Jump to content

Goodkind 54: How to Revive a Dead Dick


Myshkin

Recommended Posts

In today's day and age, I really wish we could've witnessed this same gradual popularity decline and death happening to Ayn Rand, instead of Mr. Yeardly McTurdly.  It's been years since I thought about SoT, and when I saw a "Richard and Kahlan" novel on the shelf of my local library, it made me want to choose truth and kick my librarian in in her knowledge-harboring jaw.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Good news dudes and lady-dudes! I have managed to procure a free copy of Death's Mistress: Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles, Volume 1 (actual title). And because I am such an awesome guy I have decided to read it and report back to you in considerable detail. I realize that several people have made similar promises over the past few years, and all have presumably died before completing the endeavor. This may well be the fate that awaits me as well, but I am willing to risk it. Because I love you. Stay tuned.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I bless you. This is a good and noble thing you do and your sacrifice will not go unremembered.

 

Speaking as a former would-be Goodkind recapper it was the incredible unrelenting boredom of latterday Terry that got me. I mean, I'm not trying to shift blame; I am super lazy. But if Goodkind had managed to muster the same unintentional golden nuggets he used to in his campy prime I am pretty sure I'd have made it. Not a jaw-kick or rising thing to be seen in the hundred pages I got through though, not even so much as a raptor gaze. I recall thinking that Nicci's scenes contained the only faint flickers of the old trash fire, however, so we can but hope that Terry will be back in the sucktastic swing of things in the adventure you are about to embark on for our benefit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Moments ago I dreamed that one of my predecessors spoke to me from beyond the grave. He warned me that boredom may be my undoing. He was a weak man, and I am by far his better. I will not disappoint you guys as he did. Sp let us begin our adventure!

Chapter 1

Our story opens as good ol' Nicci, that hot piece of ass, and Nathan Rahl (remember him? He's Dick's well preserved ancient ancestor) crunch their way through a forest littered with bones. Like the bones are everywhere, you can't not step on them. What's up with all these bones? It's a mystery, at least to me. Oh, and the forest is in the Dark Lands, which, having not read the previous few books, is a place I know almost nothing about. Sounds like a pretty shitty place though, what with all the bones.

Nicci don't much like the bones; they make it hard to walk, especially at night. But she's got a can-do attitude, and so bravely soldiers on. She sees some skulls; they don't scare her, because she's tough as shit, but they do remind her of the “swarms” of “cannibalistic half people” who had recently done something or other. I smell a refugee metaphor brewing.

Apparently the bones have something to do with a witch woman named Red, who Nathan wants to meet. Guess that's why they're here. As an aside, why does Terry always call them witch women, instead of just witches? Just seems odd to me.

Nicci we are informed is wearing a black travel dress. One would think that traveling pants would be more suitable for traipsing through a bone forest in the middle of the night, but Nicci's a stylish chick, so it's a dress for her.

Nicci and Nate Dog have a brief and utterly banal conversation. The dialogue is oddly formal and slightly archaic. Nicci does kinda got the hots for Nate though, mostly 'cause his “hawklike glare” reminds her of ol' Ricky Rahl. We also find out that Nate is a bit of a fancy-man, based on the description of his clothes. We then get a bit more preposterously stilted dialogue, through which we are informed that Nate is no longer a (capital P) Prophet, but is still a badass wizard.

Oh shit, Nicci's like 200 years old, and Nate's pushing 1,000. I forgot about that. Can't decide whether or not Nicci's age is a turn on. Also, King Dick has somehow “shifted” the stars, which is causing Nicci to go through a minor existential crisis.

Um, okay, so several times so far Nicci has ruminated on the fact that Richard is now the leader of the known world, but now we find out that not everyone knows that yet. Apparently it's Nicci's job to tell them. Wonder how they'll react. God Emperor Dick for his part has decided that tyranny will no longer be tolerated, and everybody is gonna enjoy a shitload of freedom so long as they do what he fucking says. It's a brave new world. Hurray!

