La profecía de la luna roja (original 1997; edition 2004)

This is the fourth installment of the Sword of truth series and the story and my interest are still going strong. 8 books in the series to go. I will copy and paste this review into all subsequent reviews of this series, except the last, in which I will hopefully say how awesome the whole series was. ( )

This is an outing of the series back when I still found it tremendous fun. (Alas, that would not remain so, although once-fans of Sword of Truth widely disagree about when the series jumped the shark, even this novel has its detractors and there are some entertained to the end of the series.) I remember when I first picked up the book I was a bit cheesed at yet another series of obstacles placed in the way of Richard and Kahlan getting together. How long was Goodkind going to stretch it out? But Goodkind's strengths in world-building, inventive magic and memorable characters are still in play, and I was sucked in. I particularly loved Nathan as well as Cara and the other Mord-Sith in this. And the "Temple of the Winds" is itself almost a character. ( )

Out of these first four books in the series I will say that this one is my least favorite of them. I still give it a five star for it being an excellent story connected to a fantastic series but this book is where I began to find bit that I didn't like as much. I didn't like how Kahlan keeps making the same mistake, tricking Richard or lying to do something on her own and then making everything worse. However it does make her more human. She's usually a very strong woman but she was much more emotional in this book and I didn't like how it made her seem whiny. It also could have been that I listened to the audio version this time around and thus listened to a different inflection for Kahlan's dialogue than when I pictured it, reading it to myself years ago. I'm willing to leave some doubt as to it or not because of this but Kahlan didn't seem as strong as she used to be. The one other problem I came across this time around was the event of their marriages in order to get into the Temple of the Winds. It was very convenient and didn't seem to flow into the story as well as these far-fetched events usually do. But as it is explained more fully in later chapters the sense of that goes down. So, overall, not as great as the previous three books, but still high up there in my mind. I love the story, the characters, the world, etc. I will be reading Goodkind for the rest of my life. :) ( )

See review of Goodkind's "Wizards First Rule" for a review of the series. ( )

A great continuation of the Sword of Truth series! Richard, Kahlan, Zedd and their cohorts are now locked in a deadly battle with a dream walker. Richard's life is threatened by prophecy, but the prophecy does not play out as expected. A great series and a gripping read, I can't wait for the next installment. ( )