Soul of the Fire -- Terry Goodkind

 I finished the 5th novel of the Sword of Truth series.  I both love and hate these epic fantasies.  I think they are entertaining reads, but I also think they are written for milking the consumer.  

The first half of the book is an explanation of the culture of some obscure people in the Midlands.  We are introduced to new characters, and there is very little of our main characters Richard and Kahlan.  

I was happy that there was less raping and death in this book, compared to the first 4.  We get it, the Imperial Order is full of murderous bullies who can't control themselves, and are evil and must be destroyed.  I don't need to know how bad they are in every book.  I do enjoy the nice contrast, and the black and white nature of the book.  Evil is evil, and good is good.  We don't need tragic backstories.  We don't need the modern I'm evil because bad stuff happened to me.  If only good things had happened, etc.  People are evil. 


All in all, I'm invested in the characters, and I want to see Richard eventually win.  I'm not in love with the lack of character development.  The characters never learn.  They continue to make the same stupid mistakes over and over again.  Then they learn something, and they win.  And then they promptly forget it.  The main characters are flawed, but not in a good way.  They never seem to learn to overcome their flaws.  And they never learn to stop splitting the party.  My goodness, never split the party.  

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