Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by secre
Soul of the Fire by Terry Goodkind
2.0
So I've been re-reading this series as I realised that I can't actually remember the later half of the series. There's possibly a reason for that as, other than Faith of the Fallen which I really enjoyed, I vaguely recall that these books get progressively worse from this point in. This book is perhaps the beginning of the end. It's the point where Goodkind decides to switch over to characters who the reader has never seen before and will never see again for huge swathes of the novel, completely disregarding the fact that the reader is only really interested in the main action.
In this case, you get the populace of Anderith; a country you haven't heard of before, but oh boy will you hear a lot about here. All of their historical background, their culture and the inequality inherent within it, their politics, the thought processes of the guys leading the show and the actions of the underclass Hakens are here in pomp and over-stated glory. This is a book that would have been far better at a fraction of the size. There is a lot of pontificating and not a lot of substance. And to make matters worse, the bits that you're actually interested in are often side-lined in favour of explaining all about these people you are never going to see again. It's pointless and a good demonstration of why verbal diarrhoea does not make for a good novel.
The really interesting bits about magic are skimmed over and it all leads to a completely unfulfilling conclusion that makes absolutely no sense and is not explained at all as to why it might actually make sense. Richard decides to do something unheard of and then does it without there being any exposition as to why this might be a good idea or why it might work. Perhaps if the entire book hadn't been full of useless exposition about things that really didn't matter at all, this would have been less frustrating. But as it stands, it's like Goodkind had all the ideas for this new world and threw them at the reader in all their naked and unedited splendour, but then couldn't be bothered to unpack the really important conclusion to the narrative. Not only that, but he never bothered to explain what the Chimes were at all, other than some brief mumbo-jumbo about them being the end of all magic. Are they a weapon? An entity? An entity attached to a weapon? Then why can they possess a chicken of all things?!
I powered through this one because I remembered loving the next book. How far I make it after that may be a test of my constitution and willpower.
In this case, you get the populace of Anderith; a country you haven't heard of before, but oh boy will you hear a lot about here. All of their historical background, their culture and the inequality inherent within it, their politics, the thought processes of the guys leading the show and the actions of the underclass Hakens are here in pomp and over-stated glory. This is a book that would have been far better at a fraction of the size. There is a lot of pontificating and not a lot of substance. And to make matters worse, the bits that you're actually interested in are often side-lined in favour of explaining all about these people you are never going to see again. It's pointless and a good demonstration of why verbal diarrhoea does not make for a good novel.
The really interesting bits about magic are skimmed over and it all leads to a completely unfulfilling conclusion that makes absolutely no sense and is not explained at all as to why it might actually make sense. Richard decides to do something unheard of and then does it without there being any exposition as to why this might be a good idea or why it might work. Perhaps if the entire book hadn't been full of useless exposition about things that really didn't matter at all, this would have been less frustrating. But as it stands, it's like Goodkind had all the ideas for this new world and threw them at the reader in all their naked and unedited splendour, but then couldn't be bothered to unpack the really important conclusion to the narrative. Not only that, but he never bothered to explain what the Chimes were at all, other than some brief mumbo-jumbo about them being the end of all magic. Are they a weapon? An entity? An entity attached to a weapon? Then why can they possess a chicken of all things?!
I powered through this one because I remembered loving the next book. How far I make it after that may be a test of my constitution and willpower.