I've read the whole SWORD OF TRUTH series three times (as of this writing), including LAW OF NINES and THE FIRST CONFESSOR. I love Goodkind's work.

It was interesting seeing what Goodkind could come up with once the main storyline of THE SWORD OF TRUTH was completed a few years ago. We got THE OMEN MACHINE, and with that, some idea of where the story could go with new adversary Hannis Arc. THE THIRD KINGDOM brings this to us in a big way. Arc has the potential to 'rise up' as a worthwhile villain, but in TTK, ANOTHER baddie is introduced that has the intelligence, cunning, and experience to really complicate Richard and Kahlan's lives for the forseeable future.

Technically, Goodkind continues his new writing style which, to these eyes at least, mirrors the approach of James Patterson: short chapters. I can only speculate that Goodkind may be doing this to make the reading experience easier for potential readers, or maybe this approach makes it easier for him to put his new stories together. I really don't know, but either way I like it. I never minded the longer chapters of his previous books, but even so... while the shorter chapters could be a bit jarring to long time readers, it's not really a big deal. Another thing... the books are also a lot shorter. Gone are the days of Goodkind's 1000 page tomes. I'm not happy about that, but if he can put out a book a year... then that somewhat makes up for it.

The story kicks in right away, and we are thrust into the middle of a dangerous situation. There are many questions to be answered, and for roughly the first half, there is much exposition giving us a LOT of backstory. We are filled in on the situation going on in the dark lands, and many questions are answered. There is a lot of action... I never got bored. There is always something interesting going on. By the time I got to roughly 75% of the book... the scope of the book quadrupled. The philosphical heart of the book, IMHO... happens in chapter 27. My opinion only, but this brought home the themes of the book for me. After that, it's off to a mini-quest for Richard... one he has no choice about. There are some interesting new characters: a young sorceress, some non-loyal Mord Sith, and a new enigmatic BAD GUY. There are ties to Magda Searus (the first confessor), many references to the original SOT series (natch), even some ties to the LAW OF NINES which I'm really interested in. There is a lot to keep SOT fans happy.

Overall, I think this (if possible) is an improvement in THE OMEN MACHINE in that while that last one opened up a lot of questions without answers, this one answers a lot. All I can say is... the dark lands are REALLY dark.

Highly recommended. (Thank you, Terry!)

I worry about how new readers can find a way into the series without knowing what has come before. There are many allusions, and this kind of stuff is really rewarding if you have read the whole series... but it could be lost on new readers. That doesn't detract from the storytelling, but it is a rich addition that is nice to experience. All I can say is... buy this one... read it now if you want... but by all means... start reading from the beginning!

I first learned about this series of books after watching the television show "The Seeker". The show was interesting enough and the books were much better. I got my hands on the series and read one book after another, after another. I couldn't read them fast enough. It was an epic tale of good versus evil, boy saves girl, boy saves world. Actually it sounds a bit mushy when I put it like that. I will say that these books can be pretty disgusting if you've got a bit of imagination, my wife can't bear to read them due to the gore.

In any case, I caught up with the series and eagerly awaited the release of "The Omen Machine". I remember paying a premium for it at Walmart and I tore through it and was unimpressed. I felt like Terry Goodkind was starting to fail Richard and Kahlan...the story stunk. Not to mention where it ended.

"The Third Kingdom" is considerably better. I don't feel nearly as disappointed. I do feel that the plot and the "bad guys" are a bit too mainstream...flesh eating zombies anyone? C'mon. I guess what really matters here is even after reading "The Omen Machine" and being disappointed, I still looked forward to reading "The Third Kingdom". At the conclusion of "The Third Kingdom" I definitely am looking forward to the next release.

