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[levious]

I just started the fourth book, really doubt I can continue.

 

[Salazar]

I think Goodkind has killed Salazar.

Got teaching duties all of a sudden. Had to read a bunch of novels in fairly short order.

Chapters 63-64-65

Magda again ran her fingers over the letters as Merritt stepped up beside her at the workbench. His gaze scanned the tools off to the side.

So this is where Baraccus did his Making, yeah. Yup. Uh huh.

Magda pulls out a silver box. Merritt admires it. Turns out there is a flower inside.

”It’s called a confession flower”

Magda frowned. “Really ? A Confession Flower ? Why would it be called that ?”

“Because a confession is a revelation of the truth. Truth is pure. White is pure. Thus the name”.

“That’s a lovely name, for a lovely flower”, she said as she replaced the flower and closed the lid.

“Maybe you could come watch me make something, someday”

Sexy talk.

Mags says that Merritt can have all of Baraccus’s stuff. Merritt is delighted. He looks over some of the books, and all of the blood drains from his face as he realises that these are calculations. Celestial formulae.

Merritt’s eyes filled with tears as he stared up at her. His voice broke with emotion. “Do you know how many good men have died trying to recreate these formulas ? Died making wild guesses in the dark ?”

Sounds like blaming talk, Merritt. Watch your fucken mouth.

Now he has everything he needs to complete the Sword of Truth. They can go and rescue the sorceress in the dungeons at some point, but Merritt really wants to get the Sword done. And he’ll need Mags with him. Even though she’s not gifted.

”I don’t need you to be gifted”

“Then what do you need me for ?”

“I’ll need your blood”

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Magda glanced toward the call of unseen creatures echoing out from the darkness . . . The dark shadow of Merritt behind her felt like she was being haunted by a spirit.

They’re walking out into the woods. Need lots of water, apparently, to cool the reaction from the magical transformation.

A storm is raging. A typically fucked up Goodkind storm. There is green inside the clouds.

The air smelled like rain was imminent. Magda was resigned to getting wet. She could also smell the dry pine needles matting the ground, along with the occasional balsam trees or swaths of cinnamon ferns beside the trail.

Ok, if she insists.

Merritt says she has to draw the Grace in blood.

”How much blood will it take ?”

A stupid amount. Of course.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Merritt stepped closer. He swept his hair back. Lightning cast his handsome features in stark light and black shadows.

He says Mags dun have to do this if she dun wanna.

”The Grace represents the interconnection of everything, the world of life and the world of the dead, Additive and Subtractive, as well as the spark of the gift that runs through it all.”

Much to her amazement, Magda understands what he is talking about. The reader, noble persistent reader, has no fucken clue, but we are gladdened by Magda’s quick wits.

If something goes wrong, she will be squished. Punted into the nevernever. She trusts Merritt, though. His body is amazing. His eyes, omg.

”You’re something else, Magda Searus”. He slowly shook his head. “You really are”

Merritt cuts her arm. Deep. Ow. She draws the Grace. Stars and circles and shit.

Merritt heals her arm a bit and tells her to be strong.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Welp. At least something is happening. Underway. It beats being underground with a shitty prophetess with no sense of narrative. What would be killer is if the zombie showed up and scuffed the Grace out with his zombie foot. Magda gets a sick look on her face and then her skin swells until she splits open. Merritt faints.


Bodycount: 1527.25
Sexy Times: 4

 

[mre]

WE'RE BACK. Good lawd, I was going through withdrawal.

 

[Salazar]

Chapters 66-67

Magda lay back against the log, watching the lightning flicker deep in the clouds overhead, turning them a greenish colour inside. The lightning danced from place to place, running in jumping, jagged lines as it ripped across the sky, causing a great cracking, booming sound in its wake. She could feel the deep rumble of thunder through the sandy ground. Something about that greenish colour tickled at the back of her mind, but she couldn’t seem to bring it forth

It’s the warp, yo.

She looks at Merritt, who is standing in the middle of a great-snakes-so-complex spell web. Her head feels like it is being crushed.

It felt like someone had pushed a knitting needle through her left side and taken a big stitch

The Sword of Truth has started to glow, with a pulsing yellowy greeny light.

The green that was tinting the clouds descends to ground level and is revealed as a swirling, howling composite of souls.

The air above the sword ignited with a massive jet of flame that shot upward. Even at the distance she was, the heat of it felt as if it might burn her flesh from her bones

Alas.

Black lightning, dark as death itself, crackled through all

rofl, rock and mothafuckin roll Terry.

Everything is going crazy. Merritt has his arms up and is conducting this zapping maelstrom. The Sword suddenly plunges from its magically suspended position, Magda shrieks, and the world goes from green to black.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Magda was dimly aware that she was lying on something soft. She slitted her eyes, squinting. The light hurt her eyes.

Fuck, Terry. Read these sentences back once in a while.

She is soaking wet, after being rained on while out in the woods re-enacting death-metal album covers. She’s in Merritt’s house now, though, and he walks over to her and draws the water away from her with magic.

She asks if she is dead. Merritt says nup. She came close, though.

She could only remember bits and pieces of him, bent over her. holding her head, as the rain poured down on them.

lol.

She asks if she can see/touch the Sword.

Magda laid the blade down the length of her body, feeling the satisfying weight of it against her. The hilt rested on her chest just beneath her chin.

It don’t get more phallic than this.

It felt so good holding it, knowing that they had done it, that she never wanted to let it go.

. . . . .

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank the holy spirits, the magic shit is done. Magda has levelled up.

Bodycount: 1527.25
Sexy Times: 4.5

 

[mre]

How much more is there to the book?

 

[Veelk]

Salazar, which would you say is the best Goodkind book and can you direct me to your read through of it?

 

[mre]

Salazar, which would you say is the best Goodkind book and can you direct me to your read through of it?

He's only done this for a couple of Goodkind's books.

 

[Salazar]

How much more is there to the book?

About twenty odd more "chapters", I think. The book's structure inclines me to believe that Terry wants to accommodate younger readers. Terrifyingly.

Salazar, which would you say is the best Goodkind book

The first three or four are impeccable. Hard to pick a favourite.

 

[Salazar]

Chapters 68-69-70-71

”Are you sure that you’re alright ?” Merritt asked in a quiet voice as they made their way up the broad hallway. “I know I would feel more confident in your recovery if you had gotten more rest. You’ve been through quite an ordeal”

Magda says she’s fine. Shut up, Merritt. They’re walking in the Keep, taking care not to be overheard by passing guards.

”Don’t I look fine ?” she asked.

Merritt finally smiled. “Yes you certainly do look fine”. His face reddened. “I mean, you look like you’ve regained your strength”.

Magda smiled at his look of embarrassment.

As the reader resists the urge to vomit all over their e-reading device, Magda and Merritt encounter a big, oak-tree-shaped guy, General Grundwall. He grins at them, and this puts Magda on alert: Grundwall isn’t a grinning type.

But here he was grinning as if he were at a ball and full of wine.

He congratulates her on her impending marriage to Lothain. Brilliant news.

”I’m reassured and pleased !”

Terry showing off his utterly fucking broken sense for realistic human speech.

She introduces Merritt, and asks how the search for Isidore’s murderer is going. Not good. And groups of soldiers have been torn to shreds in recent days.

Bummer. They part ways, Merritt hurrying to stay by an agitated Magda’s side.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Magda fisted her hands in fury as she marched away.

Merritt is pissed also. He asks her if she’s really going to marry Lothain. She says no you fucking gorgeous doofus of course not.

He heaved a sigh of bottled exasperation. “Where are we going, anyway ?”

To the dungeon, my pretty. They have to get to the captured sorceress.

”If they charged her with being a spy and sentenced her to death, maybe it’s because someone has a reason to want her dead. Maybe it’s to shut her up. So if that’s true and they want to shut her up, then why didn’t they just put her to death immediately after finding her guilty ?” Merritt leaned closer and arched and [sic] eyebrow. “If they want her dead, then why have they kept her alive for this long ?”

They need to get to her, clearly. But there’s a problem.

