Just Finished Reading Terry Goodkind's Chainfire

I have just completed my reading of Chainfire, which is the ninth book in Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth fantasy series.  Depending on where you get the information from, I now either have just two more books to go through until I finish the eleven-part series or there are more books as well...for Goodkind continues to write novels about protagonists Richard and Kahlan to this present day.  But for my own sake I will cap it at eleven.  I expect some serious resolution to this series in the next two books, titled Phantom and Confessor. Maybe in the subsequent books a new story line begins (I hope).

Chainfire is a mystery novel, even regarding the cryptic nature of its title. It revolves around the disappearance of Kahlan and the erasure of anyone's memory of her ever having existed...with the one exception of Richard, who spends a great amount of time and effort trying to convince all of the doubters around him.  In spite of his (and ultimately my) frustration with this, it all is explainable in the end.  But Richard, in order to find out what has happened to her, has to go on his own quest in the face of being regarded as mentally ill by others, who think that he has invented Kahlan in his mind.  Since I already wrote about Kahlan being in subsequent novels, I suppose you can assume that she IS real (in the context of this work of fantasy fiction, that is).  It's a little touchy for me to decide how much to tell about how Chainfire ends because, as is the case with stories in general, I don't want to ruin the experience for anyone interested in tackling this series for themselves.  But I will say that Chainfire is not a complete story like the previous eight Sword of Truth books; there are many significant loose threads and perils that must be dealt with in the last two books of what is essentially a trilogy embedded within an eleven-volume series.  But I felt good about the ending and am quite eager to embark on Phantom, the next book...