On Sunday, I finished The Soul of the Fire by Terry Goodkind, the fifth in his Sword of Truth series.

The Soul of the Fire is better than the last book in the series. Maybe it's not surprising at this point, but the most interesting characters were the new ones he introduces just for this book. The main series characters are off screen for good portions of this book.

The plot involves some evil spirits accidentally loosed at the end of the last book. As a side effect, these spirits drain magic from this world, so the characters have to get by without their immense magical powers for a while.

The book also does very little to advance the larger level plot of the struggle against the Imperial Order that has been hanging around since part way through book two.