“But much of the world didn't even know they had been liberated, and there would surely be petty warlords and tyrants who refused to accept the new tenets of freedom.”

Chew on that for a second.

It's morning now, Nate is cheerful, Nicci is not. She's kind of a pissy broad, if you ask me. There's still lots of bones everywhere; Red the witch woman's handiwork. Red likes to murder, and evidence suggests she's pretty fucking good at it.

Out of nowhere the Cheshire Cat appears. He's homies with Red. He'll probably lead our noble adventurers to her. And indeed he does! Red is an old lady who dresses inappropriately. She wears black lipstick and probably dyes her hair. Is she a goth holdover from the 90's? Rafo! Nicci and Red throw some catty barbs at each other, presumably because they're both women, but the chapter ends before we find out anything.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chapter 2

Hmm, Nate's plan seems to involve flirting heavily with Red. He's a charmer, and like I said before, he dresses real fancy. The murderous old witch has a pet crow, which would seem to confirm the goth theory, and the crow don't like Nate's flirtatious manner at all. At this point what Nate wants from Red is still entirely unknown to me, and as it turns out, entirely unknown to Nicci as well. But that is soon remedied.

After beating around the bush a while, Nate finally divulges that he's hoping Red can provide him with a nifty bit of magic. You remember how Nate and Nicci are old as shit? Well that's because their former digs, the Palace of Prophets, had an anti-aging spell on it. But the PoP has totally been destroyed, so now Nate and Nicci are doomed to suffer the indignities of aging just like the rest of us common plebeians. What Nate wants from Red is something called a life book, which I immediately presume is a magic book that will extend his life. I presume wrong. According to Nate a life book “chronicles the journey of a person's life, all the accomplishments and experiences.” Which, you know, doesn't sound like magic at all to me. Really it just sounds like a diary.

Nicci's with me on this one, she ain't real happy to have been dragged all the way out to the Dark Lands just so Nate can pick up a diary. They don't got diaries in D'Hara? Both of us have to eat our words though, because it turns out that a life book chronicles a person's past experiences, so it's not a diary, more like a biography. It still don't sound all that magical to me, though I'm gonna go ahead and guess that the life book uses magic to speed up the whole process. But still, they don't got biographers in D'Hara either?

After a little more flirting Red agrees to make the life book. She takes Nate's hand and begins to caress it in a “strangely erotic manner”. This is getting hot. Just when I think she's gonna bone him, the crafty old witch pulls out a shiv and cuts him instead. Nate's all like, “What the shit lady?” And Red's all like, “Life book's gotta be written in blood, duh.” So Red collects the blood in, what else, the top half of a skull. Side note: you should assume that any implement or tool Red uses is made out of human bone unless otherwise noted. This is Terry's subtle way of reminding us that Red is scary.

Red cooks up the blood for some reason, then calls her pet crow over. Remember the crow? Well Red needs a quill, so she kills it. Seems a bit overboard to me. Now with creepy tools in hand Red is ready to craft Nate's life book. We're all very excited. But he, and you, will have to wait for chapter 3 to find out how it goes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Gabriele said:

Two chapters in and no torture? Nicci's grown soft. 

She hasn't.   In Chapter 4, a ten year old girl makes rude comments about Richard and Kahlan.  Nicci  flays her face off.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, SeanF said:

Was Nicci the one who got raped by Nambles?

Yes and no. She was most certainly raped by nambles on multiple occasions. She however was not the one depicted in the famous namble cock scene.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chapters 3-4

So the life book writes itself, or rather the murder quill writes it without human interference. And like I guessed, it goes pretty fast. Nate is “boyishly” delighted. He recalls how long it took him to write his epic masterpiece The Adventures of Bonny Day, how he struggled mightily with the prose. It's been a long time, but if I remember correctly The Adventures of Bonnie Day was a children's book. As the book delves into Nate's life as a Prophet, Nate and Nicci take a moment to fawn over how smart it was for Richard to destroy prophecy, which I think is why he “shifted” the stars. They speak of prophecy as if it were a sentient creature. It's weird. The book then gets to what Nate describes as the “good part”, which is that time when he got to sleep with a bunch of whores.

