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| Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy, Part 3 (Sword Of Truth, Book 11)
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| List Price: $29.95
www.amazon.com's Price: $29.95
Condition: New
Release Date: 2007-11-13
Average Customer Rating: 3.0
Lowest New Price: $9.55
Lowest Used Price: $3.25
| Omigod! Is it really over? Has anyone told Robert Jordan?Granted, it would be hard to tell Robert Jordan anything given his current state. Dead, that is.
But having read Confessor, I'm not really sure it's over. I was completely anti-climatic.
This is another of the fantasy series that I started reading in the early to mid 90s. I was young, full of it and unfortunately recovering from an excess of needed surgery. I started this series, Eye of the World by Jordan, Feist' s series (and a spinoff into Janny Wurts and of course George R.R. Martin.
Each had their virtues and flaws. I thought Wizard's first rule moved a bit slowly, but it was clearly a scene-setter requiring a bit more work. I wasn't terribly busy and I liked some of the layering of detail. The trouble was the same (although to a different degree) as with Jordan. The extraneous plot lines and sub characters got infernally complicated and too much ending nowhere. It was like Billy Connolly's stand up comedy which flies in eight thousand directions at once, but somehow, when you're convinced that he can't pull it al together, he does and then the show ends .. on time.
The minds that can carry complicated plots are relatively few. Most writers need an outline and it has to get more detailed as you lay out the basis of a series of books. Goodkind went in too many directions and didn't pull it back together. Certainly things change in the mind's about where a book is going. Tolkien changed the Golem when he decided to go beyond the Hobbit.
We have not seen the best part of Goodkind in a while and he needs to get back to it. The irony of this is that Legend of the Seeker on television streamlines most of the plot lines and limits the characters. In truth, some of the extra characerters are something a nuisance. Scripts for television have to be short to fit the 40 minutes between commercials. And the character's dress identifies them, i.e, Cara is the regular and the small core group is away on weekly adventures. This didn't need that much brevity, but it certainly could have used a clearer view of where it was going.
At last it's finished.
The Eye of the World and the world that Jordan created was first rate, so far. but it's hard to believe Jordan was not over the edge on some substance because the books became incoherent and at least two of them were dust balls that tried to gather the strings together and failed. Having started the series in 1990, I don't believe Jordan had any better idea of where he was. Martin and Feist wre good and both, as with other long term producers of books managed to stitch them toether in clumps of perhaps three that were a whole, But you didn't leave you wondering after book 4 when the damned thing would be over.
Obviously, there are others, but these four took me from early middle age to retirement and I was afraid some of them were going to ghouls telling me to come back because this time they really would finish. As we've seen, one way to finish a series is to die. So while I haven't read Jordan's conclusion by another wrtier, I don't have to worry about Jordon piling out more sheets of drivel.
Loved itGreat way to tie up all the loose ends I enjoyed this book but would suggest you start from the beginning to fully enjoy this series.
Where were those editors when they were so badly needed?It's difficult to say whether "Chainfire" is the opening book in a trilogy or the ninth book in the now aging "Sword of Truth" series. (By some readers' reviews, "aging" is a rather kind characterization ... many have called it tedious and repetitive). In any event, to briefly summarize, Lord Richard Rahl is the sole survivor of a battle in which a troop of soldiers is brutally massacred by an unknown and, indeed, unseen enemy capable of enormous ferocity. When Richard recovers from his near fatal wounds with the help of sorceress Nicci's use of the all but forbidden subtractive magic, he discovers that he is the only living soul who remembers his beloved wife Kahlan, the Mother Confessor. All of Richard's friends and compatriots - Cara, his Mord-Sith bodyguard, Nicci the sorceress and former Mistress of Death, Verna and Ann, joint prelates of the Sisters of the Light, Nathan the prophet, the witch woman Shiota, even wizard Zedd, Richard's beloved grandfather - are convinced that Richard has lost his reason.