”The thing that worries me,” Magda said, “is that these dungeon guards might not necessarily be the reasonable type”

Derp. They’re just doing their jobs, you silly cow. What use is a reasonable dungeon guard.

Merritt says that killing them is an option. Magda says nup, they’re on our side. Merritt says hey maybe they’re not. Hmm. Magic won’t work in the dungeons, in any case. They’re shielded.

But AHA. The shields were created before the NEW SORCERY of the Sword of Truth was brought into being, so they won’t protect against it.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Magda’s legs hurt. She’s both physically and magically exhausted.

Before she could rest, though, they needed to get down to the dungeon. That was the prime concern. If the sorceress was still alive, they had to talk to her.

Christ, Terry. It’s as if you are breezily unaware that you can just teleport characters to where they need to be. All of this excruciatingly redundant trudging through fucken corridors: Boom. Eliminated.

There is a “stagnant stench of death” in the catacombs. There are “pots of aromatic oils” (what for ?), but the stagnant stench of death overpowers all.

Mags holds her nose and hurries through. She freezes, a shock of realisation running up her spine.

What if the zombie was, like, a zombie ?

”Yes, what if,” she said, lowering her voice, “what if the killer was one of these dead men ?”

Stands to reason.

Merritt says yar, sounds wholly plausible. And what’s even more worrying is the fact that all the magical shields in and around the Keep are designed to fend off intrusion by the living. The dead can sashay, waltz, foxtrot their way all over the joint. Bad news.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

This place had required a great deal of muscle, sweat, and effort to construct. All to confine evil. At least, that had been the original intent.

Mags can smell sweat and rat droppings.

At the bottom of the long steep descent a pair of burly men waited. They had clearly heard the visitors to the dungeon approaching. Both were shirtless and as round-shouldered and hairy as bears.

RAWR.

Mags says they’ve come to see the woman prisoner. 

One of the beary-guards says that prisoners don’t get visitors, duh.

Mags says she’s come to interrogate, not to visit. She eventually drags her hood from her face and says I’m motherfucking Magda Searus. You don’t want to fuck with me, nor with my Husband-To-Be, Lothain of the Black Eyes and Permanent Crankiness.

The guards crumble and open the door with their “beefy fingers”.

The guards say they will be outside if Mags and Merritt need any assistance. Mags says not to come in if they hear screaming, because that’s just how interrogations go, y’know.

There hanging by chains from manacles attached to the wrists of her spread arms, was a bloody, naked woman.

And the hands were attached to the wrists which were encircled by the manacles which were bolted to the chains, which by a sequence of links, proceeded upwards and so and so fucking on. Christ. Just depict, motherfucker. You don't got the skills for more than that.

---------------------------------------------------------------

That was a long and largely pointless wade through the logical and chronological molasses of Terry Goodkind’s prose, but there was at least a naked and (one can confidently, sadly, presume) raped woman at the end of it. The great pattern of the Sword of Truth narrative endures. Decent progress, I guess. Magda has established the fucking obvious: that zombie was zombie. Beefy prison guards turned out to be ludicrously kittenish.

Body Count: 1527.25
Sexy Times: 4.75

 

[Salazar]

Chapters 72-73-74-75

The woman in the center of the inner room hanging by her wrists appeared to be nearly unconscious. She barely slitted her eyelids to see in the dim greenish light from the light sphere who was entering her cell. Only her eyes moved to take in Magda and Merritt

The light from the light sphere. Wake up, Terry.

The woman is beautiful, even with blood all over her. Mags touches her face and says every ting gon be awright. Merritt affirms this, and as the woman watches silently, they look for ways to get her out of the manacles.

Magda started to turn away. “I’ll go get the right key from the guards.”

Merritt caught her arm, stopping her. “I have the right key”.

Yup yup, the Sword. Merritt draws it, with a dramatic ring of steel. The woman freaks out, but Merritt simply shatters her bonds with its magic.

Mags wraps the woman in a blanket and asks who did this to her.

She dunno. She reaches out, like a chimpanzee in captivity, and touches a teardrop rolling down Magda’s cheek. She’s terrified of the Dream Walkers, but Mags and Merritt assure her that there is a way to be safe.

With a finger, Magda lifted some of the jet black hair back off the woman’s face. “What’s your name ?”

“Naja Moon”

It was a name as exotic as the woman’s looks.

lol

Naja says that she came to the Keep because Emperor Sulachan, whom she served as a spiritist, is going to destroy the world of life.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Before Magda could ask anything else, Naja’s eyes winced closed as she endured a shudder of pain. When the stitch of agony eased up, she struggled to catch her breath as she rested, huddled in Magda’s warm embrace.

They need to get her warm. And they need to move before the dopey guards find a clue, or someone else arrives.

Naja asks about the sword. Merritt says yeah, it is pretty special isn’t it.

Naja is glad that there are good people in the Keep. She feels like the people fighting her might not be in control of their actions, though: it’s hard to tell who is genuinely evil and who is just being Dream Walked.

She keeps falling down and gasping and stuff. They need to get her fixed up.

----------------------------------------------------------

Now that the surge of excitement from being cut down from the chains was wearing off, it was clear that Naja’s strength was flagging. By the twitches of her brow, Magda could see that even though she didn’t complain, she was enduring increasingly serious waves of pain.

They wonder how to get back past the guards with a barely conscious Naja. Magda says that they should bluff their way out like they bluffed their way in.

Merritt looked more than a little skeptical.

Well, yeah. As he would.

Mags says they’ll say that Naja needs to go to Lothain for questioning. She says she’ll do the talking.

”Well, well,” the guard in front said. A depraved grin widened as he spotted Naja in Magda’s shadow. “Look who we have out here in the light”

The guard overheard them talking about bluffs and stuff. It’s a no-go.

Suddenly:

Naja had Magda’s knife.

The woman struck like lightning. The blade slashed the first guard’s throat open from the side of his neck under his right ear clean across the windpipe. Blood erupted in great throbbing gouts from a severed artery at the side of his neck. His open windpipe blew clouds of red mist as he struggled to breathe/

Fuck yeah. Naja slams the knife into the other guard’s heart.

Both guards down. Merritt is still busy drawing the Sword, lol.

”They both took turns having their way with me,” Naja said defiantly. “If I had had the time, I would not have given them the mercy of a swift death”

Well, of course not. Forcing them to sever and eat their own testicles is traditional.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Magda carefully slid the flimsy door aside just enough to peek through the small opening. At the moment she didn’t see anyone out in the passageway through the catacombs, but a few minutes earlier she had seen two wizards, deep in conversation, hurry by.

Merritt is healing Naja. She has torn leg muscles, broken bones in her feet, a serious abdominal wound. She has given the Rahl devotion, though, so Lothain & Co. can’t get at her brain.

This is just a quick fix-up, though. When they have time, she will need patient and more thorough medical attention.

Naja, when she gets up, sees all the dead bodies in the catacombs. She freaks.

Merritt says it’s ok, they’re dead. They can’t hurt you now.

Naja says no, you moron, Sulachan can make zombies. Don’t you know anything.

”Chickens can move and flop for hours after their heads are cut off. They have no heartbeat either,” Naja said, “and that doesn’t even involve magic”

These zombies make great soldiers/murderers. They don’t get tired, don’t need food, don’t need water, don’t feel pain or pity or fear. There’s something else that Sulachan can create, though - a still-living person who has been stripped of their soul. They’re more clever than zombies, but they have some of the same oomph.

---------------------------------------------------------

Pretty good stuff. Naja is weapons-capable. The zombies should come back into the story soonish. Sounds like Sulachan’s zombie army plans might be well underway.

And rape never pays. Goodkind does at least conventionally deploy a whiplashing downside to it.

Body Count: 1529.25 - oh boy did those guards have it coming.
Sexy Times: 4.75

 

[Dead Man]

How do you do this?

 

[Salazar]

How do you do this?

It'd be easier if TG reverted to his classic, rather more lush and brutal, style. These new books are pretty spartan by comparison. They're still dizzyingly stupid, but they don't venture quite as far as the earlier stuff. I mean, we are told that Lothain is evil, but vintage TG would have had him tearing a bloody path through the red light district, flamboyantly urinating on Magda's bedsheets, making prostitutes eat their underwear, scowling at children, overseeing witch/demon sexy times.

