterization to his seventh sprawling novel in the popular Sword of Truth series, though the action, too often discussed rather than shown, takes a while to warm up. The struggle continues between the New World's Seeker of Truth, Lord Richard Rahl, and the Old World's totalitarian leader, Emperor Jagang "the Just," against the dry and barren beauty of the desert landscape. After deposing his father, old Lord Rahl, Richard lingers in the background at his immense fortress. Meanwhile, battling for power are the bastards that old Rahl has also sired, notably Richard's oafish lout of a half-brother, Oba, who tries to murder his way to the throne. Taking center stage is the vengeful Jennsen, who wants to kill Richard because she blames him for her mother's murder. Of course, Richard isn't the villain she takes him for, though Jennsen is slow to catch on. Amid the interminable sword-and-sorcery in the tradition of Robert E. Howard (Howard would have especially appreciated the huge serpent with which Oba and Jennsen contend), the author spouts his familiar political pieties. Lip service may be paid to public good, but passion arises only in scenes of violence. For all its clumsy exposition, unlikely coincidences and feeble attempts at humor, this latest installment, with its striking jacket art showing a beautiful desert landscape, is as certain to please Goodkind's legions of fans as previous books in the series.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Goodkind takes a left turn in this seventh entry of his "Sword of Truth" series. He abandons his main characters for a time and concentrates on the life and adventures of a young woman named Jennsen, the illegitimate daughter of Darken Rahl. Jennsen hears voices (complete with Cecil B. Demille effects) and is pursued by dark forces seemingly because of her heritage. She flees her home after her mother is killed in search of a sorceress she thinks holds the keys to her destiny, only to discover more than she bargains for...such as a big swamp snake. Goodkind's D'Hara world is a glittering tapestry described in immediate and sometimes gruesome detail; it is interesting to hear how he has turned it upside down in The Pillars of Creation. The narration by Jim Bond is crisp, well done, and dramatic. Thankfully, Brilliance Audio seems to have abandoned its former whirlwind reading pace. Listeners will be enthralled and eager to sample more series entries. Though the price tag and length will deter some libraries, this is enthusiastically recommended for anyone who enjoys monumental fantasy. Barbara Perkins, Irving P.L., TX
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

It's better than Soul of the Fire...
I don't know quite what to make of this book overall, so I'll start simply by stating the following: Goodkind's fantasies are about people, not worldbuilding. He's made that clear both in and out of his novels. However, even with that in mind, I don't know what to make of it when the main characters we've grown to know and love over the course of six massive novels don't even show up until the last fifty pages of the seventh, and then only as a segue into the eighth. After getting over my initial shock, I was both pleased and disappointed with this work.

I'm glad that Goodkind had the guts to tell the story how he wanted to tell it, instead of catering to the fanboys. He had a character that will clearly be a very important part of the rest of the series (now contracted through Book 10), knew he couldn't tell her story merely in flashbacks, and so gave her a whole novel. Unfortunately, her story just wasn't terribly compelling. Like all of Goodkind's novels, this was a quick read, but many of the chapters seemed pretty inconsequential, or possibly too sequential, just an excuse to get the characters from point A to point B.

As I've said, this book focusses on new characters. The main character, Jennsen, is likeable and easy to feel for. Unfortunately, the same is not true for this book's main antagonist. Not only is he so utterly inhuman that I couldn't connect with him at all, but Goodkind seemed, as is too often the case, to downplay the power of others in a attempt to make him more powerful.

Over the course of this story, we run into Zedd, Nathan, Adie, and other familiar characters...but never for long, and none of the scenes show the wit of their characters. Indeed, while many of the characters are interesting, they mostly also happen to be boring. And then when we finally get back to Richard, Kahlan, and Cara, we are given a brief and unsatisfactory resolution, a few cryptic words about some new problem which will undoubtedly be made clear in Book 8, and a new Wizard's Rule which delivery frankly sucked.