Betrayal! The life book is done and Nate is super stoked, but Red now says that she's keeping it. What a bitch! Nate is pissed, but he don't do nothing about it. I don't know who this Red person is, but Nate's a super kickass wizard, and Nicci's an artificially powerful sorceress, so why are they so scared of her? I bet Zedd woulda lit that old bitch up. I miss Zedd.

Red takes pity on Nate and gives him a new blank life book, one which will chronicle his future adventures. So, you know, a fucking diary. Ooh, but the new life book isn't completely blank; on the first page the words “Kol Adair” are written. Nate wants to know what this shit is about. Red tells him he's gotta go find this Kol Adair, whatever it is, in the Old World. Nicci don't wanna go, but Red calls her a coward and she pipes down.

The new life book now spouts some prophecy at Nicci and Nate, something about Nate needing to be made whole again and Nicci needing to save the world. It's kinda strange, because as we recently found out, Big Dick Rahl destroyed prophecy. Nate and Nicci don't seem too worried about this, and they decide they'll go to the Old World; not because Red said they should, but because they wanted to go there anyway.

The next few weeks are spent traveling south. Nate and Nicci use this time to disseminate D'Haran propaganda. Eventually they find themselves in the Old World city of Tanimura, where the Palace of Prophets used to be. There's no mention of them crossing a huge, lifeless desert, which I'm pretty sure used to separate the Old World from the New World. Tanimura brings back some good memories for Nicci, like that time she peeled the skin off a bunch of sailors. Nate for his part is just happy that he can now buy some new duds. We are constantly reminded of Nate's predilection for fancy clothes. I suspect this is because he has no personality. Nicci's still wearing her black travel dress. She's traveled the entire length of a continent on foot, and hasn't changed her clothes once. Gross. Another side note here: the narrative keeps shifting perspective form one paragraph to the next between Nicci and Nate. It's off-putting. Often I can't tell whose head I'm inside.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chapters 5-6

Nicci's headed toward the Tanimura harbor to find a ship. She doesn't know where Kol Adair is exactly, but she'll figure that out later. To get to the harbor she has to pass through the inner city, and we are treated to her delightfully disdainful musings on the conditions and inhabitants of these neighborhoods. These fuckers have clearly not yet learned how to rise up and live their lives. Nicci also laments the fact that these people are preoccupied with the small details of everyday living, never giving a moments thought to the larger work of building and maintaining the D'Haran Empire. Goodkind doesn't seem to be aware that in one breath he is extolling the virtues of Richard's “freedom from tyranny” empire, and in the next is describing an expansionist totalitarian regime.

Despite having lived in Tanimura for close to 200 years, Nicci gets lost. It's a good thing though, because now she gets to foil a mugging. Three “swarthy thugs” along with a 10 year old kid are attacking a nice pale, red haired fellow. The thugs see Nicci, think she's hot as shit, which she definitely is, and decide they're totally gonna rape her. Bad idea. She smushes the first dude's head, then proceeds to mutilate the other two guys to death. The kid has run away by this point, so disappointingly we don't get to see Nicci murder a child. The redhead isn't quite sure he's cool with Nicci out-and-out killing his muggers, but Nicci calmly explains that they deserved to die, even going so far as to say she saved the local magistrate a lot of time and effort. Apparently in Richard's Freedom! Empire due process is for chumps.

The redhead's name is, I shit you not, Bannon. I wonder if we'll see a Conway or a Kushner in later installments of this series. Nicci scolds Bannon for allowing himself to become a victim, because, you know, he was asking for it. Easy for her to say; she's a super powerful sorceress. At this point I think I should remind everyone that Nicci is as powerful as she is only because a demon with a large, barbed cock fucked a man's power into her. In Terry's world the only way for a woman to become as powerful as a man is if she steals a man's rightful magic through a grotesque sex ritual.

