- ISBN13: 9780765305237
- Condition: New
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Product Description
With Wizard’s First Rule and seven subsequent masterpieces, Terry Goodkind has thrilled readers worldwide with the unique sweep of his storytelling. Now Goodkind returns with a new novel of Richard and Kahlan, the beginning of a sequence of three novels that will bring their epic story to its culmination.
After being gravely injured in battle, Richard awakes to discover Kahlan missing. To his disbelief, no one remembers the woman he is frantically trying to find. Worse, no one believes that she really exists, or that he was ever married. Alone as never before, he must find the woman he loves more than life itself….if she is even still alive. If she was ever even real.
Oscar @ 8:27 pm
“Chainfire” is the ninth novel in the “Sword of Truth” series revisiting a prevalent theme in prior volumes. The preachy writing has brief moments of interest. Other than Richard, Kahlan has been entirely erased from history, memory, and prophecy as having ever been alive. Below is my synopsis of the recurring trials of love involving Kahlan and Richard Rahl in the previous novels.
Book 1: Richard taken by Mord-Sith
Book 2: Richard taken by Sisters of the Light
Book 3: adventuring separately, doubts of love
Book 4: adventuring separately, doubts of love
Book 5: Richard and Kahlan together for first time, try to save pacifist culture
Book 6: Richard taken by Nicci
Book 8: adventuring separately, Richard poisoned by different pacifist culture
Throughout the novel, Richard behaves as a selfish lovesick bully, rudely demanding answers, constantly thinks life is meaningless without Kahlan, and contemplates suicide. A young girl begs him to save her grandfather but Richard refuses because his search for information regarding Kahlan is more important, making the girl assist him while someone else volunteers to separately help her grandfather. He is a disturbing hypocrite, preaching about living your life how you wish yet demands others help. Richard forces them to choose his bidding, indirectly removing free will with the threat of violence (not really a choice for the child). Richard constantly states the evil Imperial Order must be eradicated for wanting to destroy free will but obsesses over Kahlan and leaves others to battle Jagang’s forces. He chooses to deny a leadership role, potentially sacrificing the world, for Kahlan. As a result, the author failed to create a romantic quest while trying to have her disappearance a mystery amidst a fantasy story.
Richard verbally oppresses people, not allowing explanations whereas his remarks must be fully heard. He even yelled at and disrespected his grandfather. Furthermore, he doesn’t explain essential details nor give details of important events because his time is crucial for lecturing. The reader encounters pages of unbearably long-winded sermons that slowly illustrate a concept. The second consecutive chapter of an argument about Kahlan’s existence had nonstop speech (hardback – Chapter 14 from bottom page 153 to middle page 156) with 4 short actions (lifting an arm or jabbing finger) and 1 small out of place paragraph describing a character outfit and environment. Richard preaches the importance of fighting the Imperial Order for freedom in solid dialogue (Chapter 15 from page 165 to middle page 170) with five 2-line comments from a crowd and couple minor actions. That is a five and a half page mind-numbing speech. I haven’t read every novel let alone every fantasy novel, but that is a staggering lecture. Constantly a solid page of a repeated speech hammers a Goodkind concept into the readers. Combined with Nathan, Nicci, Shota, and Zedd speaking the same teaching manner, the lengthy dialogue becomes exceedingly boring and neglects to distinguish the characters as separate individuals. Characters behave lovesick the same, cannot live or exist without their love and will die without the person, a morbid manner.
Richard doesn’t fully understand his abilities, casting spontaneous magic. While Emperor Jagang travels with an entire army, his counterpart Lord Rahl recklessly and unrealistically travels with few companions through enemy territory. Samuel, the previous owner of the Sword of Truth, is as physically twisted and mentally obsessed as Gollum (an exact clone of a short, dark form with a pallid head, gray skin, bulging yellow eyes like twin lanterns) of “Lord of the Rings” is with a magical item.
The writing has degraded through the series. I no longer collect them in hardback and read the newer books from the library having to forego paying even though time is money. As with many readers, I will see how characters I once greatly enjoyed retire.
The book isn’t without redeeming qualities. Nathan and Zedd when not teaching philosophy are engaging individuals. Nicci has become a much-needed person in the war against the Imperial Order with her expertise. Even though she is not a war wizard, why not try teaching Richard magical skills. The final 100 pages raise the rating with creativity in characterization and magical reasoning.
Thank you.
S. P. Javier @ 9:54 pm
I have always been an avid fan of the “High” Fantasy genre, which I’ve typically associated with the exceptional works of Melanie Rawn, Robert Jordan, Stephen Donaldson, Kate Elliot, Tad Williams and their contemporaries. High Fantasy incorporates art with complicated and enriched story lines, vision and characters that hold form and personality outside of the text. An author capable of this is a rare commodity and so when they are discovered, I hold dearly to their works and diligently read and collect every volume. When Terry Goodkind came to my attention with “Wizards First Rule”, I was intrigued and thankful to add another author to my collection. He was talented and able to develop characters with a depth and substance that connected them to the reader.
