Terry Goodkind's "The Omen Machine" Part 2

Terry Goodkind's "The Omen Machine" (Amazon)

Terry Goodkind's "The Omen Machine" (Goodreads)

09/05/2013

I am now just over 75% through the book. I have been reading very slowly for two reasons. First, I was playing catch up with the anime "Attack on Titan." If you haven't done so already, be sure to read my latest episode review here. The second reason I've been reading so slow is because this book has very slow pacing. I will get into that more below.

*Spoiler*

The good news is that once you reach the middle of the book, the main villain is finally revealed. This greatly helps the story start to come together. It finally has meat on it. I don't know how much longer I could have survived hearing the word "prophecy" without a physical being behind it. However, just because Hannis Arc is introduced, don't think for a second that you're going to escape the word "prophecy" from now on. Oh no, it will continue throughout the rest of the book, I'm sure. It may very well carry through the rest of the series. It almost makes you wonder if Goodkind had a bad run-in with a fortune teller or something before he decided to start this series.

But as a side, at least the villain is revealed, and he appears to be very deadly. His description is rather terrifying when seen from Henrik's point of view. The tattoos are rather disorienting, and I'm sure they serve as Hannis' source of power in some way, especially the backwards nine which of course is a reference to Goodkind's earlier book "The Law of Nines" (which is on sale over on Amazon, if you haven't picked it up yet.) Hannis also has the ability to kill the wraiths that the Hedge Maid controls, so he has a multitude of abilities.

We also see Kahlan's increased illness, especially after whatever the Hedge Maid has done to her. How that will play out will greatly affect Richard's decisions in the future, I have no doubt.

Finally, we also see a great deal of court gossip amongst the rulers, all of which are obsessed with prophecy. To me, it just feels that they've lost faith in Richard far too fast to make this book believable. He beat Jagang and the entire old world empire, and now they think he belongs to the Keeper of the Underworld after like 3 days in his palace? It seems a stretch.

All in all, the third quarter of this book has been much better than the first half. I still believe it is worth picking up especially since it is over on Amazon for a bargain price. I know Goodkind's writing enough to know that the story will have to improve soon. I've heard great things about the sequel,"The Third Kingdom." So I'm looking forward to reading that next.

Come back soon for my review/reaction to the conclusion of the novel.