Bannon it turns out is a sailor. Isn't that a neat bit of coincidence, because Nicci's looking for a ship. What are the chances she'll end up on his ship? Pretty good, I'm guessing.

The perspective now switches to Bannon, who despite having a super manly name, seems to be a typical liberal cuck. He's soft and squishy, doesn't know how to not be a victim, and isn't really into killing people. Fucking snowflake. He wants to buy a sword though, so there may yet be hope for him. Bannon's got himself a sob story. His pops was a drunk who used to beat his mom. I've got a feeling we're gonna find out his dad killed his mom. Anyway, that's what made him all touchy-feely, but it's also filled him with a lot of suppressed rage. And as previous books in this series have made abundantly clear, rage is the most morally upright emotion one can feel.

Anyway, the bulk of this chapter is dedicated to Bannon's search for a sword. To make a long story short, he finds one. Sword in hand, he fantasizes about how he'll kill the next thug who tries to rob him. I have a good feeling about Bannon. There's a political saying, or at least half of one, that goes like this; a Republican is a Democrat who's been mugged. Well Bannon's been mugged now, so I'm pretty sure he's about to rise up and choose life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chapter 7

Nicci has made it to the harbor. There's a bunch of whorehouses here. This reminds her of the numerous times she's been raped. Thinking on these rapes doesn't provoke any particularly strong emotion in her, but it does elicit a giggle about how men are seldom as good in the sack as they think they are. Reading this bit makes me feel icky.

To get somewhat more serious for a moment, Goodkind's treatment of rape throughout the series is the most honestly disturbing aspect of his writing. To use Nicci's history as a forced sex worker for no other reason than to set up a ha-ha men are bad at sex joke is gross. And the way Goodkind writes about it makes me feel that to his mind Nicci being ordered, against her wishes, to have sex with soldiers on a regular basis was just another one of her duties as a servant of the Imperial Order. It's degrading and she might not like it, but in the same way as she might not like doing dishes or cleaning toilets.

Okay, end of being serious, time to attempt humor again. As Nicci walks along the docks we get what is likely an unintentional view into what Terry thinks of the proletariat; he describes the longshoremen and other laborers variously as “brutes” and “human oxen”. We also learn that Nicci don't much like calamari, which is her loss.

When our intrepid adventurers first entered the city Nate went off to find a tailor while Nicci headed straight for the harbor, which makes it a bit strange that Nate beat her to the docks. But here he is, waiting patiently for Nicci to get her ass in gear. Also, Nate and Nicci never seem to address each other by name; always addressing each other as sorceress and wizard respectively. You'd think after knowing each other for close to 200 years, and after spending the last few months on the road together, they'd be on a first name basis by now.

They find Bannon's ship and talk to the captain. He's smoking something called “dream weed”, which I think is pot. You know, refer. The captain's a bit of a dick; he won't let Nate and Nicci travel on his ship for free. Nicci's rather upset by this turn of events, but the captain tells her she's free to try another ship, like that one over yonder with the “exotic” looking sailors in their silk pantaloons. The threat has the desired effect, and Nicci pipes down. And now we find out that Nate can transmute common metal into gold, so why the fuck were they arguing about the price in the first place? They literally have an endless supply of money.

The ship had docked earlier that day, and is due to depart on the evening tide. It's late afternoon at this point, and a steady stream of sailors are now returning to the ship, most of them described as having hangovers. This makes me think Terry doesn't know how hangovers work. There are a handful of tribal types aboard the ship, dusky skinned fellows with strange tattoos. I'll call them the Queequegs. Nicci is pretty sure the Queequegs want to rape her.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chapters 8-13

Now we're on a boat, and it's rather boring. The salient points:

Bannon gives Nicci something called a wishpearl. It might or might not be rare; there's some dispute about that. Legend has it that wishpearls are concentrated dreams, and might, as the name suggests, grant wishes.

