Terry Goodkind's biggest fan gives his reaction to the new book

Okay, I was getting bored with this meme as well, but this was quite funny:



(you may need to switch on the subtitles via the button in the bottom-right of the screen)

Terry Goodkind's retirement from fantasy turns out to be a bit misleading

Publisher's Weekly has posted the first review of Terry Goodkind's new novel The Law of Nines. After Goodkind completed his long-running epic fantasy series, The Sword of Truth, in 2007 with Confessor, he announced that he was moving on from fantasy to write mainstream novels which would continue to explore his 'important human themes' with stories set in the real world. He blew out Tor Books, his long- suffering standing publishers to join forces with a mainstream publisher for a large sum of money.

Their definition of 'stunningly original' seems unusually elastic.

At some point the mainstream idea seems to have gone out the window, though, as the review informs us that:

Bestseller Goodkind (Confessor) ventures into thriller territory with results sure to please fans of his fantasy fiction. In the opening pages, Alex Rahl, the book’s unwitting hero, saves the beautiful Jax from being run down on the street in Orden, Neb., by a plumbing truck flying a pirate flag. Jax, who turns out to be from an alternate reality where evildoers are attempting to seize control of her civilization, has traveled to Nebraska to seek Alex’s help in saving her people. In Jax’s world, magic takes the place of technology, but on earth she’s stripped of her powers and forced to fight armed with only her trusty dagger. The author takes his time setting all this up, but once the story gets rolling, it’s a gripping ride as the bad guys whoosh in between their world, which remains unseen, and ours. Fantasy and thriller readers alike will find themselves swept along to the final confrontation and looking forward to the next installment.

Yup, it's a sequel to The Sword of Truth set many centuries/millennia later in the real world (where the bad guys of that series were banished at the end of Confessor). Who'd have thought it?

The Law of Nines is published in both the UK and USA in September 2009. And be warned: "Trouble will find you".