Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy, Part 1 (Sword of Truth, Book 9) [Hardcover]

Terry Goodkind (Author)

Book Description

Series: Sword of Truth, Book 9 | Publication Date: January 4, 2005

With Wizard's First Rule and seven subsequent masterpieces, Terry Goodkind has thrilled readers worldwide with the unique sweep of his storytelling. Now Goodkind returns with a new novel of Richard and Kahlan, the beginning of a sequence of three novels that will bring their epic story to its culmination.

After being gravely injured in battle, Richard awakes to discover Kahlan missing. To his disbelief, no one remembers the woman he is frantically trying to find. Worse, no one believes that she really exists, or that he was ever married. Alone as never before, he must find the woman he loves more than life itself....if she is even still alive. If she was ever even real.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A weak, repetitive plot mars the ninth novel in bestseller Goodkind's Sword of Truth fantasy series (after 2003's Naked Empire). The story opens promisingly enough. Richard, Lord Rahl, ruler of D'Hara, seeker and bearer of the Sword of Truth, is sorely wounded in battle. Healed by the sorceress Nicci, he regains consciousness only to discover his wife, Kahlan, is missing-and no one believes she exists. Meanwhile, the armies of Emperor Jagang, leader of the brutal Imperial Order, threaten D'Hara. Distracted by Kahlan's disappearance, Richard refuses to lead troops against Jagang's forces, insisting his people must stand up for themselves. Bargaining with the witch woman Shota, he trades the Sword of Truth for information on Kahlan and learns of "chainfire," hidden in "the place of the bones in the Deep Nothing." Journeying there, Richard discovers chainfire is a spell capable of unraveling existence. Meanwhile, the Sisters of the Dark have stolen two of the three boxes of Orden, seeking to call the Keeper of the Dead to life. Even fans will be disappointed by the minimal action and lengthy speeches that slow this juggernaut of a novel to a tedious crawl. Hopefully, Goodkind has positioned all his pieces and the pace will pick up in the next installment.
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Review

"Wonderfully creative, seamless, and stirring."
--Kirkus on Wizard's First Rule

"Wonderful."
--Kliatt on Stone of Tears

"Each volume of the Sword of Truth...proves more difficult to review than the last. There are only so many was of heaping praise on a series that gets better and better."
--SFX on Blood of the Fold

"...outstanding work...adrenaline and characters who actually behave like adults. Highly recommended."
--San Diego Union Tribune on Temple of the Winds

"...thoroughly enjoyable."
--VOYA on Soul of the Fire

"Mr. Goodkind's compelling prose weaves a magic spell over readers."
--Romantic Times on Faith of the Fallen

"Near-perfect pacing, well-realized settings, and superior descriptive narrative."
--VOYA on The Pillars of Creation

"Everything one could ask for in an epic fantasy."
--Publishers Weekly on Stone of Tears

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 672 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (January 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765305232
• ISBN-13: 978-0765305237
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.9 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (398 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #376,193 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Terry Goodkind is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Sword of Truth series, Richard and Kahlan stories, author of The Law of Nines, and writer of Legend of the Seeker, the Sam Raimi produced, ABC television series based on The Sword of Truth books.

Goodkind was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, where he also attended art school, one of his many interests on the way to becoming a writer. Besides a career in wildlife art, he has been a cabinet maker and violin maker, and he has done restoration work on rare and exotic artifacts from around the world -- each with its own story to tell, he says.

While continuing to maintain the northeastern home he built with his own hands, in recent years he and his wife, Jeri, have created a second home in the desert Southwest, where he now spends the majority of his time.

Join the fan community at TerryGoodkind.com for all of the latest.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not one of his best, May 15, 2005

By 

Peter Townsend "SOT Fan" (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy, Part 1 (Sword of Truth, Book 9) (Hardcover)

I greatly anticipated Chainfire and even read all 8 prior books in preparation of reading it. Unfortunately it has left me "wanting more" and not because of the storyline. Although the last 100 pages were good, the first 500 had me continuously wanting to "skip ahead" to GET TO THE GOOD STUFF!

Terry seems to be obsessed with reiterating certain aspects of prior books. This detracts from the story and only "adds pages" without adding content. If a person is reading book #9 and has not yet read any of the prior 8 books in the SOT series, then I don't have much compassion for those people. Figure it out!

While there were a couple good twists in this book and a few things happened that I didn't suspect, I didn't feel there was much continuity to the Naked Empire. Also Richard has not progressed one iota as a wizard (nor as a human being for that matter).

I guess what I wanted for this book (eg begin to show Richard's skill and potential as a great wizard) as well as his ability to defeat Jajang on his own terms will never be realized. This book series has gotten more "preachy" as it's gone on.

Terry are you listening? Bring back the excitement of wizardry and magic, combined with a great love story. It's time to wrap up this plotline (with Jajang) and move on to other adventures with Richard and Kahlen.

50 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars An Epic that could have been..., May 2, 2005

By 

S. P. Javier (Highland Mills, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy, Part 1 (Sword of Truth, Book 9) (Hardcover)

I have always been an avid fan of the "High" Fantasy genre, which I've typically associated with the exceptional works of Melanie Rawn, Robert Jordan, Stephen Donaldson, Kate Elliot, Tad Williams and their contemporaries. High Fantasy incorporates art with complicated and enriched story lines, vision and characters that hold form and personality outside of the text. An author capable of this is a rare commodity and so when they are discovered, I hold dearly to their works and diligently read and collect every volume. When Terry Goodkind came to my attention with "Wizards First Rule", I was intrigued and thankful to add another author to my collection. He was talented and able to develop characters with a depth and substance that connected them to the reader.

I followed the story of Richard and Kahlan through their many disappointments and victories, enjoying the ever evolving relationship and the roles they each played in the government/leadership of a fractured nation. Even as the storyline began to over-run, threatening to become stagnant and bland, I stayed loyal and true. With his 9th work in this series the story, however, has evolved into something worse than bland, it has become mediocre. The story is a diatribe of philosophical gibberish that exudes existentialism with careless abandon making the volume, ironically, appear more prosaic rather than meaningful. It leaves the reader's thirst for development/progression, un-sated with characters reduced to flat and formless entities, interchangeable and amorphous.

I have never, in all my years, ever put a book down unfinished once I've begun...until now. Less than one third of the way to completion, I decided that I had read enough, and decided to waste my time no more. Mr. Goodkind, in his attempts to appease the public's thirst for more, has given them, instead, far less.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very refreshing, January 9, 2005

By 

V. Yee (Tucson, AZ) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy, Part 1 (Sword of Truth, Book 9) (Hardcover)

I'm one of those many who was not a big fan of the 7th and 8th books, so while I was hoping to be impressed I was not at all expecting it. But it is really truly good reading that has left me drooling for book 10. The stroy isn't as fast paced as the last book, and it's laden with little bits of goodness and food for thought all throughout. Goodkind said this was the first in a trilogy to end the series, and now all the loose ends are begining to come together. The characters once more have a nice depth of dimmension which just adds to the enjoyment. For those who reached a certain peak of disgust at all the preaching in previous books, this one is almost entirely story driven (the philosophy is still there; it's just worked into the plot like in the first part of the series). All in all, this has all the elements that made me love the series in the first place, and virtually none of what made me dislike later books.