Daily Archives: Monday, August 9, 2010

Cover Art

Cover Art & Synopsis | ‘The Omen Machine’ by Terry Goodkind

By Aidan Moher August 9th, 2010
The Omen Machine by Terry Goodkind

RARGHRGH. Angry Giant Kahlan is angry. RARAGRHG! This is the cover that Terry Goodkind, apparently, helped design. Looks like an ordinary, generic cover. I expected more moral objectivity, beards, Ayn Rands and Goodkind’s name to be even larger and foiled in 22k gold. It is appropriate that Angry Giant Kahlan appears to be worshiping Goodkind’s name, though.

Terry Goodkind’s novels of the Sword of Truth series set a new standard for epic storytelling in a fully realized world. Now Goodkind returns to that world for a new cycle of tales, centering on Richard Cypher and Kahlan Amnell. The Omen Machine begins directly after the events of the Sword of Truth, but it starts an independent storyline. Readers who haven’t experienced the Sword of Truth novels can begin here, while longtime fans will be captivated by a new tale of the characters that fascinated them before.

Hidden deep underground for millennia, discovered only by chance, the mysterious machine has awakened, to begin issuing a serious of ominous and alarmingly accurate omens. As the wizard Zeddicus attempts to destroy the sinister device, it issues a cataclysmic omen involving Richard and Kahlan, foretelling an impending event beyond anyone’s ability to prevent it. With catastrophe imminent, the machine then reveals that it is within its power to withdraw the omen…on fulfillment of an impossible demand.

I love that it’s ‘a Richard and Kahlan Novel‘. I guess the ship has sailed on the Sword of Truth Series, though how this is anything but the 14th volume is a mystery to me. I mean it’s got Kahlan, Richard, Zeddicus, Prophecies, Omens (and Machines!), Valour, Heroism, (likely) jaw kicking and sadomasochism, and it picks up directly after the end of Confessor. Totally sounds like a new series to me.

Glibness aside, with all the Imperial Order junk out of the way, it does sound like it might recapture some of the fun and adventurousness that made the early novels in the series readable and, *gasp*, enjoyable. At least he’s not trying to hide it as a literary thirller this time around.

News

An Aside | Synopsis for ‘The Crippled God’ by Steven Erikson

By Aidan Moher August 9th, 2010

Gardens of the Moon by Steven EriksonStolen from Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist:

This is a synopsis of the final book in the series. If you’ve not read up to the end of Dust of Dreams, and don’t want to be spoiled, you might not want to read it. Series Spoilers abound!

Savaged by the K’Chain Nah’Ruk, the Bonehunters march for Kolanse, where waits an unknown fate. Tormented by questions, the army totters on the edge of mutiny, but Adjunct Tavore will not relent. One final act remains, if it is in her power, if she can hold her army together, if the shaky allegiances she has forged can survive all that is to come. A woman with no gifts of magic, deemed plain, unprepossessing, displaying nothing to instill loyalty or confidence, Tavore Paran of House Paran means to challenge the gods – if her own troops don’t kill her first.

Awaiting Tavore and her allies are the Forkrul Assail, the final arbiters of humanity. Drawing upon an alien power terrible in its magnitude, they seek to cleanse the world, to annihilate every human, every civilization, in order to begin anew. They welcome the coming conflagration of slaughter, for it shall be of their own devising, and it pleases them to know that, in the midst of the enemies gathering against them, there shall be betrayal.

In the realm of Kurald Galain, home to the long lost city of Kharkanas, a mass of refugees stand upon the First Shore. Commanded by Yedan Derryg, the Watch, they await the breaching of Lightfall, and the coming of the Tiste Liosan. This is a war they cannot win, and they will die in the name of an empty city and a queen with no subjects.

Elsewhere, the three Elder Gods, Kilmandaros, Errastas and Sechul Lath, work to shatter the chains binding Korabas, the Otataral Dragon, from her eternal prison. Once freed, she will rise as a force of devastation, and against her no mortal can stand. At the Gates of Starvald Demelain, the Azath House sealing the portal is dying. Soon will come the Eleint, and once more, there will be dragons in the world.

And so it ends. Having only read the first two volumes of the series, all I see are a lot of hard-to-pronounce names and potential, but fans are sure to be salivating for The Crippled God. It all kinda makes my head hurt.