One thing that is a bit irritating (TERRY GOODKIND TAKE NOTICE) is the repetitiveness in his latest books. I might have to go back and read his older offerings to see if he did the same thing back then and I just became aware of it. It seems like at least 25% of the book is filler of the same thing being said. Describing the shun-tuk people (chapter 61 in order) he writes "..yet more of the chalky-looking...all of them were smeared with a chalky white substance...smeared in the chalky white coloring...the mass of silent whitewashed...

WE GET IT...they are covered in white chalky paint. This is but an example of how Mr. Goodkind has been writing lately. It's like he has to take a hammer and beat the nail of an idea into our heads until our skulls split open. What I think stinks about the approach that he's using is that many readers learn to "tune out" many of the words in the story...I know that I do. Why read about how chalky the shun-tuk are for the 10000th time?

Decent book. Let's go Rahl.

Anyone out there who has not experienced the excitement of a Terry Goodkind novel, young or old, male or female, is in for a truly great adventure. I became an instant Terry Goodkind fan while I read Wizard's First Rule when it first came out. Sometimes you read a cover jacket of a new novel, by a new writer and you think, it might be a good read. I was hooked the minute I read the jacket while browsing it at the book store. I would read the novel on the train to work. The book was so intense that it remained with me as I walked into my office. At first I did not realize how wound up I was from reading the novel and how ready for battle I was when dealing with my co-workers. It dawned on me one morning that I was carrying the Sword of Truth with me through out the day and ready to do battle with anyone who I viewed as a threat to me having a good day. The excitement and intensity just stays with you without you realizing it. I have eagerly anticipated every subsequent novel, including Terry's latest novel, The Third Kingdom. Every novel has been great and I have never been disappointed in the quality and the depth and detail of the stories and characters in the novels as I re-enter Richard's and Kahlan's kingdom. Terry has the great ability to develop the story and to pull you into each scene as it happens as if you are a part of it. Terry, keep up the good work and I am anxious for you to finish the next chapter. Like most of your fans a year is a long time to wait for the next experience. For those of you who are just beginning your Richard and Kahlan journey, I am somewhat jealous of you, because you don't have to wait so long to read your next novel. You have a great series to journey through and to enjoy. You will not be disappointed and I am sure you will be another satisfied fan!!!!!!The Third Kingdom (Richard and Kahlan)

"The Third Kingdom" is one of Goodkind's best. He manages to present a strong message as always, but his years as a writer have really allowed him to balance this message with an engaging story and action in a way he hasn't quite achieved before. (This book isn't light on any of those things or out of balance in any way.) For people that didn't respond as well to the last couple of books, I would say it's likely you'll feel that "Goodkind is back." (I actually liked previous installments a great deal, but understand how they could have been less beloved by other readers as they felt a bit shorter than previous books.)

The Good:

-Possibly the best new rogues gallery since the very first Sword of Truth novel.

-Lots of new mysteries about the history of the different lands and how it impacts the current world.

-Best pacing of possibly any of Goodkind's books.

-A great new "hero"

-Goodkind weaves in the backstory less obtrusively than in any previous book

Room for Improvement:

-Due to Richard being immensely powerful when he taps his "war wizard" abilities, Goodkind does have the "Superman" problem to some degree. It's difficult to come up with true challenges to Richard when he is fully powered. As such Goodkind travels some ground he's explored before (and also a favorite of Superman writers) wherein events limit the abilities of the protagonist. This creates great drama, but has been done before even in previous Goodkind books. This also does limit wish fulfillment aspects of the books somewhat. My greatest hope for the next book is seeing a fully capable Richard accessing all of his abilities and use all of his newfound knowledge to overcome plans laid out by the new villains. C'mon, Terry, let's power our hero up!!

Overall:

-This is Goodkind's best work in the last few years. AN ABSOLUTE MUST READ for fans and a reasonable steeping on point for newcomers as well.

Buy this book. It won't disappoint.

*sigh* I am so confused at this point, I'm not sure what to say. Terry Goodkind made me fall in love with his characters in the early portion of the series. Richard and Khalan were so strong and amazing, you could not help but adore them. Now I am wondering if TG is brain dead and it is carrying on to his characters. It's like trying to reanimate a corpse. Oh! Wait! He does that in the book!

