Confessor by Terry Goodkind

Terry Goodkind's epic series comes to a close with Confessor. The Sword of Truth series encompasses eleven books and one novella.

A friend of mine introduced me to Goodkind's work and I've read every single book he has written.

Goodkind is known for his ability to create epic stories with characters that seem to come alive. His fans are avid defenders of the characters: Richard, Kahlan, Cara and Zedd.

I read his final book of the Richard saga this past weekend - it almost ruined the entire series for me.

Somewhere around the fifth or sixth book, Goodkind began to have his characters inherit the role of "preacher". There would be pages upon pages of one character explaining the value of reason and giving comment to all kinds of human potential. While this isn't a bad thing, readers were becoming agitated against this new form of writing.


Confessor starts out as an incredible finale to the works. Richard is captured without the evil Emperor knowing and begins to use his influence within empire's camp. Richard's doing this because he's looking for his wife, Kahlan. No one can to remember her. (It's all because of magic)

There are big battles, and of course, the climactic ending - which really isn't...

And some major characters die...sounds similar to Harry Potter or any other long-running book series.

Here is my major complaint with Confessor. Goodkind uses this story to preach "Reason good - Faith bad". The bad guys in the last few books are portrayed as people of faith who are barbarians. They champion their way of life in the name of their faith.

I understand the idea that faith can lead to some pretty horrific ideals, but I don't believe faith is a bad thing. Goodkind has Richard proclaim that true life - happy and successful life can only be found in sound reason and personal choice; two things that I believe in (reason & choice), but I don't think you can live life without faith.

Even with the final trilogy of this series (Chainfire, Phantom, Confessor) Richard -believes- his wife is still alive or exists while everyone else doesn't have a clue to what he's talking about. Isn't that a kind of faith: believing what you can't see?

While I enjoyed the books, Goodkind's philosophy came across very heavy in his last few books.