My Re-Read of Soul of the Fire by Terry Goodkind

Richard and Kahlan have survived many challenges that have come their way. They defeated a dark wizard twice, took on the Sisters of the Dark, and even saved the world from a plague. But their new adventure in Soul of the Fire forces them to fight their next battle without magic altogether.

Review

This was a re-read I was looking forward to because I wanted to compare my experience to so many others. For various reasons, many readers found this novel to be the one they enjoyed the least, but I remember enjoying it more than the previous two installments. Why was that?

My favorite thing about the story was Fitch’s experience. I enjoy stories of disillusionment; I think this one was well-crafted. We see the character slowly come to realize that his world is not at all what he thinks it is, and that new truth is tragic. I also love Ann’s story in this one. While the redemption story she’s involved with isn’t her own, this is again another story type I love and always enjoy. I also enjoy stories with a fair amount of political maneuvering. There was a lot of that here.

But we have to talk about the chicken in the room, starting with the literal chicken. Well, actually it’s not a chicken. 

The “chicken monster” is one of the most mocked ideas in the Sword of Truth series. And I get it. It’s a little absurd, and it’s one of those ideas that might be better in a film than in a book. I don’t find it as silly as many people do, but I get it. 

Aside from the normal issues that bother me about these books in the first quarter (the crazy amount of repetition to fill in readers just in case they skipped the previous books for some odd reason), the story had a couple of other issues that bothered me in a way it hadn’t before.

I felt as though the antagonists were comically evil at certain points. Their desire for power and certain positions were never explained, so I had a hard time relating to them. I feel as though it was a missed opportunity to make them feel more frightening than they were.

I have no idea how Richard solved the chimes. I don’t understand the magic system of the series enough for that to feel like an accomplishment. Richard just knows things sometimes, and it didn’t feel like he earned this victory. I don’t need to understand a magic system for a story to be enjoyable, but that also means solving magical problems in the way done here doesn’t make for a great climax.

But as the story came to a close, something struck me: this novel isn’t complete.

With the hindsight of having read the series before, I realized that Soul of the Fire is the first half of a longer story that includes the following volume: Faith of the Fallen. On its own, the story makes little sense. The actual story is about Richard’s journey to change the world around him. The chimes were simply a side-quest that was framed as something bigger than it actually was. This whole novel was a very long setup for the following one.

Read together, Soul of the Fire and Faith of the Fallen make more sense, and perhaps it should have been written as one volume. If you were to trim the fat of the repeated backstory and narrative padding and make the chimes take up less space as a side-quest should, this story could have been fit into one installment. Because of this, it has reaffirmed my belief that if you’ve read past the first two books, keep reading through the first six books if you want to feel you’ve got a complete story. 

Is Soul of the Fire Worth Reading?

Did I figure out why I enjoyed the story during my original read while others didn’t? I’m not sure, but I have an idea. I think it is easy to ignore what you don’t like if you like something else enough. There are elements about this story that I like, and I ignored everything else because my mind would wave it off. If you’re good at that like I am, this book won’t bother you as much as it bothers other people.

If you’re looking for a new epic fantasy world to dive into, you’re going to want to check out The Continua Chronicles.

And your first adventure is free!