 

[The Technomancer]

“Naja Moon”

It was a name as exotic as the woman’s looks.

I fucking lost it here.

 

[Salazar]

I fucking lost it here.

The weird bit is how much Merritt and Magda insist on telling her that the guards had "no right" to rape her.

Duh.

 

[Salazar]

Chapters 76-77-78

Merritt folded his arms across his chest. “How much, exactly, do you really know about all of this ? How complete is your understanding of it ?”

Greater than yours, you fucken doofus. Show some respect.

Naja “heaves an impatient sigh” and says that she was Sulachan’s chief spiritist. She knows shit.

She says that any of the dead bodies in the catacomb could be a zombie servant of the Emperor, and that they should really consider skedaddling.

Magda had to remind herself to breathe. “Dear spirits, I never thought of that”

It’s ok girl. Our expectations of you are pretty fucken low.

Naja says that any of the wizards who pass through this place could be making zombie after zombie. What Sulachan wants to do is create a dominion that transcends the life/death paradigm. He wants it all. And he will use zombies to get it.

”They are very difficult to stop. If you cut them, they don’t bleed. If you chop off an arm, they don’t feel it and will attack with the one they have left. If you cut off their legs they will use their arms to continue to pull themselves after you”

Shades of Monty Python.

”Even then, if a disembodied arm is close, it will try to grab you, try to attach itself to your leg to slow you down, or if it manage to use the fingers to pull itself across the ground into camp at night, it might clamp on a sleeping soldier’s throat to choke them to death. But as you might expect, body pieces don’t have much of an ability to come after a person, so they aren’t nearly so serious a threat”

lol

Fire works. Wizard’s fire is especially good, but the zombies will just keep coming until the wizard runs out of magic.

Apparently, “the half people” are even worse than the zombies.

-----------------------------------------------------

These are the folks without souls. Neither dead nor alive. No connection to the mumbo-jumbo Terry talks about: The Grace, Additive versus Subtractive, all that bollocks.

They are supposedly immortal, in a sense. In a Voldemort-ish highly qualified sense. They’re kind of a husk. Vessels for Sulachan.

”He seeks to destroy the world of life as we know it, purging it of those people with souls. That would leave only the dead which he can control and the half people, who, as I said, aren’t really alive in the conventional sense. Then, the lifeless half people would rule a lifeless world”

Sulachan is one boring motherfucker.

Merritt says wow, great snakes, that’s insane.

Naja says yup. She actually helped create the magic that enables the half people to exist.

But now she’s defected, and she is a legit warrior for Truth, love, libertarian clichés.

Merritt and Magda welcome her aboard.

”Yes, we appreciate it, Naja,” Merritt said. “Your help will be invaluable. So what was the calamity you mentioned ?”

“An unexpected complexity developed in the emperor’s plan. The half people he created took to eating humans”

rofl. Zombies gonna zombie.

They want the soul that got taken away from them. They rip open other humans looking for it. When they don’t find it (cos it’s not corporeal duh), they munch the flesh anyway.

”They even suck the brains out of the skull”

Merritt realises they need to get Naja somewhere she can rest and heal up a bit.

----------------------------------------------------

They walk into the sliph’s room. The sliph is the quicksilver elemental being created to teleport folks. A guy called Quinn is there.

He has outstandingly handsome brown eyes. Magda sees wisdom in them.

He asks who Naja is. They say this is Naja. Quinn offers her some water, and Merritt says, nah, she needs more than that. She needs magic healing.

”Some things have happened” Merritt said

The sliph pops up out of its well and asks if anybody wants to travel.

Nobody does. Naja asks if she can touch the sliph, and when she does, it says that she has both sides of the magic and can travel if she wants.

Naja says that the sliph is weird - it has been fragmented in much the same way as the half people: its soul has been quarantined. Anyway, bigger business to attend to.

”There’s a lot of rush planning going on. Something big is in the works for tomorrow afternoon in the council chambers. I don’t know what but it only makes sense that it would be the naming of the new First Wizard”

Nothing they can do without more info. So just help Naja, dammit.

Quinn seems to be on their side. He’s going to fix up Naja. Merritt, meanwhile, is going to have a look at the spells that Isidore used to keep away the zombies, because they could come in handy.

”I need to do some experiments and try some things”

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Not much in the way of action, but some progress and some gloriously non-self-aware writing about the attack strategies of disembodied limbs.

Body Count: 1529.25
Sexy Times: 4.75

 

[Salazar]

Chapters 79-80-81-82

Shadow meowed and came running when Magda opened the door. The black cat rubbed against her leg, and then against Merritt. Magda leaned down and briefly scratched the cat’s back.

Cat is inhabited by someone’s spirit. Book it.

She asks if Shadow has been good. Shadow meows in the affirmative.

Merritt says she needs to eat and to rest. The sword is borrowing her life force to do its magicky things. She shows Merritt the cloth from Isidore, the one that repels zombies. He examines it, and she asks if he wants to keep it. Nar, she should have it around her just in case.

They talk about Naja.

Magda smiled at the memory of the stunning sorceress.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman that beautiful”.

Merritt’s eyes searched hers. “She’s not nearly as beautiful as you, Magda,” he said in a quiet voice that surprised her with not only the words themselves but the sincerity in his tone.

He catches himself and looks away, shamefaced. She is Baraccus’s widow, dammit.

She runs a finger along his jaw. Keyword: widow. It’s ok, big man.

Merritt leaves, awkwardly. When he does, Magda looks at herself in a mirror and sees a ragged, dirty woman. She realises Merritt was talking about inner beauty, philosophical charm. Aww.

The cat, Shadow, suddenly arches its back and hisses at summat. Magda freezes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Someone knocks. It’s Lothain.

When he strolled into the room, Lothain swept out an arm, lighting a few more of the lamps, all the better to see his bull neck, short wiry hair, and his black eyes as they fixed on her

Yes, all the better to drink in that rich physical description, Terry. We know what he fucken looks like.

He has burly guards come in and seize Mags. She struggles, but it is no use, and a bunch of women file into the room. Seamstresses, to make her wedding dress.

”You’re crazy if you think —”

Aha. Yes. Really fucken crazy. Quelle surprise, from the wizard with black eyes.

”That’s enough”, Lothain said in a dangerous tone. “It’s time you learned your place”

Lothain is probably a more than serviceable avatar of Goodkind’s gender politics.

He has a bunch of guards drag her out of the room and down a hall.

There, tied in a chair, sagged a weeping Tilly. She was a bloody mess

Damn you, Lothain. Damn you. Mags asks what is going on. Lothain explains, with quite some patience, that Tilly will be hurt further if Mags resists.

He motions to a guard, who extends Tilly’s arm and snaps it. Mags is horrified.

Lothain tells her that everyone she likes will get the same treatment. Puts her in a really difficult position, mmhmm.

”Yes, First Wizard Lothain, I accept your proposal of marriage. I’ll do it. I’ll do as you say”

But then, as she is being hauled back to her room.

In the depths of her despair, as the men were dragging Magda down the hall, in a cystal-clear instant of inspiration, it came to her.

Magda knew what she had to do.

More clearly than anything she had ever known before, Magda knew what she had to do.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

”Are you sure, Mistress ?”

The seamstresses are bothered by the blank simplicity of Magda’s requests for the design of her wedding dress.

Mags smiles and says, yup. There is power in plainness.

She feels resolute calm, determination etc. Apparently Lothain didn’t want her dress to be white, but Magda manages to bully the seamstresses into believing that he was only insisting on it not being too pure or brilliant a white.

”It’s perfect for the purpose”

“The purpose ?”

“My rebirth”

The woman blinked. The others, getting out shears and preparing all the needles and thread, shared furtive looks, but said nothing

Fucking psycho.

Lothain also wanted the dress to show a lot of cleavage, but Magda manages to persuade the seamstresses to give it a high neckline.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Lothain had told his men that they should remain in the hallway outside the apartment all night to make sure that no one went in and that she didn’t leave

Well yes, obviously.

