When I first read this book, I was blown away by the wonderful writing and the beautiful ending. Then I read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and realized where quite a bit of the story came from. It's still a very lovely book, but I don't like the myriad parallels between it and Atlas Shrugged. If you want to enjoy it, make sure you read this before you read Rand's work.

I can sum up this (and most of Goodkind's other books) in 3 words: Poorly Penned Propaganda. Goodkind blatantly manipulates his characters and situations to hit the reader over the head with his poorly conceptualized and frequently callous ultra-right-wing philosophy.

Though his books are occasionally entertaining, the entertainment value is not worth the blatant propagandizing Goodkind engages in.

Possibly the best book in Terry Goodkind's sucession of amazing stories, "Faith of the Fallen" is a novel about the nobility of the human spirit and the magic of forgiveness.

"Faith of the Fallen" beings with Kahlan Amnell, Mother Confessor, laying close to death and heartbroken over the death of her unborn child. Amidst her tedious recovery, a strage who has been known to her only as "Death's Mistress" betides her lonely encampment and steals away her lover Richard Rahl.

Kahlan, more grief-stricken than ever over the evanescent time Richard and she had spent together, sets out on a quest to find him and bring him home.

In the midst of Kahlan's desperate search, Richard finds himself trapped in a distant place named the Old World: a treacherous land that upholds the teaching that human life is worth nothing; that man's duty in life is to be a slave to his fellow man; that hopes and dreams are never to be pursued.

Richard, in the heart of the Old World and in the clutches of a group called the Imperial Order, must spread the word of the greatness of the human soul, of the expounding beauty of life. His empire, his family, and his beloved's lives all hang by a thread, and it is up to Richard Rahl, leader of the great land of D'Hara, to stop the opressor holding the scissors.

Terry Goodkind has outdone himself. I havn't enjoyed a book this much since I fist read Wizzards first rule. Unfortunatly I Can't tell you much about the story line or it would ruin the book but I can tell you this much. There is more magic in this book than the last two books combined. If you liked wizzards first rule you will love his latest book. It is the best book I have read to date bar none(That includes Stephen King).