Spears&Buckler

I finished Terry Goodkind’s Blood of the Fold not too long ago, and I’m becoming more and more of a Sword of Truth fan with each book. Don’t panic, now! I’m not turning into one of those fans who gets all pissed off when someone says something negative about the series. It does have its faults, but I like where it’s going and Richard and Kahlan’s relationship isn’t anywhere near as annoying as it used to be. Although this could be because they were apart for most of this book.

The Sisters of the Light’s storyline continues to interest me (I’m still trying to figure out who is in which Ajah. Snicker snicker.), and it seems that they will play an even larger role in events to come. Even though I still think Richard’s rise to power and subsequent control of Aydindril and other lands was too quick and neat, it’s cool to see him in that position and I like how he is handling it.

The ending worked for me because there was a lot of action on more than one front where Big Things went down. This showed me that Mr. Goodkind’s ability to juggle different storylines is pretty good.

Now it’s time for a couple of things I didn’t care for much. On an earlier blog post, I mentioned that I liked Emperor Jagang’s introduction and that I thought he was a good villain. I still think this and he’s far and away a better one than Darken Rahl. But that introductory scene with him was his only scene! What a tease. I hope there is more with him as the series continues.

Richard’s knowledge of magic and how to use it is supposed to very limited. But it seems that he can do extremely difficult magic when he needs to, and the explanation for it is that he follows his instincts. I think this is kind of a cop-out and I don’t find it believable. But I go along with it after an eye-roll and all is well.
I’ve got three more books to read on my list before I get back to Sword of Truth and Temple of the Winds and I’m looking forward to it.
I also just finished Gerald’s Game by Stephen King in less than a week (This is quite fast for me). It had me staying up late because I couldn’t put it down and it was pretty twisted. Typical King. The guy never ceases to amaze me, with all his good books and so-forth. I almost want to come across a bad one so I’ll know that he’s human.