Mags takes advantage of their fixed position and goes to a wardrobe in the bedroom, and reaches into a secret compartment. A knotted rope, aha.

Baraccus used to descend from the balcony using it, for secret meetings.

Mags lowers herself in the darkness, mildly afraid of the height but relieved that darkness shields her.

Yes, that was an entire chapter.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Relative tedium. We have movement in the plot, though. One can’t help thinking that Goodkind at his peak could have done this in the space of a few pages, with rather more blood and exposed flesh.

Body Count: 1529.50 - Tilly must be hovering at the brink.
Sexy Times: 5 - Merritt is openly champing at the bit.

 

[Salazar]

Chapters 83-84-85

Magda staggered to a stop. She put her hands on her knees as she caught her breath. Her legs ached. In fact, her whole body ached. She knew that Merritt was right about her needing rest. That inexorable requirement after giving herself over to the completion of the sword was rapidly catching up with her. Her lungs burned, making her cough

She can see where she is going because of some light reflected off clouds, and she occasionally opens her lantern to get her bearings. Rain spatters on her hood.

Ahead in the darkness, still off a ways [fucking seriously ? “off a ways” ?] on the narrow street, she saw a group of men coming toward her. They weren’t carrying any lamps, so it was hard to tell how many there were, but the bunch of them looked to be a goodly number.

Jesus fucking christ alive. Magda has metamorphosed into the slowest peasant in Dorset.

Anyway. Rape pack, surely. Molestation patrol.

Nope, they’re carrying a prisoner, using some kind of manacle/bar combo. Magda ducks around and hides from them until they pass, and she gets herself to Merritt’s house.

She calls out his name. No answer.

Suddenly . . .

And then she saw a small piece of green cloth snagged on one of the metal objects standing nearby. It was the same wool material and the exact same green color as the tunics worn by the soldiers of the prosecutor’s office [...] It was too much to be a coincidence

Terry at the peak of his imaginative powers, here. A scrap of cloth indeed.

As she ran out the door of his house, she knew only that she had to get Merritt away from those big soldiers in those green tunics

The diction and the sophistication of circumstance one would expect from a That’s Not My Truck touch-book.

-------------------------------------------------------

Magda raced down dirt alleyways, jumped fences, and cut through yards, taking a diagonal course through the city rather than take the easier but longer route along the streets [...] Once, she encountered an impassable barrier of stacked junk at the end and had to retrace her steps, going around the other side, only to be stopped by a tall fence. She managed to pull herself up and over the fence so that she didn’t have to find another route

Clever girl. The ingenuity of it all.

Her legs burn as she runs uphill to the Keep.

The Keep was immense. There were places all over the Keep where they could hide him.

He’d probably be in the dungeons though. That’s where prisoners go, innit.

She manages to intercept the guards in green tunics and, bravely, she shines the lantern on them and tells them they are surrounded.

One of them recognises her, though. A wizard.

--------------------------------------------------------

”Let him go and your lives will be spared,” she said. “You are surrounded. Do as I say or you will all die. I’ll not warn you again”

The wizard says lol no and flicks a bolt of power towards her, narrowly missing her head.

Magda can feel the magic of the sword coursing through her. Her flesh tingles.

Exquisite rage thundered through every fiber of her being

The wizard is about to throw Wizard’s Fire. Mags has to end him.

She zooms at him.

The blade won the race. With a loud crack it intercepted the side of the wizard’s skull. Fragments of bone and gore filled the night.

Magda has a kind of warrior orgasm. She whacks the top off another dude’s skull and jabs the sword through another’s heart. She is able to kill them with bizarre ease because she doesn’t fight like a soldier, duh. She chops a guy’s arms off.

Just when the last dude is charging at her, and she doesn’t think she’ll be able to stop him (for some reason - she’s the destroyer of worlds at this point), Merritt slams into him, allowing Mags to jam the sword down into his intestines. Which spill into the night air, steaming a little bit.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Good stuff. Bone fragments. Blades “intercepting” skulls. Warrior trances. Scraps of green motherfuckin cloth.

Body Count: 1541.50 - Magda went beast.
Sexy Times: 5 - Nothin.

 

[questionmark]

Ahh, you've been missed. Thought you were off a ways.

 

[Salazar]

Thought you were off a ways.

Oi c'n zee how that'm zeemed zo, gud zurr.

The new thing is coming. I have holidays, teaching, writing to do. Damn your filthy eyes, Goodkind.

I want Richard and Kahlan to suffer. This pleases me.

 

[Salazar]

Chapters 86-87-88

Mags is on her knees, clutching the sword. She looks around herself.

She sees mounds of gore. Piles of bone. Puddles of blood.

And

Merritt, in the iron collar and hand restraints, struggled to get to his feet. Once up, he rushed to stand over her, a small, proud smile lighting his face

lol. Her first massacre. Such an intimate moment. These douches really are proto-Richard&Kahlan.

She drops the sword and suddenly feels a burning pain in her stomach. The cost of the magic. Merritt can’t help, and he himself is wounded. He can’t heal himself because he has an anti-magic collar on.

Mags picks up the sword and shatters the collar.

He compliments her on her savagery. They roll the bodies off a cliff and Merritt uses magic to eliminate the leftover viscera.

She tells him Lothain is marrying her tomorrow. He goes bananas.

She explains that he was gonna break Tilly in half, so she had to pretend to accept. Nobody’s gonna believe that Lothain is a murderous jerk, even if he does have black eyes. Her plan is for Merritt to

”use me to create a Confessor”

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Merritt tilted his head toward her as his eyes narrowed. “You want me to alter you into a Confessor ?”

Yup. And quickly.

Merritt says no, plz, no. Don’t ask this of me.

He has moral qualms about turning people into weapons. Which sound fairly substantive when you put it like that. But Mags is insistent. Killing can be the right thing; killing again and again and again in a pulpy ballet of airborne hippocampus and shredded lungs can be such a good thing, such a sensible option.

Merritt says that any kids Mags has will be Confessors too. She don’t care.

But it turns out, aside from all these ethical fripperies, there is a practical bar against the procedure. Mags just isn’t strong enough. Not after all that killing and all that sword magic.

They’re gonna die. Zombies win. Zombies win.

---------------------------------------------------------

Wait, Mags says. Can’t I borrow more power from the sword ?

Merritt doesn’t seem to have a clear answer. He just feels bad and nervous about it.

Mags is determined now.

”We don’t have a choice. We have to try”

She spends about another page or two begging him while he peers out from a darkened brow.

Magda heard a rustling sound and looked up to one of the great branches of the ancient oak. There, perched in a crook on the limb, a raven ruffled its feathers.

She looked into the raven’s black eyes as it sat quietly watching her. The last time she had seen a raven had been down in the maze when the dead man had been chasing her

Spooky, but ultimately tedious. Probably just a bird.

Merritt starts basically shaking and floating inches off the ground with crackling forces of nobility and truth and reality which is the same thing as truth and rightness and goodness when you really get down to it etc and he sends tentacles of black and white magic up the length of the blade.

Which he pushes into Magda’s heart.

She let out a last scream as she died

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Important character levelling isn’t something to be sniffed at. Especially when it is achieved by means as preposterously death metal as a magic-flaming sword through the heart.

Body Count: 1542.50 - But Mags will be back.
Sexy Times: 5 - Nothin. Again.

 

[Clevinger]

Has this guy been shooting heroin next to his sword of truth?

 

[Salazar]

Has this guy been shooting heroin next to his sword of truth?

That could be his armpit. Being born without elbows is the kind of shit that might make someone turn to totalitarian-wish-fulfilment fantasy gunge.

This is the real thing, tho. You've got to be in a peculiarly contorted psychic condition to go through with a full-size tattoo homage to Richard and Kahlan.

Besides, the h is kinda indistinct. Sword of Trut.

 

[Clevinger]

Besides, the h is kinda indistinct. Sword of Trut.

