I was crawling around the interwebs to see what some of the better known names in scifi had going on, and I stumbled across this little gem. Terry Goodkind, author of the acclaimed Sword of Truth series, is undergoing a little cosmetic surgery on his website. It appears that the site is gearing up for the next installment of the Richard and Kahlan saga. Right now there is just a landing image announcing the title of his new book The Omen Machine, with the following passage:

Hannis Arc, working on the tapestry of lines linking constellations of elements that constituted the language of Creation recorded on the ancient cerulean scroll spread out among the clutter on his desk, was not surprised to see the seven etherial forms billow into the room like acrid smoke driven on a breath of bitter breeze. Like an otherworldly collection of spectral shapes seemingly carried on random eddies of air, they wandered in a loose clutch among the still and silent mounted bears and beasts rising up on their stands, the small forest stone pedestals holding massive books of recorded prophecy, and the evenly spaced display cases of oddities, their glass reflecting the firelight from the massive hearth at the side of the room.

Since the seven rarely used doors, the shutters on the windows donwn on the ground level several stories below stood open as a fearless show of invitation. Though they frequently chose to use windows, they didn’t actually need the windows a any more than they needed doors. They could seep through any opening, any crack like vapor rising in the early morning from the stretches of stagnant water that lay in dark swaths through the peat barrens.

The open shutters were meant to be a declaration for all to see, including the seven, that Hannis Arc feared nothing.

A lot of readers out there find Goodkind’s work to be enjoyable, though he has frequently been accused of getting preachy in his books. His last book, The Law of Nines, was a bit of deviation from the Sword of Truth, taking place in the present day on a parallel world to the original series, where Alex Rahl, a reality-displaced descendant of the House of Rahl, must protect a swath of land in which the only portal between the two realities exists. If that description confused you, don’t worry. I read the book and still don’t understand everything that was going on. Thankfully, The Omen Machine appears to return to the original timeline. One can hope that it will clear up some things for The Law of Nines as well.

You can see the launchpad image for The Omen Machine over At Terry Goodkind’s website.