I tend to prefer audio but Gardens of the Moon's was just bad,hard to listen to. They released a 2012 version so I took that as a sign and will be giving it another try soon.

As for Goodkind, his first book was really good and the next couple weren't bad, his middle set was absurdly preachy but the last ones were pretty decent considering he had to dig himself out of his own hole, The Omen Machine indicated he was trying to be less preachy and make some better villains. I wouldn't put him on a must read list for anyone but he does have something going on or I'd not have been able to force myself to read the book. I'm pretty sure someone could skip right from SoT 4 to 9 without missing much and it really was 5-8 that were truly bad.