Naked Empire by Terry Goodkind.
Book 8 in the "Sword of Truth" series. Only two to go. As I suspected it might, the pace of the tale has picked up again. As I also suspected, due to publisher contract, a couple of the books that I thought were duds, could have been easily condensed into a few chapters, but b.c of the contract, were padded out to make a full novel. Not a good move, but oh well.
So we move further into the Old World, into the land of the banished. The idea that minnie13 had that the end of this series would involve the end of all magic was hinted at, and I figured, ok, that's where we're going. But Goodkind doesn't do what you think he will. No, it's not where we're going, it's where we've BEEN. Hence the banished. These are people with no spark of magic at all. An interesting idea, the way he explains it, but I still like the Temple of the Winds best.
Enter a new villain. OMG HE IS SO COOL! Nicholas the Slide. Bloody creepy. I wish that he hadn't been killed, b.c out of all the villains thus far, he was the only one who could quite easily have destroyed Jagang AND taken over the Imperial Order. In my mind, he would've been more terrifying in control of the Order than Jagang. Goodkind goes on to refer to Jagang as a thug, a brute, which we knew already, but it was good to see that the author himself doesn't have any illusions about what sort of man Jagang is.
A lot of nasty things happen to our main characters. At one point I thought Zed was eating a bowl of Adie stew, but no. Wouldn't have surprised me, though, as Goodkind tends to do that sort of thing a lot and where you least expect it. Richard is dying. Kahlan can't use her power on Nicholas the Slide. Chase, the Boundary Warden and Rachel, the little girl rescued in book one, make a come back. Everything is coming together for one final thing.
Only there's 2 more books.
So I predict the following: book 9 will be about Richard and co making their way back to D'Hara to make their last stand against the Order. Book 10 will wrap it all up.
Of course, this being Goodkind, I'm probably wrong.
Overall, though, a fucking great read. I read it in about 10 hours, b.c it is a HUGE fucker, bigger than the other books have been. Bloody good read though.
So we move further into the Old World, into the land of the banished. The idea that minnie13 had that the end of this series would involve the end of all magic was hinted at, and I figured, ok, that's where we're going. But Goodkind doesn't do what you think he will. No, it's not where we're going, it's where we've BEEN. Hence the banished. These are people with no spark of magic at all. An interesting idea, the way he explains it, but I still like the Temple of the Winds best.
Enter a new villain. OMG HE IS SO COOL! Nicholas the Slide. Bloody creepy. I wish that he hadn't been killed, b.c out of all the villains thus far, he was the only one who could quite easily have destroyed Jagang AND taken over the Imperial Order. In my mind, he would've been more terrifying in control of the Order than Jagang. Goodkind goes on to refer to Jagang as a thug, a brute, which we knew already, but it was good to see that the author himself doesn't have any illusions about what sort of man Jagang is.
A lot of nasty things happen to our main characters. At one point I thought Zed was eating a bowl of Adie stew, but no. Wouldn't have surprised me, though, as Goodkind tends to do that sort of thing a lot and where you least expect it. Richard is dying. Kahlan can't use her power on Nicholas the Slide. Chase, the Boundary Warden and Rachel, the little girl rescued in book one, make a come back. Everything is coming together for one final thing.
Only there's 2 more books.
So I predict the following: book 9 will be about Richard and co making their way back to D'Hara to make their last stand against the Order. Book 10 will wrap it all up.
Of course, this being Goodkind, I'm probably wrong.
Overall, though, a fucking great read. I read it in about 10 hours, b.c it is a HUGE fucker, bigger than the other books have been. Bloody good read though.