Phantom

This is book, Phantom, is number 10 of the Sword of Truth series, and as such I loved it, though I do have a bit of complaining to do.

Again we receive long rants, mostly by Nicci and Richard again. We also get a whooooole bunch of back story, as Goodkind does in all his books. I have no idea if this is a personal choice of preference of author or editor, but I hate when books do that. Please give me enough credit to assume that I have read the past 9 books in the series. Anyone picking up Phantom without reading the rest of the books deserves to be confused.

Richard was also starting to annoy me for a bit. He figures all sorts of things out with his big Seeker brain and then does nothing about the problem. Oh, scary beasty who wants to kill me and I don’t know how to stop? Does nothing to learn how to stop it. Oh the chimes corrupted magic? Figured out that they were corrupting magic, and does nothing to figure out how to fix it. Jagang is on the verge of destroying millions of people…but for 7 books Richard does almost nothing to work towards defeating Jagang. Seeker of Truth, Lord Rahl, War Wizard, Dancer with Death, lover of Kahlan Amnell, get off your butt and kick some Dream Walker ass!

I’m pretty sure without all of the recaps, rants, and Richard twiddling his fingers this trilogy could have been put into one book. One long, rantless, recapless, Richard kicking butt book.

Also, princess *ahem* QUEEN Violet is back. And torturing Rachael again, this time with a metal device that captures her tongue. Delightful. *Thunderous brows have descended to glare in Goodkind’s general direction* Richard broke her face and CUT OUT HER TONGUE. Why is she appearing again? So much unnecessary Violet hate.

This book is earns four and a half stars, because I grow a bit weary of all the ranting and recaps. Only two books left…that is if Goodkind doesn’t write another one. On to Confessor!