Worse yet, because Richard feels he must devote what remains of his life and energy to finding his beloved wife and rescuing her from whatever fate has trapped her beyond the world's ken, he has also reached the decision to not lead his weakened D'Haran troops in a final battle against the almost limitless hordes of the advancing Emperor Jagang. He has also traded his Sword of Truth to the witch woman Shiota for one critical scrap of knowledge ... the word "Chainfire", which he will discover in his travels is the name of a long deeply hidden spell capable of literally unraveling existence itself. Without Richard's leadership and the Sword of Truth, prophesy dictates that the free world is doomed to fall to Jagang and the Keeper of Death.
"Phantom", the rather bloated and sadly repetitive second instalment of this putative trilogy is based on Richard's relentless search for his beloved Kahlan, whose very existence has been erased from the history and memory of his world. Kahlan is now in the hands of Jagang, the evil emperor (who along with a very small handful of people throughout the breadth of Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" universe is still able to see her). Richard who has also lost his command of the magical gift has fallen into the hands of the D'Haran Commander Karg. Everyone in sight is trying to locate the powerful Boxes of Orden, the only known magical counterspell to the Chainfire spell which, it is now known, is flawed and is slowly destroying all magic in the world.
"Confessor", the eleventh novel (yes, you read that correctly), at long, long last winds the series up and, to Goodkind's credit, effectively ties up all the loose ends. I don't think it will constitute a spoiler or an overwhelming surprise if potential readers know up front that it's a happily-ever-after-all's-well-that-ends-well conclusion. The slow destruction of magic by the chimes and the blood taint of the pristinely ungifted is resolved. Richard and Kahlan are re-united and the Emperor Jagang is defeated in a suitable climax. Richard, of course, has recovered his Sword of Truth. The Sisters of the Dark and the Sisters of the Light receive their just rewards. Zedd happily retires to the role of an aging wizard. Cara, indulges her realization that love is possible and so on.
I'm not sorry that I read the series nor am I sorry that it took almost a decade of waiting and reading effort to finish it. But it's a sure bet that the series would have been much more effective in half the length and with some serious editing.
As I closed the book on the final page of this monstrous series, I realized with a smile that I still enjoyed it. I haven't seen any other reviewer mention it but I also thought that Goodkind had done a pretty darn good job of creating a fantasy version of the explanation for the European medieval world being forced to suffer through the bleak, anguished period we now call the "Dark Ages". You NEVER know ... it could be the truth!
Paul Weiss
Like losing your'e first love..........All I can realy find the words to say is that after reading this eleven book series and being enchanted by many of the voices coming from this book of Kahlan, Richard, Zedd, Adie, Verna, Gratch and many more that I was sadly disapointed by the anticlimatic metaphysical garbage in the ending of bending worlds and alternate universes that flew into the books. First this series even though about magic has always been rooted firmly in reality of the harshness of life struggles and the battles of war. This book should have wiped out and annilated the Imperial order on the Azirth Plains than given them a second chance at life and the new world without magic. Even further enraging the readers is the fact that Jessen Richard's sister chooses to join the world of murders and rapists. This book series like a psychopatic boyfriend that says all the right things to get you entranced slits your'e heart in the end. After many hours of reading the dissapoint overwhelmed me as I headed to the freezer to grab the ice cream. I say skip the heartache and just buy another book instead.
Worth readingWhile the series did bog down at times with Goodkinds preaching it is still a fantastic series and well worth reading. I really liked the final book and the first 4, as anyone reading the last 3 knows, are among the best books of this genre ever written!
Product DescriptionDescending into darkness, about to be overwhelmed by evil, those people still free are powerless to stop the coming dawn of a savage new world, while Richard faces the guilt of knowing that he must let it happen. Alone, he must bear the weight of a sin he dare not confess to the one person he loves…and has lost.
Join Richard and Kahlan in the concluding novel of one of the most remarkable and memorable journeys ever written. It started with one rule, and will end with the rule of all rules, the rule unwritten, the rule unspoken since the dawn of history.
When next the sun rises, the world will be forever changed.
Read more...
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