I just finished Blood of the Fold by Terry Goodkind, the third book in his Sword of Truth series.

I wrote about the second book in the series here. Blood of the Fold is an improvement. First, it's shorter, and feels shorter. The scenes don't feel bloated and over-written. Second, it feels less derivative. It's still not innovative in any real sense, but it didn't feel as familiar to other fantasy works as the previous book. Third, the fact that it is the third book in a series gives the author a chance to develop more, in terms of making the world feel richer and more interesting.

Another strength of this series is becoming evident - instead of telling one long story, broken up at arbitrary points, like many of the epic fantasy series, each of these books feels like a complete story, even though there is an ongoing story going on as well.