Been reading the Sword of Truth series. Six or seven books in so far, and honestly, it hasn't been the best ride. It seems like the author just found a (honestly pretty crappy) formula, and stuck to it. I'm not even gonna spoiler, because honestly, it doesn't feel worth it at this point.

Protags notice something vaguely wrong. Protags infodump what's happened so far in the series for eleventy pages to somebody, doesn't really matter who. Ominous events happen. More infodumping. Protags, purely by chance, find out about an obnoxiously designed and pointlessly convoluted magic system, trap, spell, creature or person. Bleh (my word for basically filler content that's neither exciting, interesting or meaningful) happens for approximately most of the book. Along the way, protags talk a lot more than anybody actually talks in real life. Infodumps galore, along with a Richard lecture on whatever the author likes the best this week around (buhh, communism bad because north korea-style society). Protags solve it just in time~!

For a series about a WAR WIZARD, with a MAGIC SWORD that gives him all the ability with the sword that all of its previous wielders have had, with magic like NOBODY'S EVER DREEEEAAAAAMED OF for THOUSANDS OF YEARS, the fight scenes are shit to nonexistent. Honestly, the series should've ended with Darken Rahl. The only thing that makes Jagang remotely scary at this point is his army, and it's even cheaper than Game of Thrones' approach to warfare and one-upmanship.

"Well, there goes another king and his army, defeated by [insert kingdom here]! But wait, there's more! Suddenly, a kingdom that hasn't been mentioned, thought of by any of the characters in the series so far or even possibly existed up until this point has shown its ugly face, and its king is a bigger bastard than these other guys, and oh look, they have an army from out of nowhere that they couldn't possibly support in a medieval age!" Randomly out of nowhere there's a guy with an army that consists of millions, and when the protags kill a couple hundred thousand with strategy and tactics and a Russian winter, it turns out the enemy's expecting reinforcements bigger than their millions.

This villain's arc has not only overstayed its welcome, it's taken a shit on every piece of furniture, upended the plant pots, and made out with the homeowner's dog. At this point all I can hope for is that at the very least, there's a cool swordfight between Richard and Jagang- Guy who has the swordplay skills of every man to ever wield the Seeker's sword against a guy who invades the minds of everyone around him and can take their memories and skills for himself should be one of the best written fight scenes on the planet, but I have the sinking feeling the author's gonna screw it up.