shanetucker Male, 37, Single. Summerville, GA, USA

I did enjoy this series as a whole but the combination of the talking liveships plus the very obvious feministic writing style makes this a series I really can't highly recommend. Hobb is a great writer with superb story-telling skills. However, her characters in this series change so often in their decisions and even their speaking styles that I found parts of it totally bogus. It's still a fun read but better fantasy series are definitely out there including her Farseer Trilogy.

As a high school British Literature teacher, I normally enjoy prose written in the Victorian style the author pitifully tried to re-create. The only reason this novel avoided a 1 star rating was the hilarious portrayal of Napoleon Bonaparte and Lord Byron. That is it. Those were the only things I even remotely enjoyed. The ending was very quick and horrible. The characters were flat and uninteresting. I basically wasted 2 weeks of my reading life forcing myself through the 846 pages of overrated jargon.

This book is highly respected on many fantasy web-sites. It deserves the praise it gets due to great characterization and a deep storyline. I don't necessarily prefer stories with a first person point of view but will make an exception here. Hobb writes an intriguing story that is thoroughly enjoyable.

Wow! When I heard that Sanderson was going to be finishing the Wheel of Time, I wanted to read some of his work to get a feel for his style. Instead, his first novel has become one of the most intricate yet easy to read books I've ever had the occasion to read. Sanderson has jumped to the top of my list as his writing far exceeds Jordan, Martin, Goodkind or any of the other fantasy writers I've read. I'm ready to start the Mistborn Trilogy.

What a thought provoking set of books. I read all 12 of these in the last 6 months and enjoyed a large portion of it. This book gives a fitting conclusion to the series bringing back many characters that had not been mentioned in the past 4 or 5 books. Goodkind has been accused of being too "preachy" about the importance of life but I refused to read this as anything other than a fantasy series. If Richard's speeches bother you, skip them. There is plenty of characterization and action for lovers of the genre. Goodkind is not my favorite author, but not my least favorite either.