• The Pillars of Creation

  • Sword of Truth, Book 7
  • By: Terry Goodkind
  • Narrated by: Jim Bond
  • Length: 22 hrs and 19 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (5,759 ratings)

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The Pillars of Creation  By  cover art

The Pillars of Creation

By: Terry Goodkind
Narrated by: Jim Bond
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Publisher's summary

Tormented her entire life by inhuman voices, Jennsen seeks to end her intolerable agony. She at last discovers a way to silence the voices. For everyone else, the torment is about to begin.

Richard Rahl and his wife, Kahlan, have been reunited after their long separation, but with winter descending and the paralyzing dread of an army of annihilation occupying their homeland, they must venture deep into a strange and desolate land. Their quest turns to terror when they find themselves the helpless prey of a tireless hunter.

Exploited by those intent on domination, Jennsen finds herself drawn into the center of a violent struggle for conquest and revenge. Worse yet, she finds her will seized by dark forces more abhorrent than anything she ever envisioned. Only then does she come to realize that the voices were real.

Staggered by loss and increasingly isolated, Richard and Kahlan desperately struggle to survive. But if they are to live, they must stop the relentless, unearthly threat that comes out of the darkest night of the human soul. To do so, Richard will be called upon to face the demons stalking among the Pillars of Creation.

Epic edge: listen to more in the Sword of Truth series.
©2001 Terry Goodkind (P)2001 Brilliance Audio

What listeners say about The Pillars of Creation

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    3,427
  • 4 Stars
    1,259
  • 3 Stars
    710
  • 2 Stars
    217
  • 1 Stars
    146
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    2,780
  • 4 Stars
    1,038
  • 3 Stars
    561
  • 2 Stars
    199
  • 1 Stars
    167
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2,870
  • 4 Stars
    943
  • 3 Stars
    616
  • 2 Stars
    205
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    137

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Ruined by the Narrator

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

I think anyone that really enjoys a robotic style voice with improper inflections would really enjoy listening to this book.

What did you like best about this story?

Due to the narrator I liked the story being over best.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Jim Bond?

I think Stephen Hawkings could have read this book for us and sounded less mechanical than Jim Bond did. However, if I could have my way in the matter I would have cast almost any of the other narrators from this series...preferably Sam Tsoutsouvas, but Buck Schirner or John Kenneth would also have made it much better.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Pillars of Creation?

The scenes where Jim Bond is reading are the ones I would have cut...sadly that is the whole book.

Any additional comments?

Please Audible, I'm begging here, as a fan of audio books (many different genres) and a fan of Goodkind, please re-do the books narrated by Jim Bond, the man has no business narrating any books, but especially this series! I love the series, have read them all and was so looking forward to hearing them read, but it is more a torture, having to struggle through listening to Bond, than anything resembling a relaxing time listening to a beloved series.

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55 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Absolutely Awful So Far!

I'm about 12 hours into this book and nothing of significance has happened yet. The main character, Jennsen, acts like a complete idiot and trivial events are described in excruciating detail for no apparent reason, except maybe to make you want to pull your hair out and yell "JUST GET ON WITH IT ALREADY!" For instance, about 4 hours of the book is dedicated solely to describing Jennsen's trip to see and speak to a sorceress. The whole trip could have been adequately covered in about 10 minutes. But Goodkind makes us sit through 4 hours (about 4 days in Jennsen's timeframe) listening to graphic details of every person, tree, rock, bug, plant, flower, stream and animal Jennsen encounters or avoids while on this trip. All the while she's on this journey, Jennsen is engaged in a ridiculous and imbecilic internal dialogue about the danger she's in because she incorrectly believes that people she's never met are trying to kill her. Since the reader has presumably read all the previous books, the reader already knows, unlike Jennsen, that all of her facts and assumptions are completely wrong. Yet, we have to sit though hours and hours of her doing one stupid and unnecessary thing after another based on incorrect facts, false fear, bad assumptions and misplaced apprehension. It is extremely frustrating.

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33 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Detour!

If you know up front that the Richard,Kahlan, and the usual cast are not the main characters in "The PIllars of Creation" then the story is not dissapointing. They serve as the background story for most of the book until the last several chapters. This book centers around 2 other offspring of Darken Rahl, Jennsen and Oba. Rather then distracting from the series, these new characters expand and inrich the story. It starts off a liitle slow but worth listening to the end.

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30 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Repetitive

I have really enjoyed the series so far, but this book is really repetitive. The first 10 Chapters and the last 10 chapters tell the majority of the story. The rest of the book is Jennsen repeating what she must do, and Oba repeating how important he is, constantly reminding the reader that he likes to learn new things. However, it is interesting to see the story through new eyes other than the normal main characters.... that alone is what gives it 3 stars in my opinion. I hope the next book is better.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Very good! Back fills some questions

Answers questions like why Darken Rhal killed his un-gifted offspring. A little slow to start, but the build up will not disappoint. Forget all the naysayer's reviews here. If you have enjoyed the saga so far, you will enjoy this book too. Story develops during the time frame leading up to the end of book 6, but from a parallel perspective of other characters in the Midlands that are not in Richard's circle. Introduces two other offspring of Darken Rhal, Richard's half brother and sister. They are the main characters in this story (not Richard and Kaylan). Richard and Kaylan re-enter at the end of the story. It takes the author time to build the new characters and circumstances, and then the story takes off just like all the others thus far.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Not as good......

I have listened to the first 6 books in this series and have enjoyed most of them. Pillars, in some respects, is an interesting diversion in the series.

Learning about life in D'Hara for once, was welcome. A little less of the sadistic beating, raping, and destroying of Richard and Kahlen was a nice break. I have always found it interesting to learn about people other than the 2 main characters in this series.

However, you could tear 100 pages from anywhere in the first half of the book and you wouldn't miss a thing. Not only is there little action in this section, but there is little of anything.

Finally, my biggest complaint about this whole audio series: Would it be so hard for the reader to just reference previous recordings to get basic pronunciations right. From book to book, it seems, the person reading has a different way of pronouncing Kahlen or Drefan or Raug'Moss. It is both jarring and a chore to try to sit through a 24 hour book while the character you have come to know as Kaaylen is now Kahhhlen, for example. Very annoying.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

A wasted credit

I agree with many of the other reviewers. I feel insulted by this book. Jensen is an immature, idiotic character who takes too long undertand the simpliest things. It is as if Terry Goodkind wanted a whole novel to spout her philosphy over and over. Since the reader knows that Jensen is fooled, the agony is sitting through hours of tedium. Love the rest of the books so far.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

The Pillars of Creation

This story took a different track and introduces new characters to the ongoing saga but this does not detract from the overall story. If the reader is patient and allows the writer a chance to provide the necessary character building it gives the end of the story great depth and understanding and provides intrigue for the next segment of this story. It also fills in gaps from the previous stories and answers some questions or ideas that have lurked from the start of this adventure.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Narrator is TORTURE

The Narrator RUINED the whole experience. It's like Ned Flanders reading a scary story. Just...Noooo. Heidi-ho neighbor, I'm cracking this witch's sternum pretty good, gosh oh gee! Whatever shall I do. <<heavy sigh>> I even sped it up to 1.5x to get thru it faster. My fiance read the actual book & said it was not his fave in the series, so perhaps it's not all the narrator's fault.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Long and drawn out, but the ending made up for it

First of all, the summary for the book is way off. There is no long drawn out cat and mouse change between Jensen and Richard. Other than that, this is typical of Goodkind's latest books in the series. There is a long drawn out middle that is sometimes boring to sit through, but the ending ties it together and makes it worth it. I'll move on to the next book.

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8 people found this helpful