I am a huge fan of Terry Goodkind, and the SOT novels. I think they are an excellent series which really have something meaningful to say. The Omen machine...not so much. It's a decent book, but it's very short (compared to other Goodkind books). My guess is that the story he wrote is twice as long, and he just split it in half so that he could sell two full priced books instead of one. That, or even he is getting tired of writing the same stuff over and over. I get the feeling the whole endeavor is about making some easy money. He is relying on a well-used formula to sell some books. Give the fans Richard and Kahlan in trouble, give them a mysterious problem to solve, ooh, it should be about troubling prophecies, that way Richard can complain about how much he hates prophecies and doesn't want to think about them, even though he will be the one to ultimately figure it all out and save the day...several books in the future.

Am I still a fan of Terry Goodkind. Of course. Am I a little disappointed with his newest book? Yeah.