There are so many issues I hardly know where to begin but I did give it 3 stars because while the story telling falls flat and is excessively repetative, the storyline itself is a good idea. It needed to be fleshed out more.

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT

Ok. First, The Omen Machine (TOM), The 3rd Kingdom (T3rdK) and Severed Souls (SS) (which I have not read yet) could more than likely have been condensed into 1 book. This would have eliminated a lot of the repetative "filler" in TOM and T3rdK, (I will assume SS will have a lot of filler too) For example, the character Samantha has a "tangled mass of black hair". (ala Harry Potter's Hermione) I get it. Her hair is a black tangled hot mess. I do NOT need to read that, then read it again in the next paragraph, the next page and then again at the beginning of the next chapter. (btw, the chapters are only 5-6 pages in the Kindle edition. Too short imo)

Another example is the unholy half dead (ala The Chronicles of Riddick) Yes, they are unholy, yes they are half dead. yes they have no souls. After TG pointed out they are "the unholy half dead", he could have switched to "creatures, souless beings, reanimated corpse, walking dead" SOMETHING ELSE!! STOP REPEATING IT OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER.... you get the point..... Also, it was pounded into my brain that they "drink the blood of those with souls", they are "trying to get their souls back", they "eat the living so they can get their souls back", WE GET IT!! THEY HAVE NO SOULS!! UGH!

Also, how many times are Richard and Khalan going to lose their powers? I understand it happening for the storyline of the Temple of the Winds with Khalan. And then the impact of the chimes with Soul of the Fire. But it keeps frigging happening! How many times does that need to happen? It is not as if it really makes the story and does not have any real bearing on anything. So, what is the deal? Not to mention the entire concept of a witch woman (Six in the Chainfire series) casting a spell to separate Richard from his gift is ridiculous. If it were that easy, how are there any gifted at all?

Lastly, what the heck has happened to the Mord Sith?? OMG! These women were freaking AMAZING!! Yes they were tortured in the most horrid of ways to gain their abilities and their cruelty, but they still kicked some major butt! Now, Berdine, who we don't know ever really tortured a "pet", is a...... bookworm. She sits in a library, translating High D'Haran literature and has, in essence, become the female version of Warren. They are Richard's personal guard, yet they are dying off. So what happens after that? Is there a Mord Sith replenishing machine buried beneath the palace?

On to the books themselves.

The Omen Machine: LOVED the idea and the premise behind a buried machine that emits prophecy and probably has some form of self awareness. This leads directly into T3rdK, but I don't feel TOM was fully explained. Once you get to T3rdK, there is no more mention of the machine, who built it, what the purpose of it was, and why it was buried. Out of sight, out of mind, out of story. I would have loved to have had this storyline rounded out more. So far I have not seen this in T3rdK, but maybe it will be in SS. In the book we move from the Omen Machine, to the Hedge Maid, Jit, and the two do not seem to work together. It is as if two different storylines were thrown together in a short book but they make no real connection to one another except the machine gives a "prophecy" that somehow gives Richard the knowledge to defeat the Hedge Maid. I didn't see how it made sense, but none of the rest of it does either.

The 3rd Kingdom: I am only halfway through this one and have to refer what I said about about excessive repetativeness to reach the 500+ pages in this book. Samantha's tangle of black hair, the unholy half dead, the fact that Richard and Khalan suffer from "having death within them, so they are part of the world of the living and part of the world of the dead, but her more than him so she will suffer more than him, because there is death within them and she was affected more than him." Am I being repetative here? Sorry. Guilt by absorption. (I am so not kidding. The "death within you" line is repeated so many times that I tried to count them. I lost count.)

