Legend of the Seeker

Well... let's just get this out of the way.

Xena it ain't.

I've read the first book in the "Sword of Truth" series on which Legend of the Seeker is based. I liked it a lot. I was told by friends who'd read the rest of the series or at least other books in the series that subsequent installments suffered from diminishing returns and from eventually excessive preachiness on the part of author Terry Goodkind.

Anyway.

We've got HD New Zealand scenery. That does count for something. And we've got two women on horseback with heaving bosoms (the women... not the horses...) with a bunch of armored men in hot, archery heavy, occasionally slow motion pursuit. Oh, no, blonde breasty woman in black garb got shot. I don't remember this from the book. But I read it over three years ago... so it may have happened? Um, actually, I'm pretty sure it didn't. But yay death in shallow, muddy streams. And Kahlan runs into a shiny barrier. Ah, yes, this definitely did not happen in the books kind of sort of at least not at the beginning. I'm remembering the books better now. Three separate kingdom-ish things with barriers keeping them apart since times of yore based on some moral issue surrounding the use of magic. I think? Anyway, the books started with Richard, our naive woodman soon-to-be hero, as opposed to Kahlan the Confessor, she of the cool temper and impeccably white dress. Kahlan was already through the barrier. There may have been a flashback-y explanation of her coming through at some point... again, my memory ≠ perfect. But I totally understand using this sequence to start off. There's urgency, death, and, well... women with heaving bosoms. Are you liking what you're seeing, young male viewing audience?

Sidenote... IIRC the last 150-ish pages involve Richard becoming some dominatrix's torture victim. How's this going to work on TV???

Okay, I'm just gonna let the mindnumbing action-hour (or two!) take me back into the cold, dead, raped corpse of the book I read years ago. Peace out, ya'll!

But don't get me wrong. I'm very happy to have a fantasy hour on TV.

I just wish George R. R. Martin would get A Song of Ice and Fire done faster so HBO could do the seven books. Read "A Game of Thrones" if you haven't. It'll knock your socks off.