DEBT OF BONES by Terry Goodkind
Victor Gollancz (Orion) - August 2001
ISBN: 0575072563 - Hardback
Fantasy

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde, MyShelf.com
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Returning to a time before the birth of Richard and Kahlan this is a novella about an incident in the life of the young First Wizard Zedd. The war with Panis Rahl is raging and getting an audience with the most powerful wizard in the world is very hard, but young peasant woman Abby is determined to do just that to save the lives of her daughter, husband and village. She is entitled to help for she has a debt of bones and the wizard owes her a favor. But how this is going to turn out is going to surprise everybody…

Goodkind is noted for his wonderfully well-realized fantasy world populated with lively characters but not for his economy with words so a novella is a surprise. He manages the form well enough and sketches in the characters deftly in a few bold strokes that is impressive for a writer of very long novels. This is an exciting story too, lacking much depth but being instead a vivid snapshot of a time readers have heard about but not been shown before. If you are a fan of the Sword of Truth series then do read this - if you haven't yet had that pleasure it would be better to skip this for now and read the first book Wizards First Rule instead.

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