Product Description

The next book in the Sword of Truth series from bestselling author Terry Goodkind. Fantasy adventure on a grand scale featuring the popular wizard-hero Richard Cypher. The Sword of Truth is Terry Goodkind's wonderfully creative, seamless, and stirring epic fantasy set in a fascinating world rich in detail, history and incredible violence. Reluctant hero turned magical warrior Richard Rahl has long since learned the wizard's first rule (People are stupid and will believe almost anything) and accepted his fate. With his beloved Kahlan Amnell, the last Mother Confessor, he has battled unearthly adversaries, military foes, the Underworld, the malign and wild magic of the Old World, even the elements themselves. Now Terry Goodkind, acclaimed and superlatively gifted storyteller, delivers another thrilling novel, with all the complexity and taut characterization we've come to expect from this master of fantasy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1074760 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 2
• Binding: MP3 CD

Amazon.co.uk Review
Chainfire is the ninth book in Terry Goodkind's grimly inventive Sword of Truth fantasy saga, which began in 1994 with Wizard's First Rule.

It's a tradition of long-running drama series that sooner or later, some character will suffer from amnesia. Goodkind gives this a neat paranoid twist when everyone except our hero Lord Richard Rahl forgets the existence of his beloved wife Kahlan. The more he protests that she was real, the more his sorceress and Amazon-warrior friends nervously humour him.

Meanwhile the apocalyptic background story continues, with evil Emperor Jagang's vast, fanatical armies moving to devastate cities and countries liberated by Richard's forces. The Emperor's latest terror weapon is an invincible, unkillable, many-shaped monster whose sole purpose is to find and destroy Richard.

Additionally, something has gone badly wrong with the prophetic books--whole libraries of them--that foretell a Last Battle where only Richard can save the world. Now, with Armageddon imminent, the prophecies have developed a rash of blank pages, as though some vital person has been erased from reality ...

Tough choices confront Richard when he abandons the defence of a key city to seek out a very unreliable authority and ask what's happened to Kahlan. All he's offered is cryptic advice with a high price tag, roughly equivalent to handing over the One Ring to Gollum. And what could "Chainfire" mean?

Of course there are many exciting action set-pieces en route. That nemesis monster strikes again and again, in horrifically random ways. The top sorceress confronts an entire wizard-led Imperial army. Closely guarded boxes of doomsday magic, locked away in Richard's own impregnable palace, come under unexpected threat.

Eventually we learn what happened to Kahlan and why. But there's no final closure in this installment, and Sword of Truth fans must wait in suspense for volume ten. Goodkind continues his mixing of adventure fantasy with dark moral complexity. --David Langford

Review
Praise for Terry Goodkind: 'A real born storyteller' Anne McCaffrey 'Everything one could ask for in an epic fantasy' Publishers Weekly

About the Author
Goodkind was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, where he also attended art school, one of his many interests on the way to becoming a writer. Besides a career in wildlife art, he has been a cabinet maker, violin maker, and he has done restoration work on rare and exotic artifacts from around the world -- each with its own story to tell, he says. In 1983 Goodkind moved to the forested mountains he loves. There, in the woods near the ocean, he built the house where he and his wife, Jeri, live, and came at last to tell his own stories.

Customer Reviews

Not bad, but far from his best
It's not that this is a bad book. Far from it, in fact. It was a real page-turner, and I ran through it at a brisk pace. It just left me feeling somehow unsatisfied.

The book takes the form of a mystery. Right from the start, we are presented with the problem: that Kahlan has vanished and nobody other than Richard remembers her existence. We then follow Richard's attempts to try to find the cause of the problem, in the face of doubt and occasionally open hostility from his friends.

While a fairly decent story, it lacks the urgency and sense of wonder that characterised the earlier books in the series. It seems as if Goodkind wrote it simply for the sake of writing something, rather than because he felt he had to tell this particular tale.

There's also more of the moralising that has become a common occurrence in the series, with Richard seeming to act as a mouthpiece for Goodkind's own political and moral ideologies. If you've enjoyed those elements of the preceding books in the series, then you get to enjoy more of the same. If, like me, you find them preachy, then you have to sit through more of the same.

That said, this is a definite step up from the last couple of books of the series. The author has indicated his intentions to end the series within a couple more books, and there is an indication here, especially with the cliffhanger ending, that the last two books may see him back on form.

Overall, if you've managed to get this far through the series, then this book is definitely worth reading. On the other hand, if you gave up earlier on in the series, and want to know if Goodkind ever gets back to his brilliant best, then the answer is sadly "not yet".

And if you're new to the series, don't even think of starting here. Instead, go and check out the superb "Wizard's First Rule".

Back to what Goodkind does best
Having been disappointed with the previous two books in the Sword of Truth series (The Pillars of Creation and the Naked Empire) I approached this latest book in the series with some trepidation. However, it has to be said that this book is simply stunning. Goodkind's writing has returned to the quality it has shown in the past and his evocotive use of language has you the living the storing line and once more caring about the characters involved. The plot twists are superb and at points have you truly wondering which way the storyline is going to go and the ending and revealment of what is truly happening is well placed in the book and is truly unpredictable. If you are collecting this series then this is a definite buy, and if you are new to this series then it is well worth collecting.

terry slowly coming back to from
Firstly if you are trying to decide whether this book is worth buying, then it really depends on who you are.

If you are a new reader to the series then it will be hugely disappointing.

If you are a strong fan of the series then you will be glad that this book sees Goodkind return to some sort of form after the stagnant Pillars of Creation and Naked Empire where you felt cheated after the books hardly included the main characters and didnot move the story along.

But this book is nowhere never the peak of Goodkind; this is still disappointing compared to the first 6 books.

The basic problem is that even though the book is around 650 pages, the actual story could have easily been fitted into 300 pages. Goodkind though go overs the same points of Richard convincing people and his injurys and despair again and agian and again.

The action only picks up in the last 100 pages and you find that after 650 pages you are only given half a story with no subplots at all!

The story of Kahlan being kidnapped is so unoriginal that it really killed the book no matter what was written.

Mr Goodkind, just put Richard and Kahlan together, let the chemistry work naturally and let the story progress and have something for the readers to really get excited about. Simple. And stop trying to drag the story out, you are only killing it. You could have made this a classic series that would be remembered for generations but you are doing it no justice with your last three books. Shame.