(Review by Jane Beaumont, Cape Town, South Africa)

Why is it that fantasy authors go on and on and on? David Eddings has lexicographers trying to find new collective nouns for ever increasing sets of books; Robert Jordan is also weighing in (I use the word advisedly) with toppling towers not of Ilium but of neverending stories. My problem with this prolixity is not having "too much too read" (for me at any rate a contradiction in terms) but the delay between volumes. By the time part 2 of "Blockbuster" comes out, I've read a lot of other books and the protagonists of B.No.1 have hidden in the dark and messy filing cabinets of my brain. 50 or so pages into Blockbuster 2 and I'm back with the programme but it's hard work and only the best make the cut. I faded after quite a few Melanie Rawns, almost all (I think) of Robert Jordan and the tag end of Horwood's Duncton series. I don't think I'm feeble about it, I can be as big a series fanatic as a devoted Trekker, but enough is - to me, not your typical fantasy author - enough.

Enough aimless digression and back to Terry Goodkind's world of wonders. The Sword of Truth has some lovely inventions: Mord Sith, Mud People & Prophets in addition to the usual magic swords, wizards et al. Loadsa battles, a little sex, some perfectly proper romancing & some really lovely villains, almost Hannibal Lecter baroque. Not too many surprises storywise as Goodkind seems to be a purist in the field, but suffice it to say that I'm up to No. 4 (Temple of the Winds) and still keen for more.

Incidentally, Goodkind is another devotee of archives - vide authors from Julian May to Terry Pratchett - perhaps someone should inform the stuffier librarians of this world. So often science fiction and, even worse, fantasy are relegated to a dim corner of the kids' section and treated as beneath Mills & Boon in terms of literary merit. Perhaps if librarians knew how fervently fantasy authors promote the use of research in libraries and reading as a path to power as well as knowledge, they would actually put the odd fantasy book on the recommended shelf? I do know one very enlightened bookseller who successfully promotes fantasy books to schools on the premise that kids, particularly boys, read fantasy avidly even when they won't otherwise even cast an eye over the cereal packet. And starting a reading habit with authors as literarily elegant as C.S. Lewis (the Narnia series) or J.R.R. Tolkien and his venerable but still charming Hobbit can't be bad!