"

Spoiler

y

Our life is yours alone"

 

[Salazar]

I love photographing authors. I have never met one that wasn’t incredibly intense. A number of my subjects have had a serious preoccupation with firearms. (Clancy, Parker) but they don’t usually wear them. When Terry Goodkind answered his front door, he sported a 45mm Glock on his belt. Now I am not a gun guy, and that lack of familiarity breeds a certain diffidence when they are around, so I asked if I was in peril. His look implied that the jury was out until we got to know each other. Sometimes getting along is not a choice. We talked about it later, and I couldn’t really argue with the idea that, like a cell phone, if you decide to own a gun, it doesn’t do you a lot of good sitting at home under your pillow. Terry is very smart, very focussed, and, yes, strongly opinionated … and man, he’s got some wheels.

lol

Best author in the world. Not mentally fit to be carrying a weapon. Not in the slightest.

 

[Rapstah]

Terry Goodkind lives like villains do in straight-to-VHS porn parodies of parodies of Bond films.

 

[Salazar]

Terry Goodkind lives like villains do in straight-to-VHS porn parodies of parodies of Bond films.

Very rich man by now. I'm sure he invests in dumb shit, though.

Chapters 89-90-91

People had gathered in great numbers. They crowded around the towering, polished black marble columns to each side of the gallery leading toward the council chambers and gathered beside the statues of robed figures , leaning around the people in front of them, rising up on tiptoes, all trying to see

They know Terry is going to put on a show.

The furnishings are red, to signify the blood shed in defence of the Midlands. Which sort of makes you think of Birmingham.

Mags has a blank expression as she walks past this mass of goober spectators. None of them realise she is seething with power.

a terrifying monster within

But no longer an alien monster. Now she IS the monster power.

She walks, and walks, and there are wizards and soldiers and generals standing about.

Still blank-faced.

Emotion did not play a part in truth, only reality did.

Lothain’s black eyes watch her approach. Still, nobody seems to find this demon-looking motherfucker unusual.

He steps to one side of the dais and Mags is guided to the other side. This freaks her out. She needs to be able to touch him to Confessor-zap him. Bad, bad news.

Lothain smirks.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Magda tries to chill out.

Lothain makes small talk about her dress. He is disappointed that he can’t see her boobs.

Lothain’s gaze drifted down the length of her again, at the way the dress was cut to fit every curve. the sight brought his own, unreadable thoughts behind his black eyes

An incoherent sentence about unreadable thoughts. Good going.

He smirks again, and tells the crowd that Magda was only planning to marry him in order to stab him in the night. She is a traitor. And, to boot, she is responsible for all the murders at the Keep.

That’s a big fucking call. But the crowd are rapt.

”You accuse me of treason because I was seen outside at night ? Where is your proof of such a charge !” Magda called across the dais

Lothain’s guards haul Tilly out on stage. She is totally busted up.

Mags, distraught, tells Tilly to back Lothain up. Not to throw her life away trying to defend Mags.

”The truth has value” Tilly whispered

lol, even in this moment of utter trauma, she gibbers the Goodkind mantra

She confesses. Lothain says there is nothing to do but execute them both.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Some in the crowd lifted fists, shouting their anger that this was the source of the mysterious murders, the war going so poorly, and all their other troubles, echoing the sentiment that both Tilly and Magda should be executed immediately

lol, what a fucken rabble. Some among them just look nervous. Probably the ones clued in to the fact that black eyed sorcerers slaying people is a deficient form of judicial practice.

Elder Cadell asks Lothain why Magda would do such things.

Lothain says that his success as a prosecutor was harming Magda’s longer-term schemes to seize power. She needed to end him. He knows she can seem innocent, but her heart is darkest evil.

Mags holds up a ring that Merritt gave her. It has a Grace on it - some kind of magical symbol. She tells the rabble that if Lothain’s plans succeed, there will be no afterlife for them.

Lothain demands to see the ring. Mags refuses. He asks why Merritt would give it to her.

”Because I am a champion of truth”

“Champion of truth ? You’re a nobody !”

He reaches out for her again and this is a big mistake. Confessor power. Boom.

It was a dead silent, pristine instant of the ignition of a fierce new power unleashed into the world for the first time

A kind of magic thunder knocks back everyone around them. Lothain, mind evacuated, drops to his knees and begs to be commanded. Weakling.

Merritt pops up from somewhere - he was supposed to be imprisoned - and zaps power at two guards.

Both men disintegrated in blackened bits of flesh and bone. As they hit the floor, unrecognizable, gooey, sooty fragments spilled out from their uniforms and across the floor in the direction they had been running. There was nothing recognizable left. The air smelled of burned flesh and hair.

Just lol. Gooey sooty fragments. Unrecognisable stuff that you couldn’t recognise.

Merrit whips the sword around and explodes more dudes into a fog of blood.

Magda orders Lothain to tell the guards to back down before they are all reduced to gooey soot.

Elder Cadell asks Magda what on earth is going on.

She says Lothain is about to confess.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Pretty good. Not a full-scale slaughter, but we’re getting there. Some of the rabble deserve to get turned to goo. Richard would have ended them - “there is no place for reality-deniers in the kingdom I plan to build” etc. But Merritt is only proto-Richard. Still learning his trade. Lothain - c’mon son. Poor.

Body Count: 1546.50 - Chalk off the resurrected Magda. Add five dudes to Merritt's tally.
Sexy Times: 5 - Nothin. Utterly dry.

 

[Tim the Wiz]

Terry Goodkind lives like villains do in straight-to-VHS porn parodies of parodies of Bond films.

Ha, perfect.

 

[Salazar]

Chapters 92-93-94-95

”Now”, Magda said to Lothain as a winded Merritt joined her at her side. “I want you to tell everyone here who you are loyal to.”

The crowd, never having seen the likes of such an event and not understanding what was really going on, inched closer.

Indeed. Guards getting liquefied and having their skulls exploded into fluff and goo is pretty damned special.

As Mags looks down at Lothain, she sees him as a weakling. He had once seemed a bull of a man, but there’s just nothing there anymore.

He says he is loyal to Mags. lol. Wrong question. She tries again. Who was he loyal to before she zapped him.

SULACHAN.

The crowd gasps.

One of the wizards in the crowd asks what is going on. How can Lothain be a spy (I dunno why that is so implausible) and how is Mags making him do this ?

Mags introduces Merritt as a Maker. She tells em that he has made her into a magic thing.

”In part, I used the calculations for a seventh-level breach” Merritt explained with casual finality.

Eyebrows around the room lifted. Wizards shared grim looks.

lol. What the fuck is “casual finality” ?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Naja pops up. She’s mad at Lothain. Her magic is simmering, too.

Mags tells her not to waste Lothain yet - get more info/confession out of him. She tells Lothain to inform the crowd about Naja.

He says, loud enough for everyone to hear, that she is a defector from the Old World. Sulachan’s spiritist. He lets slip about the reanimating corpses stuff, the zombies and the half-people.

Cries of terror break out, understandably.

Lothain begs for forgiveness. She tells him to shut up.

But wait.

”Are there dream walkers here, now, secretly hiding in people’s minds, watching us right now ?”

“Yes, Mistress”

She hadn’t considered that.

lmao

A possessed dude charges towards Lothain, clawed hands outstretched. Merritt blasts him and soldiers drag the body away.

Then wizards in the crowd start to shriek, blood running from their eyes and ears.

They began choking on blood and coughing it out in thick gobs

Hype. Magda howls for everyone to give the Rahl devotion to protect their minds.

A good many people did as she had commanded.

“How can such a thing be possible” one of the confused-looking wizards asked. “There’s no way for a remote bond to accomplish something like that”

“Yes there is !” Merritt answered. I know because I helped him create it. Just as a dream walker can function remotely, so can the bond to Lord Rahl. I know because I ran the integrity check myself, from inside the verification web”.

Christ. Shut the fuck up you CSI gabbling cockhead.

Eventually, everyone in the room gets down on their knees and gibbers obeisance to Master Rahl.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

”I’m afraid”, Magda told the people who were now more than eager to hear what else she might reveal, “that besides the dream walkers there are other dangers among us here at the Keep”

yup yup.

She turns to Lothain and tells him to snitch on his co-conspirators.

A number of folks try to slip out of the chamber at this point, but the guards stop em.

