The Pillars of Creation

Terry Goodkind

Terry Goodkind checks in with the seventh volume in the Sword of Truth series, and I am very happy to be in the minority in my viewpoint on this one. In my opinion, the series had been on a long, albeit gradual, downhill slope before this, and The Pillars of Creation gave it some much-needed revitalization, not to mention a different viewpoint that will no doubt be critical in the upcoming climax to the series.

Gone, for the most part, are Richard, Kahlan, and the rest of the bunch you're familiar with if you've been following along for the past nine years. Gone are the armies of the Midlands, Aydindril, the Wizard's Keep, the Mud People, all the things with which we've become familiar. Instead, we are in the heart of southern D'Hara with a young woman named Jennsen and a mysterious traveller who finds her and helps her out of an unexpected jam named Sebastian. (That plot line should sound very familiar, if Wizard's First Rule is still fresh in your mind.) Now, here's the twist; in the backwoods of D'Hara, most of the populace of your average small town isn't even aware Darken Rahl is dead yet, much less that the guy who's taken his place is one of the good guys. Thus, it becomes an understandable leap in logic for Jennsen—who was hunted unsuccessfully from the time of her birth until Darken Rahl's death—to assume that Richard Rahl is going to carry on his father's tradition and keep hunting her. In the opening scene, a D'Haran soldier is dead at the foot of a cliff, having slipped and fallen, and Jennsen realizes the D'Harans have found her again, and it's time to move on…

Giving the book a whole new set of characters and a new setting avoids the trap that every book since Blood of the Fold has fallen into of having to use the first hundred pages to rehash old stuff, one of the series' greatest weaknesses. So we get into the action much faster here than in earlier novels. Also, having protagonists who are decidedly anti-Richard not only gives the book a fresh perspective on the events going on in the world but, when Jennsen meets Emperor Jagang, gives us a new perspective on the Emperor's character as well. Instead of the merciless monster he's been portrayed as in the last few books, he becomes almost sympathetic here, and far more human than he has been. This is a great boon to the story, as Jagang has been pretty two- dimensional throughout the series, and cannot help but lend strength to the series' remaining title(s?).

A refreshing change from what we'd been used to. Here's to hoping book eight continues back up the hill.