When reading Goodkind, one can expect three things: The first is abuse of women. Goodkind is obsessed with the idea of hurting women, and there is not one main female character who has not been brutally raped/beaten somewhere throughout the series. The second thing is flat chracters; Goodkind's characters truely don't have any depth. They are flat, one dimensional and completly flawless. He doesn't go indepth into what the chracters are feeling, and instead makes the evil one "completly evil", the good one "completly good" and the women "completly raped". The third thing is repetetive plot lines. The first, second, third, etc. Books all had similar plot lines. The only real difference between the plots is 1, there are more characters to get brutally raped. More "Evil" chracters who are totally unrealistic, and have no logical thought pattern, yet still are completly sain. And of course, more preeching. The bulk of the goodkind fan audiance is built mostly of fantasy readers who A) havn't read many fantasy books, or B) are very easilly minipulated. Goodkind in his books is reaching out to them, and basically saying "you are all slaves. If you don't think like me, you are ignorant, if you don't believe everything I tell you, you are ignorant, and if you don't follow me, you are a conformist idiot who knows nothing about the world and deserves to die." This book, is no exception.

When I picked up the book, I wasn't expecting much. Having read all the other books, I kind of knew what to expect, and wasn't suprised. This book in particular though, stood out to me as his most "illogical" book yet.

In Phantom, Goodkind is following up with his Chainfire plot. Chainfire the spell, has caused everyone but Richard to forget Kalhan, Richard's wife. In this book, Richard continues his search, but is confronted with another problem, the marching troops of the Emperor Jagang.

Originally, Jagang had a little bit of color to him, but in this book, Goodkind goes out of his way to make him seem like a complete personification of evil. His troops, like Jagang, have no sense of right, and are unable to do one "ethical" and right thing. Goodkind is unable to create a villain who is three dimensional, and has some sense of morality. In books like Jordan's The Wheel of Time seires, and almost anything by Guy Gavriel Kay, we see villains who have depth. Even Demandred, one of Jordan's villains who Jordan described to have once slaughtered everyone in a city because he thought they had insulted him, has some background, and some human feeling. Jagang and all the Goodkind's villains however, have none of that, and are just a hoard of zombies who are bigger stronger and have infinate numbers.

This book is by far Goodkind's goriest, and preechiest. I admit, I was atracted by his earlier writing, and his unique world building, but now everything just seems so fake and boring. I quote from the play Inherit the Wind, "All tarnish, and no substance". This book looks good on the outside (especially the cover art. Top notch work) but once you get into it, you realize you are wasting your time when there are so many other amazing books out there with much more satisfying plots (Common, 10 books in and still we havn't gotten anywhere.) out there, which for a cheaper price (All these books costs big cash I would like to add) and a better tale.

If you can read 1 book this year, make it _____. If you could read 2 books this year make it ______. If you could read 2768 books this year, make it Phantom.

But anyway, if you have gone this far, you don't need me to tell you anything. You should already know what to expect.

JBI out~