The Empty Shelf Book Reviews

     Hello there, and welcome to the Empty Shelf, where we discuss and review fantasy and sci-fi series and novels. My name is Mike, and I’ll be your reader and reviewer today. As always, spoilers ahead, so tread lightly.       In the last post, we began a discussion of Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series with the first four books. Today, we’ll look at the next four: Soul of the Fire, Faith of the Fallen, Pillars of Creation, and Naked Empire. To catch you up: Richard and Kahlan have defeated Darken Rahl (a name I STILL hate,) and Richard has assumed the title of Lord Rahl. He was taken to the Palace of the Prophets in the city of Tanimura in the old world, where he learned to control his gift with the sisters of the light. After a plot is revealed, concocted by the Sisters of the dark, Richard made his escape and headed back to Aydindril where he and Kahlan tried to re-form the Midlands alliance of nations. Through the use of some unknown ancie...

       Hello there, and welcome the Empty Shelf, where we discuss and review fantasy and sci-fi series and novels. My name is Mike, and I’ll be your reader and reviewer today.  Over the next few posts, we’re going to look at the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. This is one of the more controversial series and authors that we’ll get into, and I’ll explain why in just a bit. The Sword of Truth comprises 11 novels, a prequel novella, and a prequel novel. The same characters are further explored in a few sequel series. We’re just going to focus on the original, and primary, 11 novels for this discussion.  Since there are 11 of them, and they’re not short, I’ve decided to break up the series. This episode will cover the first 4, next episode the following 4, and the final episode will cover the last three, which were conceived as a trilogy in the first place.  Now, Terry Goodkind has received a great deal of well deserved flak in recent years ...

  Greetings! and welcome to the Empty Shelf. My name is Mike, and I’ll be your reader and reviewer today.  A few quick notes before we begin. I’ve decided to increase my spoilers a little. I’m trying not to give away any major plot points, but I feel like you’ll get a better sense of the books if I get a little more in depth, and you’ll be able to better determine if a particular work is right for you. I’m hoping to keep these to about 20 minutes a piece. No promises though. I can get a bit loquacious if I’m not careful.  So, let’s get to it. Today, we’re going to discuss Legend, by David Gemmell, first published in 1984. Now, Legend was technically the first novel in Gemmell’s Drenai series, which I will be reviewing more of in the future, but I’m going to do them all separately. Why, you ask? Well, they are part of a series, but with just a few exceptions, they all follow different characters. The Drenai Series comprises 11 books, and they are further broken down into...

  Hello, and welcome to the Empty Shelf. My name is Mike, and I’ll be your reader and reviewer today. A note to the reader, Some spoilers are ahead, so listen with caution. Today, we’re going to conclude our examination of the Belgariad universe with Belgarath the Sorcerer (1995), and Polgara the Sorceress (1997), both by David and Leigh Eddings. You’ll notice the byline has changed here. Mr. Eddings enlisted his wife’s help for most of this series, and finally decided to give her credit. (That’s per his explanation in the supplemental material “The Rivan Codex.”) By the way, I have no evidence whatsoever to support this, but I get the sense these were written more or less concurrently. If anyone knows, please drop me a line. I’m reviewing these as a duology, because that’s how they feel to me.  But, I’m going to give each book a rating, then average those ratings to get a category score. Then I’ll follow the standard rating protocol. There’s a framing device in use in both of...