I followed the story of Richard and Kahlan through their many disappointments and victories, enjoying the ever evolving relationship and the roles they each played in the government/leadership of a fractured nation. Even as the storyline began to over-run, threatening to become stagnant and bland, I stayed loyal and true. With his 9th work in this series the story, however, has evolved into something worse than bland, it has become mediocre. The story is a diatribe of philosophical gibberish that exudes existentialism with careless abandon making the volume, ironically, appear more prosaic rather than meaningful. It leaves the reader’s thirst for development/progression, un-sated with characters reduced to flat and formless entities, interchangeable and amorphous.
I have never, in all my years, ever put a book down unfinished once I’ve begun…until now. Less than one third of the way to completion, I decided that I had read enough, and decided to waste my time no more. Mr. Goodkind, in his attempts to appease the public’s thirst for more, has given them, instead, far less.
Paul Seebald @ 11:45 pm
Please read my review of Phantom for several issues I have with Goodkind’s books. I will try not to repeat myself here. However, another minor problem with how Terry is handling the plot: stop making the Imperial Order into the ultimate bad guy! I’m sorry, but even the Old World can only have so many conscience-lacking, ruthlessly hedonistic men at their disposal. Why does Jebra have to describe in yet more detail what happened in Galea (reference to Phantom)? We know what it was before, we’ve heard it in every book you’ve ever written about the Order. Rape, slaughter, mockery, derision, killing, blood, injuries, more rape. Why not throw in some incest rape in there too? Have the indoctrinated boys rape their mothers and sisters, please, because we all love reading about every new sick method of rape and murder that you can possibly come up with. Why don’t you make it as gross, disgusting and repulsive as humanly possible? And again, please stop setting it up as David versus Goliath. The Order cannot have a trillion men at their disposal, especially when there’s enough men left in Altur’rang to defend the city.
However, I am writing this to review Chainfire. Chainfire could be shortened to about 100 pages. It is amazing to me how long TG could send Richard on a wild-goose chase to find someone, just one person, who remembers Kahlan. Why is he constantly surprised at each person who doesn’t remember her? Well, Nicci and Cara don’t remember, so maybe Victor or Ishaq will! Wait, no, I guess not, maybe…Shota will! Surprise, she doesn’t either. And Terry takes about 400 pages to get Richard to that point. Not interesting at all. This book only functions as a bridge in explaining Chainfire. To save yourself several hours of life-wasting, just read the last 50 pages or so to find out what Chainfire is, then move on to the next book. The rest is completely useless writings. You could even go to Borders, read the last 50 pages in an hour or so, get up and leave so you don’t waste your money on this book.
Adam @ 2:37 am
I’m going to be honest. I like Terry Goodkind’s work, even if some elements do play off of another fantasy series. But the characters have sprung into a life of their own, and Goodkind has managed to weave the story into something fully original.
I won’t be one of the ones to say that this is his best work, because it honestly isn’t. I enjoyed Wizard’s First Rule and Faith of the Fallen much more than I did this book. But it is a good book. Goodkind has managed to take an idea seldom heard, if ever, and work it into the fabric of the reality that he has spun for all of his loyal readers. What’s more, he has managed to keep the interactions between the characters believable, even taking into account the many different plot twists.
The only downside I found to this book is that there were a few instances where I could not believe what was going on. There was also one or two instances where concepts involving prophecy left me befuddled. But despite the few bad points, it still does not diminish from the effort he has put into this. I literally read it from cover to cover in six straight hours, and was enchanted the entire time.
In short, people want to whine because it doesn’t have the few elements they’ve become accustomed to. And people want to heap praise and adulation upon a new book simply because of who wrote it. I hope I do neither. I like this book, and hope that this review will help someone enjoy it as much as I did.
Peter Townsend @ 5:04 am
I greatly anticipated Chainfire and even read all 8 prior books in preparation of reading it. Unfortunately it has left me “wanting more” and not because of the storyline. Although the last 100 pages were good, the first 500 had me continuously wanting to “skip ahead” to GET TO THE GOOD STUFF!
Terry seems to be obsessed with reiterating certain aspects of prior books. This detracts from the story and only “adds pages” without adding content. If a person is reading book #9 and has not yet read any of the prior 8 books in the SOT series, then I don’t have much compassion for those people. Figure it out!
While there were a couple good twists in this book and a few things happened that I didn’t suspect, I didn’t feel there was much continuity to the Naked Empire. Also Richard has not progressed one iota as a wizard (nor as a human being for that matter).
I guess what I wanted for this book (eg begin to show Richard’s skill and potential as a great wizard) as well as his ability to defeat Jajang on his own terms will never be realized. This book series has gotten more “preachy” as it’s gone on.
Terry are you listening? Bring back the excitement of wizardry and magic, combined with a great love story. It’s time to wrap up this plotline (with Jajang) and move on to other adventures with Richard and Kahlen.