Faith of the Fallen

Faith of the Fallen Terry Goodkind 7/10

Faith of the Fallen is the sixth or seventh in a series of fantasy books entitled "The Sword of Truth". I hadn't read any of the preceding books and was thus coming into things a little blindly, but the book was rife with detailed explanations of events that I can only imagine were covered even more specifically in the books where they originally occurred.

To be blunt, Faith of the Fallen is merely a rehash. It's a rehash of Ayn Rand and the Objectivist philosophy, only it's written by a less talented and less knowledgeable writer. I hate to be cruel for fear that Mr. Goodkind will someday stumble upon my blog and be deeply insulted, but I can only be honest. Faith of the Fallen is an obvious attempt to retell the story Rand told in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged in a new scenario. He does a fairly good job, but simply due to subject matter he'll always be compared to Rand, and it's simply not a favorable comparison.

Rand had not only a better understanding of Objectivism, she had a clearer storytelling method and a more believable set of characters and character progression. If you want to read a novel to find out about Objectivism, I would recommend any of Rand's books over Faith of the Fallen unless you had a strong predilection to the fantasy genre.

Faith of the Fallen wasn't just about it's Randian hero and his battle against the quasi-communistic "New World" forces - it had other story elements to appeal to the fantasy enthusiast. Goodkind is a master of his alternate universe, and he is skilled in portraying a believable fantasy world, and then drawing us into accepting it.

All things said, I'm generally not a fan of the fantasy genre. My review has a negative slant for this reason. My understanding is that Goodkind's Sword of Truth series appeals to a wide audience. Choose your reading appropriately.