So why did I give this book even three stars? Because, despite its flaws, it was a quick, fun read, and I was able to keep in mind that this is a transitionary novel. I think I would honestly have been able to tack another star on, though, if it had not been advertised as a Sword of Truth novel (the words aren't even in the book), and if Richard and Kahlan hadn't figured into the cover blurb. As it was, however, I felt that the publishers were trying to trick me into buying a book I would have been perfectly happy to buy anyway.

Good, but not his best
I have anxiously been awaiting this book to hit the shelves, and I can't tell you how many times I have reread Faith of the Fallen in preparation for Pillars of Creation coming out. Faith of the fallen is one of those rare books that really stand out amongst it's peers, but in reality has no peers due to the incredible rhetoric and imaginative writing of Terry Goodkind. But I am not reviewing that book.

I fell in love with the Sword of Truth series from the start. I had been reading Jordans book feverishly until they started to become boring, and dependably dull. His series started to flag (I feel) by the 6th-7th book and it has been downhill ever since. Goodkind to me took some of the same ideas as Jordan in writing a series, but I feel as though he learned from Jordan, and didn't make the same tired mistakes. Goodking constantly kept his characters moving, growing, the plot shifting, and new wonders appeared in every book. It is for this that I have revered the series up until the last book.

This new book by Goodkind is a good book. I will give him that. He is a very proficient writing, and has used the land he created almost in a selfish way I feel to explore ideas beyond the regular scope of his novels. I will explain.

The book is about children of Darken Rahl that were saved from summarily being killed at birth as Rahl's are wont to do. These children by the storys beginning have grown to adulthood, and have been on the run from the ruthless minions of house Rahl their entire life. Though the lifelines of these children start out simply and independant, their stories quickly link up, and crisscross each other until the end of the novel.

Their adventures with the Imperial Army, and within the land of D'Hara is sprinkled with excellent writing, yet my gripe with the story is that the main protagonist: Richard Rahl and his associates are not written about until page 450.

Yes you heard correctly: the main characters of this series, Richard, Kahlan, Cara, who have fueled all of the plot thus far were not written about until the book was 4/5ths done.

I respect this from Goodkind, as he probably wanted to use alternative characters to explore the world he had created, and see it from a different point of view, but I feel as though he should have written more about Kahlan and Richard, just to allow them to grow that much more in this book.

So that is my gripe with this book. It was a well written book, but I wish that Goodkind had written a little more about the characters I have grown to admire greatly. Incidentally Richard does learn one more Wizards Rule, and the streak is kept alive as we are now up to 7 rules of "living life as wizards do".

Good book, well written, the characters were interesting, if not who I really wanted to read about. But in the process I was able to learn a little more of the mystique of the land and some of its inherent magic, and that is always a positive thing. So I would call reading this book overall a very enjoyable experience, if slightly unexpected.

Oh Terry....
I have been reading Goodkind for years now, ever since "The Stone of Tears" came out. His first two books are among my top 5 fantasy. "Blood of The Fold", "Temple of The Winds", and "Soul of the Fire" are all in my top ten. Number 6, "Faith of the Fallen", is my favorite book of all time. I absolutely loved it. I think that Terry reached the perfect combination of war and philosophy in number 6, and I had extremely high hopes for "The Pillars of Creation". I even skipped school today to be one of the first people in Pennsylvania to get the book. But I have to say that I was disappointed. "The Pillars of Creation" really let me down. Richard and Kahlan only appear in the last 50 pages or so, and I was not enthralled by the 2 new characters that take up the rest of the book. To me it felt as if some other talented writer had read all of the Sword of Truth series, and then tried to write the next book to it. I didn't think that the story flowed very well, and there were more holes than in the rest of the series combined. I was very disappointed to not get to see Richard for more than a few pages. Although I recommend that everyone who has read the rest of the series read this book (just to keep up), I am depressed that this is what I have waited a year for. I suppose that now I start waiting for number #8, huh?