The Queequegs are lazy and never wear shirts.

Nate, despite not really knowing how to use a sword himself, has taken it upon himself to train Bannon in the use of the weapon. The two neophytes decide the best way to train is to just start swinging their swords at each other. What could go wrong? Nothing, in fact. The training session is a smashing success.

When Richard shifted the stars he fucked everything up for sailors. Tides, currents, and wind patterns have all changed. Shit like that would have serious climate implications, but I bet we won't get into that.

Our captain is a bigamist. He's got wives and children all over the place. He's very proud of the fact that he's done the honorable thing by marrying all these chicks, rather than utilizing the services of whores like most sailors do. Nicci thinks it's a pretty neat arrangement. Unclear as to whether or not his wives know about each other.

Nicci has probably killed hundreds of thousands of people. Instead of being horrified by this, like a normal person, Bannon is impressed.

The Queequegs are wishpearl divers. They are also total creeps. But while they are good at being creeps, they are not very good at being pearl divers. Two of them die.

Nate tries to do some magic. It's harder than it should be. I think I know where this is going.

The remaining Queequegs blame Nicci for the deaths of their compatriots. They've decided to kill her, but first they're gonna rape her. But how are they gonna accomplish that, considering Nicci's a super powerful sorceress? Well, by pure coincidence the meat of the wishpearl clams contains a paralytic toxin. So there's that problem solved. Or not. The poison doesn't work quite as planned. Nicci's still able to use magic, and use it she does. She crushes the Queequegs' balls until they pop like grapes. Gross.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chapters 14-16

Earlier Bannon told a really boring story about this one time when he might or might not have met some magical sea-dwelling humanoids called selka. Nate's heard some legends about selka before; supposedly created by magic to serve as underwater armies during the Great Wizard War a million years ago. Both agree that they're probably not real. Well guess what? They're totally fucking real! How do I know that? Because this chapter starts off from the perspective of the selka queen.

The selka are the ones who killed those two Queequegs a few chapters back. It's all got to do with the wishpearls. The selka are super pissed that these shitty air-breathers are stealing their wishpearls, which as it turns out, are indeed concentrated dreams. I think. They're gonna sink the ship and send our heroes to a watery grave in retribution. I have a bit of a problem here. You see, it's been made clear by our weed smoking captain that he's been coming to this reef and harvesting wishpearls for years. So why are the selka only now getting pissy about it?

Back to Nicci. She's still all weak from the poison and almost-rape. It wouldn't do to have her at full power for the fight to come. The Queequegs who tried to rape her are still alive, but in pretty bad condition, due to their sacks being pulverized. She leaves her cabin and goes up on deck, where she finds Nate. There's a huge fuck all storm happening, but the two manage a brief conversation. Nate seems neither surprised nor worried to find out that Nicci has been poisoned and almost-raped. Whatever, that shit happens all the time. Bannon rudely interrupts this little chat by pointing out that a bunch of monsters are attacking the ship.

The fight begins. Organs and entrails are flying all over the place. Nicci, for reasons described above, is barely able to use magic. Nate, for reasons as yet unknown, doesn't seem to be able to use magic at all. The selka are crazy viscous, but they periodically stop to gobble up some of the entrails they've liberated from the bellies of sailors. This does not seem like a sound battle strategy to me.

Bannon's sword, which he has named Sturdy, is described as lackluster. I don't understand this description. Maybe it's meant literally, as in the sword lacks luster. But the kid's faring pretty well against the sea people, lackluster sword or no. Looks like his training sessions with Nate are paying dividends.

Nicci gives herself a pep talk, remembering all the male power she's stolen and all the people she's slaughtered. It kinda works; she flings some selka overboard. Nate, temporarily forgetting his impotence, steps forward dramatically to blast a bunch of selka into fucking oblivion (or bolivian, as Slammin' Cleon Salmon would say). It don't work. Obviously. But Bannon, the world-class swordsman, jumps in and saves the day.