Lothain names a whole bunch of dudes. Wizards, guards, soldiers, random underling filth.

He confesses to animating corpses and sending them on assassination missions. The crowd surges forward, wanting to tear him apart themselves.

He incriminates Weston and Guymer, dross councilmen.

They protest, chins wobbling.

”Anyone else ?” she asked Lothain

As he raises his arm to point [WHY NOT JUST FUCKEN TALK], Elder Cadell flings out his arms and a ball of liquid flame shoots across the room.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Merritt dives on Magda, and their friends manage to scatter.

Lothain is not so lucky. He is still kneeling there like a goober.

unrecognizable burning black mass

Elder Cadell is squealing about Mags being a traitor and needing to be arrested.

”This sham of a Confessor power is an evil contrivance of an unscrupulous wizard meant to thwart the common good and control our lives !”

Councilman Sadler shuts him the fuck up with a close-range burst of power.

The elder staggered back a step, his hands clawing as his flesh blackened and boiled. he only had time to let out the briefest of cries before his shriveling flesh melted and sloughed away, leaving the top of his skull exposed. His eye sockets opened up as his eyes liquefied. His shriveled lips fell away, revealing a skeletal grin.

Elder Cadell collapsed dead across the council desk, a smoking corpse

Yeah, the “dead” part was kind of a given after all that melting.

Some of the other councilmen come forward and apologise to Mags for all the trouble. She is going to have to use Weston and Guymer as Confessor puppets to find out who she can trust and who she still needs to obliterate.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Decent. Still not enough killing and not enough cascading speechifying about reality and truth and the immaculate wisdom of mass slaughter, but Terry seems wonderfully fond of fire now. He’s traditionally been a man for swords thwacking into skulls and releasing a sort of slow-motion brain jelly, but this melting shit is fairly promising if he can get back into the old descriptive groove. Vale Lothain, underperforming villain. Didn’t even get sexually close to Magda. Should have eliminated Merritt long before this point, and should have stepped up zombie production to have them READY TO GO. Sulachan must be pissed.

Body Count: 1549.50 - Presuming the wizards in the crowd survived coughing up some gobs of blood.
Sexy Times: 5 - Nothin. Catastrophic disappointment in this respect.

 

[t-ramp]

Wow, this is quite the thread. Good work. I quit reading the series once the philosophy became suffocating, not sure how many books in that was.

 

[Shiv47]

I can only browse this thread so often because of, well, the pain from Goodkind's shitty writing, but I salute you, OP, for the effort.

 

[Salazar]

Wow, this is quite the thread. Good work. I quit reading the series once the philosophy became suffocating, not sure how many books in that was.

Faith of the Fallen was just completely fucken ideologically bananas. I would imagine that a fair amount of readers retreated from the series around that stage, muttering to themselves "where's Gratch ?" and "what happened to the Night Wisps ?"

Chapters 96-97-98-99-100

Councilman Clay watched as he two treasonous councilmen were led away. “At least Magda can use her power on them and discover if anyone else is involved”

Yup. Magda knew all along that Lothain was a piece of shit, but she is reeling a bit from the fact that Cadell was evil.

She asks Naja, exotic Naja, to tell folks what Sulachan has in store. Her knees buckle just as Naja is about to speak, and she takes a seat.

Afterwards, she rises and says

”When you hear the words ‘tyranny of magic’ as we heard from Elder Cadell, you will know that it is the calling card of killers. Don’t be fooled by their platitudes that it is for the common good. Their real purpose is to strip us of our abilities so that they may more easily conquer and rule us”

Man, this shit sounds uncannily, laboriously like anti-gun-control polemic.

She says they have to beat Sulachan or the universe is finished.

The crowd cheers.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

”The first thing we need to do” Magda said when the crowd had finally quieted, “is to seal the catacombs”

Sadler says “but the wizards work down there”

Magda patiently explains that there are fucken zombies down there ready to eat flesh.

Some douche called Councilman Hambrook protests that it is a sacred and traditionally meaningful place. Maybe they could just remove the dangerous dead bodies.

Magda looks at him like he has thrown up all over himself.

No. Dickheads. Listen up. The catacombs get sealed.

Councilman Hambrook sighed in resignation. “I have to admit, that makes sense. I wouldn’t want to risk loved ones”

duh.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Magda and Merritt made their way from the walkway around the inside of the great tower and into the stone room with the sliph’s well, Quinn heard their footsteps and looked back over his shoulder. Seeing who it was, he set down his pen and stood. Smiling, eager to see them, he flipped his journal closed and put it back with all the others.

Terry now takes whole paragraphs to describe the most brief and tedious actions.

A night has passed in between chapters, apparently. Magda is well rested. General Grundwall has arrested most of Lothain’s henchmen.

Apparently, Weston and Guymer had used the sliph to travel to meet with Sulachan. This makes Quinn, the sliph’s guard, mad. It also potentially makes him a bit negligent, but never mind.

There is a new security protocol being put in place. Anyone who wants to enter the Keep will have to drop to their knees and utter the Rahl devotion. To make sure they’re not being dreamwalked. Quinn has sent a message to Lord Rahl, too, telling him to come back as soon as he can.

”Quinn” Magda said, gathering her thoughts to move on to the reason for coming down to the sliph’s room in the first place, “Merritt and I need to tell you about some important matters”

Secret important matters. Mmm.

-----------------------------------------------------

”Baraccus left the formulas for Merritt to find” Magda told him. “With the calculations he needed, Merritt was able to complete the key”

Quinn stared at her. “The key to the power of Or- Or-” he stammered.

“Orden” Merritt finished.

Great snakes, says Quinn. The key is the sword ?

Yup. But he can’t tell anyone. Because the Boxes of Orden (which the key unlocks, I guess) have been stolen by someone. From the Temple of the Winds.

They dunno who. Probably Sulachan, tho. So they need to hide the key.

”Hide it ?” Quinn shook a finger at the sword on Merritt’s hip. “Bags, Merritt ! You’re wearing the thing in plain sight !”

Bags, lol.

Merritt says that he is being clever by being so open about the sword.

Merritt smiled. “Magda named it the Sword of Truth, so that’s what it will be—a tool, a weapon in its own right, as its own end. It has powerful magic designed around truth in order to protect the power of Orden, not just unlock it, so it will have a purpose—seeking truth—that will give it a purpose, a life of its own, a reason to explain its existence”

A purpose that will give it a purpose. Right.

So people won’t guess that it is the key to magicky things. And if they don’t find the boxes, they’ll just keep passing down the sword to noble folks who seek truth (lol), so that they will always be in possession of the key.

They also want Quinn to create a false key, a diversion.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Merritt waggled the journal. “We’ll hint at it in books of magic, information, records and history. That’s how I came to the belief that the key had to be a sword. You’re always recording history of the Keep. You need to create a false history, for the false key. Create a better idea of what the key should be, one that makes more sense to people, so that they believe in the diversion we create”

Quinn nodded thoughtfully. “Wizard’s First Rule”

So Quinn is going to write bullshit to lead villains astray. A book of fake instructions about gaining the power of Orden.

“You could even call it that”, Merritt said. “Name it Shadows, or something”

“That’s too simple” Magda said. “Sounds like my cat’s name. It would work better as a diversion if it sounded like it functioned as a key. LIke it contained methods for unlocking answers. It needs a more mysterious title”

Quinn frowned. “Like what ?”

Magda thought for a moment. It came to her, then.

“How about The Book of Counted Shadows ?”

How the fuck does that sound like it contains methods for unlocking answers. Christ alive.

Anyway, they love it. Wow Magda, you are the best.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just filth. Drivel. At least Richard Rahl is a crazy-eyed war wizard. Merritt is a fucking menswear catalogue escapee.

Body Count: 1549.50 - They're done. Probably some executions pending, but no dramatic killing left to do, it seems.
Sexy Times: 5 - Shameful lack of any libido.

 

[Clevinger]

Bags, lol.

Is that a common expression in the series, or did Terry just think that gem up?

 

[magnificent83]

Lol, thanks for the summaries and sparing us having to crack another goodkind book open, Salazar.

