Terry Goodkind's Chainfire is a masterpiece. All the whining about philosophy and lack of Richard's character developement is ridiculous. The deep, Ayn Rand-esque objectivism philosophy is what gives this classic series the power that it has. Without a complete understanding of Richard's view of life and moral values, this book is nothing but another sappy sword and sorcery phantasy offering, on par with the mindless drivel of piers anthony and l.e modessitt.
In Chainfire, Kahlan has gone missing, and only Richard remembers her. The entier time, even in the back of your mind, you know he'll find her, Goodkind manages to keep your worry elevated. Masterful writing brings us scenes such as the graveyard exhumtion of the mother confessor, and Richard's confrontation with Shota.
Goodkind's Intelligent handling of the mystery's explanation is well done, and is perfected by it's correlation with this book's wizard rule : contradictions cannot exist. Once again, Goodkind's artful use of Philosophy in Fantasy setting gives an already powerful book the extra punch we have come to expect from the Sword of Truth series.
One common complaint regarding this book is it's length. This is untrue. This book is not long enough. This is a serious book. A serious writer writing a serious book cannot be expected to compress his ideas into 150-200 oages merely to cater to the ever shortening attention spans of his loudmouthed minority audience.
To conclude, i say again, This book of a gem. Read this at all costs.

Goodkind continues in his downward spiral of butchering what started out as an amazing fantasy series. He DOES remember that he's writing fantasy, doesn't he? The first two books contained magical creatures, far off places, exotic peoples, and a legendary romance of adventurous and endearing love. Then Goodkind became a political commentator, and in Chainfire he seems to forget what the story is all about. He has drawn out this Jagang business for seven books already; enough is enough! Goodkind enjoys having only women surround Richard, as if there is only room in their universe for one male protagonist. He killed off Warren early on, and since then there have only been women worshipping him everywhere he goes. He's smelling Cara's hair and feeling her sweaty neck? Chainfire is all about Nicci? If he wanted to write about her then he should have written a mini novel, such as the one he wrote with a young Zedd and the making of the boundaries. Goodkind is stalling! This book is an agonzingly slow dying breath of the series because Goodkind just can't let it go.

I have been reading Terry GOodkind since my 8th grade english teacher turned me on to it. I was so excited to read this book. When I started, I was immensely upset about it. I mean No Kahlan? I frantically read the entrire book in all of three days, trying to get to the solution and resolution of the book that I thought was to be the final one in the series. I was furthermore upset to learn that Kahlan is never found, and all is not right in the world.
I think the plot is awesome. Its much different than his previous plots in which Richard and Kahlan are seperated, endure many harships, and then reunite, only to be torn apart in the next novel. This time, the stakes were a lot higher. I think it's lovely that the story isn't quite resolved because it builds the next book up. The way everything is wound up into this tight little coil of truth amazes me. How deeply everything is interconnected and how realistic, comparable to real life people the characters are inspires me to write myself. I love this book, and all books that were previously written. I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on Phantoms, due out in the Summer of 2006!