James

Well, the big battle scene with Roran was pretty good and the struggle against Galbatorix was okay. I was actually pretty excited for some good closure with this series given the fact that the book finds climax about 3/4 of the way through. Unfortunately, the story completely fell apart after that. What was Paolini thinking? Was it his goal for everybody to hate the ending? The last few hours of the audio book left me bewildered, angry, and yawning. Nothing happened in over 3 hours of audio. There is little chance I'll ever read a Christopher Paolini book again. If you read or listened to book 1 and book 2 you might as well finish but do not set your hopes very high or you will be also be disappointed.

I really enjoyed Atlas Shrugged and would recommend this story to anybody. Christopher Hurt's narraion is great but the sound quality was just terrible. I would not recommend this version of Atlas Shrugged to anybody because of the sound quality. The audio was plagued by a persistent echo in the background and by frequent pauses or strange noises in the background.

I really love the characters and the story. There is a section just before the start of the climax where it gets very preachy for a long time. It's bearable and does not detract from the story overall but I found myself waiting for that part to be over.

I was devistated when I started book 2 in this series and Sam Tsoutsouvas was replaced by Jim Bond as the narrator. I can't stand how Bond gives everybody with magic the voice of a simpleton and somehow makes Richard sound like Superman from an old cartoon show. He has done no better with book 7 and book 8. At least Bond can pronounce Kahlan correctly (ref: Book 4 narrative disaster). Can I honestly endure another book with Jim Bond narration to get back to Sam in book 10? Maybe I could, if the series it's self was not spinning out of control into garbage.

As for Terry Goodkind and this series, I have had enough. I can not stand the fact that 50% of this book is a pile of repeated social lecture and babble. I literally stopped countless times to cry out in frustration as Richard goes ON AND ON AND ON AND ON...blah blah blah blah blah. It's horrible. The story is also completely predictable and nothing gets accomplished. So I was just counting pages waiting for Kahlan to try to kill herself to save Richard just like every other book. It's pretty pathetic writing in my opinion and Goodkind is just cashing in on the first books as we're all compelled to see how it ends. Don't start this book expecting any real progress in the series. You start and finish in the same place. When the story does move it goes in circles and is frequently blocked by endless babble...kind of like this review. I've said enough.