Severed Souls: I haven't read this one yet, but I will assume it will be more of the above with a rush toward the end. I will review it after I buy it and read it because I love to inflict self torture upon myself in weird ways like taping my eyes open and reading about "tangled black masses of hair" and "death being within you".

There WERE actually some high points in the books:

The connection between the old war being carried over to the new war.

The introduction of the Hedge Maid, although the concept was not fully fleshed out

The introduction of the Dark Lands and the people residing within them

The fact that the inhabitants of the Dark Lands are so powerful and scary they had to be locked behind the North Wall. (A little obvious Game of Thrones reference here. I mean really Game of Thrones, down to the "unholy half dead with no souls" living behind the wall)

The answer to what happened to the Mord Sith Darken Rahl sent to the Dark Lands (Although we never learned he did this until this book)

Expanding the use of the gift to include occult powers, although this is not really detailed a lot

All in all, I gave it 3 stars for a great IDEA, but it really lacked coherent storytelling. It could have been better. It could have been a LOT better.

Wow, Mr. Goodkind does it again. Brings up back to the world of Richard and Kahlan Rahl, our beloved characters from the Sword of Truth series.

Now, here's my review - oh, I don't want to give you any spoilers, but unfortunately I have to do so to really explain my what went on in this book, and why it's a mixture of good and bad. i.e. what I expect from Mr. G.

First, this book is a direct Sequel to "The Omen Machine." So it follows the SoT series.

The Story, so far, is about the Darklands, and how they are tied to the past, and Magda Searus (the First Confessor), and her Protector Wizard. We find out how they forced out all the half-people and zombies from the midlands, placed them in the north, and by building barrier spells and a Giant Wall (shades of Game of Thrones), have had them locked away for thousands of years.

Now, with the barrier down, the Gate to the North, is open. Masses of the northern people - half people and zombies, are now moving south into D'hara, So it's up to our little group of Wizards, Sorcerers, Confessor, and followers, that will try to defeat these half people, and return them to whence they came.

Okay, I'm not sure where the author will take this story, will it be just a trilogy, or will it be multiple volumes to take this story to a satisfying end? For me, I hope he continues the work with more volumes, though I wish he would make the action go a bit faster.

As others have said, the story itself doesn't progress much at all. Perhaps only a week or two in time. I really cannot tell because, as usual, Mr. Goodkind is kind enough to provide us with detailed explanations of what is going on. Oh, I don't mind them, (I love his prose), but he shouldn't have to do it over and over and over. And then when we get near the end of the book, he changes his tactics, and decides to leave an entire section out. What was missing? Well, Mr. Goodkind never wrote about Richard and his group's travel down to the Village where he left Kahlan. Then in the Village, finding out that Kahlan was taken away. And then traveling to where she was being held. All that was missing, and very noticeable. Why? Like I said, before that part, the author meticulously detailed every step, every stone, every brook, and every tree Richard passed on his journey.

Why hadn't the author continued that storyline?

Was he told that he had written too many pages?

Was he told to finish the book quickly (hey, your deadline is tomorrow!)?

It just didn't make any sense to me, and probably to other fans of Mr. Goodkind.

All I know is that when an author writes in one kind of style, and then abruptly changes course in mid-stream, something happened. Something definitely happened.

Still, it was a great story. a perfect middle book to a trilogy. But, one in need of an Editor to cut some of the bloat, and to advise Mr. Goodkind to remain loyal to his way of writing.

Now - to await the further adventures of Richard and Kahlen. I only hope that more then their healing takes place in that one.

I actually debated with giving the book three stars, but he steps it up toward the end.

I really loved the first full series. It was well written and paced nicely. I think the characters were well written and had easily distinguishable personalities. I liked how Richard was always in action and would deduce truths and when he would explain things to you and the secondary characters, you'd all realize he was right and the clues were there all along.

