Chainfire

“Richard Cypher, you are the true Seeker”… cue intro music

Okay…Couldn’t resist, had to put up the opening scenes for The Legend of the Seeker which is a show based off of the Sword of Truth novels.

This series is one of my absolute favorites. I was Kahlan last year for Halloween, and this year I am being a Mord’sith. That is how much I ADORE this series.

Chainfire is book 9 in the series, and still have not gotten bored of the series. Terry Goodkind weaves the perfect balance between romance, adventure, gore, and magic. Admittedly, the evil character Jangang is getting old, someone needs to kill him already, and Kahlan and Richard being separated all the time only to defy odds to be together is…tired. But still, I love it.

So in this specific book, Richard is shot with an arrow and after he wakes up he finds that no one remembers Kahlan. Initially I was all excited- OMG what happened?! Where did she go?! But then Goodkind spent the next 300-400 pages having Richard try to prove to everyone that Kahlan exists. Which was irritating, because 300-400 pages is a lot! And…Richard is the SEEKER OF TRUTH. He has saved everyone’s butts more times than I can count, why can no one ever believe him?! Just shuddup, listen, and nod your heads, because he is the Seeker of Truth gosh dang it! The truth will be sought!

But then the ball starts rolling as soon as Richard gets some tangible evidence that Kahlan isn’t a figment of his imagination, and then it isn’t possible to put the book down for the next 300-400 pages.

One criticism of Goodkind’s works that I have read is that he uses the Sword of Truth series as a vehicle for preaching his thoughts. I had never noticed this before, honestly, but in this book I did notice. We get BASHED over the head a lot. Richard and Nicci both go on rants that cover pages and pages…like 10-15 page rants about how bad Jangang is, how awful he treats women, how Kahlan is real, how reason is superior to faith…it got old. But I don’t necessarily think it is a bad thing that Goodkind goes on these rants. I honestly don’t think he does it as himself, I think he writes these huge reason vs. faith rants because it is what Richard believes. Whether Goodkind himself agrees with Richard is irrelevant, in my opinion.

I give this book five out of five stars, because even though it was slow to start, I still adored it and cannot wait to read the next book.