If i remember correctly, Zedd used to say it quite a bit

 

[Lee Chaolan]

Just chiming in here, Did anyone here like The Legend of the Seeker? I knew it varied from the Books quite a lot, but still very much enjoyed it but never read any of the books.

Just got Wizard's First Rule in the mail! Looking forward to a lot of reading.

Love the cosplay photos. Always wanted to cosplay Richard myself sometime. A friend of mine met both Craigs from the show, said they were amazing.

 

[Salazar]

Facing intense online criticisms against his insensitive posting of a quote from American fantasy writer, Terry Goodkind, PAP MP Zainudin Nordin has apologized to the public.

In an e-mail reply to The Straits Times yesterday (10 May), Mr Zainudin said he had been sharing quotes he found interesting on his Facebook. Mr Goodkind’s quote was, in his view, “provocative” but also delivered a clear message that democracy operates on the principle of majority rule, “whether or not the choice of the majority is morally right or supports the overall good”.

“My only intent was to present my view that each individual has a choice and each decision comes with tremendous responsibilities. Hence, to follow a majority mob might be democracy, but it is democracy in its basest form. As a part of the quote says, and I agree: ‘Democracy in and of itself is not necessarily good,’” he said.

“I hope that Netizens will see the quote its in entirety. I never for a moment intended to offend anyone and I apologise sincerely for the unintended offence which the posting has caused.”

Mr Zainudin, the MP of Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC posted the controversial quote on his Facebook page on Monday (6 May) (‘MP Zainudin posts controversial quotation on Facebook: ‘Gang rape is democracy in action’‘).

Mr Goodkind was essentially saying that democratic rule could result in the tyranny of the majority and sanctify mob rule, suppressing the minority and their individual rights. However, in his comment, Mr Goodkind used the extreme example of gang rape to illustrate his point of the tyranny of the majority. He said, “Gang rape, after all, is democracy in action.”

Mr Goodkind made the comment during an interview in which he criticised America’s attempt to “enforce democracy” in Iraq.

However, many netizens, especially women, took offence to Mr Zainudin using a quote mentioning “gang rape”

Oh man.

 

[Salazar]

The Third Kingdom is available for pre-order, yo.

August 20.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0765335999/?tag=neogaf0e-20

Hype excerpt.

Richard saw the point of a sword blade sticking out from between the man’s shoulder blades. He spun back toward Richard after throwing the woman out the opening , ready to attack. It seemed impossible, but the man looked unaffected by the blade that had impaled him through the chest.

It was then, in the weak light from the fire pit off to the side, that Richard got his first good look at the killer.

Three knives were buried up to their brass cross-guards in the man’s chest. Only the handles were showing. Richard saw, too, the broken end of a sword blade jutting out from the center of the man’s chest. The point of that same blade stuck out from the man’s back.

Richard recognized the knife handles. All three were the style carried by the men of the First File.

He looked from those blades that should have killed the big man, up into his face.

That was when he realized the true horror of the situation, and the reason for the unbearable stench of death.

How did this motherfucker get impaled two ways by the same sword ?

Review puffs of shame. I ain't read the book yet, but this is some bullshit.

“Outstanding…Characters who actually behave like adults. Highly recommended.”
¾San Diego Union-Tribune

“Goodkind’s greatest triumph: the ability to introduce instantly identifiable characters. His heroes, like us, are not perfect. Instead, each is flawed in ways that strengthen, rather than weaken their impact.”
¾SFX

“Few writers have Goodkind’s power of creation.”
¾Publishing News

“Teeming with violence, treachery, and intrigue.”
¾Publishers Weekly

“Eminently readable.”
¾Booklist

“A tour de force of mesmerizing storytelling.”
¾RT Book Reviews

 

[Clevinger]

brilliant as always, terry

edit: the San Diego Union-Tribune agrees!

 

[Salazar]

The bloodthirsty Jit is dead, and against all odds Richard and Kahlan have survived. But a new menace has attacked them in the Dark Lands. Infected with the essence of death itself, robbed of his power as a war wizard, Richard must race against time to uncover and stop the infernal conspiracy assembling itself behind the wall far to the north. His friends and allies are already captives of this fell combination, and Kahlan, also touched by death′s power, will die completely if Richard fails.

Bereft of magic, Richard has only his sword, his wits, his capacity for insight - and an extraordinary companion, the young Samantha, a healer just coming into her powers.

So much to love in that synopsis. Infected with the essence of death itself. The infernal conspiracy which ASSEMBLES ITSELF. An unspecified "fell combination". Richard being brutally nerfed yet again.

You would assume, naively, that "the essence of death itself" would kill you straight up. It doesn't sound like a regular fever.

 

[Clevinger]

So much to love in that synopsis. Infected with the essence of death itself. The infernal conspiracy which ASSEMBLES ITSELF. An unspecified "fell combination". Richard being brutally nerfed yet again.

You would assume, naively, that "the essence of death itself" would kill you straight up. It doesn't sound like a regular fever.

and Kahlan, also touched by death′s power, will die completely if Richard fails.

As opposed to just dying partially if Richard fails.

 

[Salazar]

As opposed to just dying partially if Richard fails.

Huh. Shakespeare writes in Henry V of the fallen French horse kicking out with their spurs at the slain, "killing them twice" - and what he seems to mean is that there is a second death in indignity.

But I think Terry is just confused, rather than engaged in some kind of deliberate conceptual fuzziness.

I do hope there is a properly functioning wizard going around in this book. Zedd should be able to roast bitches. Don't put him in force-fields where he can't do shit.

 

[Keen]

As opposed to just dying partially if Richard fails.

Well, she's been almost partially raped numerous times. Maybe it's like that.

 

[ComputerMKII]

He's still writing about Richard and Kahlan? I've found the first two books entertaining but I quit out of boredom halfway into the fourth one (and because of the Dragon Ball Z effect, in which there always comes an even stronger bad guy). All I was interested in at that point was the porn scenes and I couldn't be arsed to find them.

 

[Salazar]

He's still writing about Richard and Kahlan?

As long as he recognises that he is an engaging (if incompetent) writer of disconnected, vivid and violent scenes, and not even a remotely decent writer of protracted psychological thriller prose.

Don't bother joining up the explosions of crunched skull fragments and gut-flesh. Just pump out the morally justified slaughter. Put Richard at the centre of a howling mob of peace protesters, switch on his mass murdering righteousness, and observe the splashy, whumping spectacle of him cutting his way free.

"YOU CHOSE DEATH", Richard grunted as he tried to lever the Sword of Truth from some unfortunate's spinal column. "PEACE IS SURRENDER, AND IF YOU SURRENDER TO MY ENEMIES YOU BECOME MY FOE". He cut. Cut again. Cut thrice. Wiped gore from his eyes.

 

[mre]

As opposed to just dying partially if Richard fails.

What... You've never seen the Princess Bride?

 

[Salazar]

What... You've never seen the Princess Bride?

Terry would deny knowledge of its existence.

“We should eat them now, before they die and go bad,” a gruff voice said.
Richard was only distantly aware of the low buzz of voices. Still only half conscious, he wasn’t able to figure out who was talking, much less make sense of what they were talking about, but he was aware enough to be disturbed by their predatory tone.

“I think we should trade them,” a second man said as he tightened the knot in the rope he had looped around Richard’s ankles.

“Trade them?” the first asked in a heated voice. “Look at the bloody blankets they were wrapped in and the blood all over the floor of the wagon. They’d likely die before we could ever trade them, and then they’d go to waste. Besides, how could we carry them both? The horses for their soldiers and the wagon are all gone, along with anything else of value.”

The second man let out an unhappy sigh. “Then we should eat the big one before anyone else shows up. We could carry the smaller one easier and then trade her.”
“Or save her and eat her later.”
“We’d be better off trading her. When else would we ever get a chance like this to get as much as she would fetch?”

As the two men argued, Richard tried to reach out to the side to touch Kahlan lying close up against him, but he couldn’t. He realized that his wrists were bound tightly together with a coarse rope. He instead pushed at her with his elbow. She didn’t respond.
Richard knew that he needed to do something, but he also knew that he would first need to summon not just his senses, but his strength, or he would have no chance. He felt worse than weak. He felt feverish with an inner sickness that had not only drained his strength but left his mind in a numb fog.

