Terry Goodkind's Phantom

Warning: If you have not read this book, and do not wish to be spoiled, do not read this.

This is sort of a preliminary book review since I'm only on page 78 out of 587. But so far I have to say that I'm disappointed. I used to love these characters, but I can no longer move myself to care whether they live or die. To be fair I've always found Goodkind's books difficult to get into, so perhaps I only need to give it another couple hundred pages. Plus my sister, who reads the novel I am writing at present in small 5 page sections as I crank them out, recently observed that there is a "flattening quality" that affected the characters when she only read small sections. When she went back once and read from the beginning her opinion of my characters seemed to improve. So it may be that since I have not read, Chainfire, the book preceding this new novel in quite some time, I do not remember the characters well enough. All the same I shall give my impressions so far.

Richard, who is commonly my favorite character, has lost his charm for me in a lot of ways by starting out the book as an insufferable know-it-all. Though my memory of Chainfire is foggy, I do remember that Richard spent the entire book trying to convince everyone that his wife Kahlan had disappeared. I felt frustrated for his sake during this entire ordeal. It was deeply psychological in the sense that even though I did not think Goodkind would do something as cheap as to make his character turn out to be simply delusional, all the evidence pointed to this fact almost until the very end. As a reader you even began to question the existence of a character that you had read about in 8 whole books. Despite the fact that it would have been sheer literary folly to say that she never existed, I began to worry. But Goodkind has pushed it over the top by beginning this book with another instance where Richard is the only one who knows something is wrong with a spell his grandfather and friends have created.

On one hand, it could just be my foggy memory of Richard's previous adventures that makes this part annoying. He insists he is an expert on "emblematic forms" though I can recall no incident of this. When Kahlan disappeared it was an emotional memory and it was Richard's will to get her back, and refusal to let go of her memory, even if everyone else thought he was insane, that endeared him to me. However, this time it is purely intellectual and I am forced to agree with the annoying characters that there is no way he could know what he is saying. It's like reading a bad fan fiction and Richard is a horrible Mary Sue, capable of solving everyone's problems with a wave of the hand. At the same time, even though there's no reason he should know there's a problem with the spell; it's irksome that the same people who doubted him in the first book are doubting him once more. One would think they would have learned their lesson. Only his grandfather believes him but cannot help, of course, because only Richard has the power to undo the spell. Even though I do know why only Richard can undo the spell since he is the only other person free with Subtractive Magic and his Subtractive powers are a well established fact (unlike his emblematic studies) his ability alone to resolve the problem only exacerbates the too-easy feel of the situation.

Then there is the trouble with Nicci who seems on the verge of death in the first few chapters yet I cannot seem to care. This is in stark contrast when Richard's companion Cara was in mortal danger in the last book and I kept reading because I needed to know that she would be okay. But the idea of Nicci dying does not seem to bother me at the moment. I used to have some respect for Nicci as a villain and still respected her when she turned good. But in these first few chapters she seems like nothing more than a lovesick puppy, only living for Richard's sake. It is not that I mind her love for Richard but rather that it seems to have become the very core of her personality. Originally I had the feeling that she loved, not only Richard, but what he represents which is the nobility of the human spirit and the importance of individuality. So it is sad for me to see someone who I had thought appreciated individuality clinging so tragically to unrequited love and the dependency on another person.

My last complaint is the complexity of the magic in the first few chapters. Goodkind has always said he is not a world builder and it is the philosophy of the books that is most important. This was something I always respected about him, that his ideas could work in a story that featured no magic at all. The magic was just there to make it more fun and exciting. Don't get me wrong, I love fantasy and I will have a long debate with anyone who disregards it as a lesser genre. But that is because I have always believed that good writing transcends genre and that at the core of any good story is something universal. Therefore I was upset when I was treated to a lengthy discussion of abstract magic in the first few chapters. Perhaps there was something philosophical in the discussion, but it was buried under layers of magical theory that was so far removed from any sort of reality that I could neither comprehend nor relate to it. I don’t take issue with the reasonable explanation of magic’s limitations so we understand that all problems cannot be solved with the wave of a wand. But I do not care about the nitty gritty details of how the magic works; I care how the people work. And they have not been working very much in the last few chapters.

As for Kahlan, I am afraid she has never been my favorite character and the loss of all of her memories has not improved this.

There are hundreds more pages to go though and I still have hopes it will improve. As I said at the beginning I have always had trouble getting into Goodkind's books. If I had not been bored and on vacation and had my sister not positively insisted it was a good book, I never would have gotten through The Wizard's First Rule which begins "It was a very interesting vine..." I mean come on. So I hope that this book improves as I read more as many of its precursors did. Though I think Faith of the Fallen shall remain my favorite. I recommend everyone to read the first half of this series just so you can read Faith of the Fallen which is the most inspiring book I have ever read and helped put words to many of my own convictions which I could never explain so eloquently myself. Terry Goodkind will remain one of my favorite authors because of that one book even if he never writes another good book again (though I certainly hope he does.)