Captain Bigamist bites it. He fucked some shit up before he went down, but he's totally dead now. The three emasculated Queequegs stumble out on deck, entirely unaware that there's a battle on. They are promptly slaughtered, and after pages and pages of disembowelments, we finally get our first spine ripping. This one even has a few ribs still attached.

The selka queen finally climbs on board the ship. Nicci notes that she is obviously female. This means she has boobs. Earlier the Queequegs had wondered aloud what color Nicci's nipples might be (soft pink it turns out), now I wonder the same about the selka queen. I'm hoping for a vibrant blue.

Queen selka informs everyone that they have to die on account of them all being thieves. Sorry, thems the rules. Nicci thinks it's pretty cool that the sea monster talks all normal like, and not in some foreign jibber-jabber. Nate thinks it's not cool at all that she called them thieves. Bannon, genius that he is, puts two and two together and lets everyone know that the lady-selka is probs talking about the wishpearls.

The queen calls wishpearls the “seeds of our dreams”. I don't know exactly what that means. Maybe they're selka eggs. At this point Terry grows bored so he gives Nicci her power back and she uses it to scare off the remaining selka. Everyone on the ship who didn't have their SAG card is dead. That leaves us with only Nicci, Nate, and Bannon left alive.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Myshkin said:

Chapter 7

Nicci has made it to the harbor. There's a bunch of whorehouses here. This reminds her of the numerous times she's been raped. Thinking on these rapes doesn't provoke any particularly strong emotion in her, but it does elicit a giggle about how men are seldom as good in the sack as they think they are. Reading this bit makes me feel icky.

To get somewhat more serious for a moment, Goodkind's treatment of rape throughout the series is the most honestly disturbing aspect of his writing. To use Nicci's history as a forced sex worker for no other reason than to set up a ha-ha men are bad at sex joke is gross. And the way Goodkind writes about it makes me feel that to his mind Nicci being ordered, against her wishes, to have sex with soldiers on a regular basis was just another one of her duties as a servant of the Imperial Order. It's degrading and she might not like it, but in the same way as she might not like doing dishes or cleaning toilets.

Okay, end of being serious, time to attempt humor again. As Nicci walks along the docks we get what is likely an unintentional view into what Terry thinks of the proletariat; he describes the longshoremen and other laborers variously as “brutes” and “human oxen”. We also learn that Nicci don't much like calamari, which is her loss.

When our intrepid adventurers first entered the city Nate went off to find a tailor while Nicci headed straight for the harbor, which makes it a bit strange that Nate beat her to the docks. But here he is, waiting patiently for Nicci to get her ass in gear. Also, Nate and Nicci never seem to address each other by name; always addressing each other as sorceress and wizard respectively. You'd think after knowing each other for close to 200 years, and after spending the last few months on the road together, they'd be on a first name basis by now.

They find Bannon's ship and talk to the captain. He's smoking something called “dream weed”, which I think is pot. You know, refer. The captain's a bit of a dick; he won't let Nate and Nicci travel on his ship for free. Nicci's rather upset by this turn of events, but the captain tells her she's free to try another ship, like that one over yonder with the “exotic” looking sailors in their silk pantaloons. The threat has the desired effect, and Nicci pipes down. And now we find out that Nate can transmute common metal into gold, so why the fuck were they arguing about the price in the first place? They literally have an endless supply of money.

The ship had docked earlier that day, and is due to depart on the evening tide. It's late afternoon at this point, and a steady stream of sailors are now returning to the ship, most of them described as having hangovers. This makes me think Terry doesn't know how hangovers work. There are a handful of tribal types aboard the ship, dusky skinned fellows with strange tattoos. I'll call them the Queequegs. Nicci is pretty sure the Queequegs want to rape her.

 

Yes, but Nicci enjoyed it, (at any rate, with the ones that were good at sex) and she also got the chance to torture and kill people, which she also enjoyed, so that makes it okay.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...