He lifted his head a little and squinted in the dim light, trying to see, trying to get his bearings, but he couldn’t really make out much of anything. When his head pushed up against something, he realized that he and Kahlan were covered with a stiff tarp. Out under the bottom edge he could see a pair of vague, dark silhouettesNo shit. That's how silhouettes work at the end of the wagon beyond his feet. One man stepped closer and lifted the bottom of the tarp while the other looped a rope around Kahlan’s ankles and tied it tight, the way they had done with Richard.

Through that opening Richard could see that it was night. The full moon was up, but its light had a muted quality to it that told him the sky was overcast. A slow drizzle drifted through the still air. Beyond the two figures a murky wall of spruce trees rose up out of sight.

Kahlan didn’t move when Richard pushed his elbow a little more forcefully against her ribs. Her hands, like his, lay nested at her belt line. His worry about what might be wrong with her had him struggling to gather his senses. He could see that she was at least breathing, although each slow breath was shallow.

As he gradually regained consciousness, Richard realized that besides feeling weak with fever of some sort, he hurt all over from hundreds of small wounds.Hundreds ? Are you sure ? A body only has so much goddamn skin. Some of them still oozed blood. He could see that Kahlan was covered with the same kinds of cuts and puncture wounds. Her clothes were soaked in blood.

But it was not only the blood on the two of them that worried him. Damp air rolling in under the tarp carried an even heavier smell of blood from out beyond the men. There had been people with them, people who had come to help them. His level of alarm rose past his ability to gather his strength.

Richard could feel the lingering effects of being healed, and he recognized the shadowy touch of the woman who had been healing him, but since he still ached from cuts and bruises, he knew that while the healing had been started, it hadn’t gone beyond that start, much less been completed.

He wondered why.
On his other side, the side away from Kahlan, he heard something missing verb dragged across the floor of the wagon.

“Look at this,” the man with the gruff voice said as he pulled it out. For the first time, Richard could see the size of the man’s muscled arms as he reached in and lifted the object he had dragged closer.
The other man let out a low whistle. “How could they have missed that? For that matter, how could they have missed these two?”
The bigger man glanced around. “Messy as everything looks, it must have been the Shun-tuk.”
The other’s voice lowered with sudden concern. “Shun-tuk? You really think so?”
“From what I know of their ways, I’d say it was them.”
“What would the Shun-tuk be doing out here?”
The big man leaned toward his companion. “Same as us. Hunting for those with souls.”
“This far from their homeland? That seems unlikely.”Shades of Monty Python carrier pigeon dialogue
“With the barrier wall now breached, what better place to hunt for people with souls? The Shun-tuk would go anywhere, do anything, to find such people. Same as us.” He lifted an arm around in a quick gesture. “We came out to hunt these new lands, didn’t we? So would the Shun-tuk.”
“But they have a vast domain. Are you sure they would venture out?”
“Their domain may be vast and they may be powerful, but the thing they want most they don’t have. With the barrier wall breached they can hunt for it, now, the same as us, the same as others.”
The other man’s gaze darted about. “Even so, their domain is distant. Do you really think it could be them? This far out from their homeland?”
“I’ve never encountered the Shun-tuk myself, and I hope not to.” The big man raked his thick fingers back through his wet, stringy hair as he scanned the dark line of trees. “But I’ve heard that they hunt other half people just for the practice until they can find those with souls.
“This looks like their way. They usually hunt at night. With prey out in the open like this, they strike fast and hard with overwhelming numbers. Before anyone has time to see them coming, or to react, it’s over. They usually eat some of those they fall upon, but they take most for later.”
“Then what about these two? Why would they leave them?”
“They wouldn’t. In their rush to eat some of those they captured and to take the rest back with them, they must have missed these two hidden under the tarp.”
The smaller man picked at a splinter at the end of the wagon bed for a moment as he carefully scanned the countryside. “I hear it told that Shun-tuk often come back to check for returning stragglers.”
“You heard true.”
“Then we should be away from here in case they come back. Once they are overcome with the blood lust, they would devour us without hesitation.”
Richard felt powerful fingers grip his ankle. “I thought you wanted to eat this one before he dies and his soul can leave him.”
The other man took hold of Richard’s other ankle. “Maybe we should take him to a safe place, first, where the Shun-tuk wouldn’t be so likely to come across us and interfere. I would hate to be surprised once we get started. We can get a good price for the other. There be those who would pay anything for one with a soul. Even the Shun-tuk would bargain for such a person.”
“That’s a dangerous idea.” He thought it over briefly. “But you’re right, the Shun-tuk would pay a fortune.” The wolfish hunger was back in the bigger man’s voice. “This one, though, is mine.”
Lol, these motherfuckers are gonna write a book about the Shun-tuk before we get anywhere
“There’s plenty for both of us.”
The other grunted. He seemed already lost in private cravings. “But only one soul.”
“It belongs to the one who devours it.”
“Enough talk,” the big man growled. “I want at him.”Homoeroticism siren

As Richard was dragged out of the wagon, he was still struggling to gather his wits in order to make some kind of sense of the strange things he was hearing. He remembered well the warnings about the dangers of the Dark Lands. He was aware enough to realize that for the moment his life depended on not letting the two men know that he was beginning to come around.

As he was swiftly dragged by his ankles clear of the wagon bed, his upper body dropped to the ground. Even though he tried to round his shoulders, with his hands tied he couldn’t use them or his arms effectively to keep his head from whacking the rocky ground. The pain was shockingly sharp, followed by an enveloping, inviting blackness that he knew would be fatal if he couldn’t fight it off.

He focused on the surroundings, looking for an escape route, to try to keep his mind engaged. From what he was able to see in the murky moonlight, the wagon sat alone and desolate in the wilderness. The horses were gone.

While he didn’t see anyone else about, he did spot bones nearby. The bones were not bleached by weather, but stained dark with dried blood and bits of flesh. He could see gouges where teeth tried to scrape every bit of tissue from the bones.I thought it was murky and dark. How can he see this shit ?
The bones were human.

He recognized, too, shreds of uniforms. They were the uniforms of the First File, his personal bodyguards. Some of them, at least, had apparently given their lives defending Richard and Kahlan.

The smaller man still had hold of Richard’s ankle, apparently unwilling to let go of his prize. The other man stood to the side, looking at the thing he had pulled across the floor and out of the wagon.

Richard realized that it was his sword.

The man holding the sword pulled Kahlan partway out from under the tarp. Her lower legs bent at the knees and swung lifelessly from the end of the wagon bed.
While the man was distracted looking at her, Richard used the opportunity to sit up and lunge, trying to snatch his sword. The man yanked it back out of the way before Richard could get his fingers around the hilt. With his hands and feet tied, h...

 

[CornBurrito]

I'm not going to read this book, but my uncle adores Terry Goodkind and acted genuinely shocked when I told him that the Sword of Truth series was criticized for bashing the reader over the head with Terry's personal Objectivist philosophy. He literally is incapable of seeing it somehow.

 

[The Technomancer]

It seemed impossible, but the man looked unaffected by the blade that had impaled him through the chest.

Really? How much magical shit has Richard been through?

 

[zulfate]

hahaha oh man wtf is going on in here. i liked this story up until book 5 i think and just gave up, i decided to see what people thought of the new book but i think i am going to leave now lol.

 

[Salazar]

Really? How much magical shit has Richard been through?

Aye. Drefan (in an unparalleled feat of chakra control) continued to put up a fight minus a spinal column. 'tis but a scratch.

It is a grievous error to connect Mord-Sith to the S&M "scene" in any way, period.

 

[CornBurrito]

So sorta related to some discussion on the first page (two years ago!) of this thread: I had a conversation with my uncle and he refuses to believe that Richard slaughtered a group of pacifists. In his mind, he simply left them to die from another invading army. My uncle is getting on in the years so I'm 90% sure his memory of that event in the book is just fucked. Can anyone give me the specific book (and even better, page number) where Richard slaughters the pacifists?