Blood Of The Fold

A fantasy written by Terry Goodkind in 1996
Reviewed edition by TOR from 1997
A paperback has 620 pages
ISBN 0-812-55147-8

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Finally, everything seems to go right for Richard The Seeker and Kahlan The Confessor. The Keeper Of The Underworld has been sent back to its domain, the rift through which he was coming is closed, Richard is about to reunite with Kahlan - sounds too good to be true ? Well, stop worrying and trust your fantasy author to think about something bad - no, at least terrible, to happen.

When destroying the magic wall separating the Old World and the New World, Richard kind of forgot to consider that the barrier might have been put up for a reason. As it turns out, this reason was actually a pretty good one - the barrier protected the New World from dreamwalkers, humans capable of controlling other person's thoughts. Saying this, it probably comes as a little surprise that a dreamwalker Jagang, emperor of the Old World, sets out to conquer the New World as well.

Emperor Jagang is not eager to waste his armies though - indeed there is little need, as there is already a sizeable army in the New World eager to do his bidding (well, it is kind if difficult to refuse a dreamwalker). It is the dreaded Blood of the Fold that Jagang turns against Richard and Kahlan, hoping to capture them both and subvert them towards his goals ...

Review

Terry Goodkind stays true to his characteristic style that some call stunningly realistic and some probably slightly distasteful. Fact is, the style slightly reminds me of movies such as Saving Private Ryan - as if the author did not believe that people would quite grasp violent scenes without enough blood splashing around. In Terry Goodkind's book, evil soldiers never forget to rape innocent women, evil sorcerers use disgusting rituals to cast their spells - kind of boring, actually.

Being in my usual nit-picking mood, I cannot help adding a note on the plot. It seems unpolished in places, such as when Richard is slowly turning into a mriswith - occasionally, the book seems to indicate mriswith are wizards subverted by their lust for invisibility, but elsewhere mriswith are more like magical beasts born from eggs ?

In general, I would say that the book stays at the same level as the previous Sword Of Truth volumes. If you can get over all the blood, the result is rather entertaining actually. Rated average (I'm saving the rating of good for the next volume :-).

Rated as average by Ceres on 1999-02-27

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