Law of Nines was descent. However, with First Confessor, his work went down hill. He already had a tendency to preach his beliefs with his characters, but he went overboard trying to jam it down your throat without even advancing the story. So it was only about preaching and not good story writing. The worst part was that all his. Characters sounded the same. They didn't have their own voice. If you were to read their lines with no context, you wouldn't be able to tell one from the other.

I don't feel like he covered much ground in the first book of this series. Consider that in the first book of the 1rst series, Richard traveled a lot, defeated Darken Rahl, and became Lord Rahl. Goodkind's writing can't survive inaction and that's my biggest gripe with this book. Over half of this book is of Richard sitting in a cave repeating speeches to a young woman before any action happens. I also think there is an issue with lack of voice here. Richard doesn't start acting in the way I've come to know till the end and I feel that some of the characters act realistically to how a person in there situation would. As an example. There is a young girl you'll read about who is much to forceful when talking to The Lord Rahl for a backwoods hick, even considering her small claim to authority. Just think of how you'd act on meeting someone with much less authority than Richard has, say a cop for instance. So that's how I feel about it, but it's still worth the read. You'll have to decide for yourself.

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12/19/2013

Arrival: August 19

Status: pre-ordered

Page: 315

Hours: 10 hours

Feelings: Thrilled

--- I will pre-order the next book again---

The plot is superb especially if you read first confessor and omen machine. Though be warned that sword of truth series ended at book 12 confessor. Please realize that omen machine, first confessor, third kingdom is an new Richard and Kahlan novel .There is a lot of linkage to previous books including the original 12 and the mini novel.Terry Good kind fans should be happy especially those who read all of books or a least most.

There is a lot more sword action from Richard though I wished for more magic from Richard. There some exciting magic from others.Special note we learn a lot more about how magic works from non-war wizards. There is less preaching or lessons which makes it slightly disappointing for me.Still plenty lessons which show he more of an king like then an wood's guide now.Richard seems like more of wizard-like since take rule as teacher. I do admit there is an drop in character development but I might not be used to pace since I Marathon the first 12 books five are so years ago not including the mini novel. I suggest you reread omen machine, then first confessor finally read third kingdom for best reading experience. I love the story and recommend to all fans.($17 hard cover per-ordered)

A perfect gift for terry good kind fans.

- The last page made me very emotional and ready for the next book.

- Not an good standalone book since the best part of the books are the connections to past books. It's best to start at wizard's first rule or a least omen machine.

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The plot continues directly from omen machine at such fast past that you might lose an arm in the process before returning to people's place.The war over thousand years ago haunts Richard once again as the complex gravity spell could only hold the darkness for so long. The dark lands are feared for good reason since the night could sweep away your very soul. Adventure to test your very soul.

Unfortunately, like the previous book, The Omen Machine, The Third Kingdom is a lot smaller than the books in the preceding series, The Sword of Truth. A good point is that there is a lot less repetition throughout this and the former book than seen throughout the Sword of Truth, so that counts toward some of the size reduction, but it feels like there's a lot less progress to the story that in the previous series. It is, however, of course an inevitable drawback of any book with such a great story. It is only disappointing due to the size of those previous books, so it's not a fair criticism to make of any sequel, merely a poorly voiced cry for more.

Looking forward to the next one. I've already recommended the series to friends and family and will continue to do so.

Prefecto nuevo y rapidez en el envío!!

I rarely read a series like this back to back as I get bored, BUT I did read the whole 15.5 books back to back and loved everyone of them. I fell in love with all the main characters and now feel bereft I've no more books to read in this series. Highly recommend.

As captivating and providing an almost sleepless night as all the other sword of truth novels. I was not able to set it aside, yet it was the second time I've read after a few years

I had really high expectations for this book, since the author's previous release (The First Confessor) was so good and left me wanting more. I can honestly say my expectations were surpassed and blown away! Right from the beginning the story is so intense and thrilling, and the plot is extremely original and packed with unexpected details and twists. I laughed. I cried. I reminisced. This book leaves you needing more, and I personally cannot wait until the next one!