Starting "The Faith of the Fallen"

I just finished "Soul of the Fire." It is as I expected. Goodkind brought the book to a resounding finish. I just started "Faith of the Fallen" and am already excited by some of what I'm reading. It's no secret that Goodkind is an admirer of Ayn Rand's, and "Soul of the Fire" shows that more than any other book I've read. He has not fallen to the trap of just quoting her in his books, substituting his character names for John Galt and Howard Roark. That said, here are some quotes from "Faith of the Fallen."

In the first one, Richard is explaining why he is abandoning his position as leader of the forces against The Order, a tyrannical regime threatening the world. He has just left Anderith, a kingdom that voted itself into the subjugation of The Order:

"Freedom requires effort if it is to be won, and vigilance if it is to be maintained... There are always some [people who value freedom before it is taken away], but most don't even understand it, nor do they care to... People mindlessly shrink from it without seeing the truth. The Order offers them a world... [with] ready-made answers to everything. Servitude is simple. I thought I could convince people of the value of their own lives, and of liberty... Forcing people to fight for their own freedom is the worst kind of contradiction... I must do what is best for us. I must be selfish; life is far too precious to be casually squandered on useless causes. There can be no greater evil than that. People can only be saved from the coming dark age of subjugation and servitude if they, too, come to understand and care about the value of their own lives, their freedom, and are willing to act in their own interest... I have been a leader too soon. It is not I who must prove myself to the people, but the people who must now prove themselves to me."

In this quote, Goodkind treads as close as he ever has to quoting Ayn Rand, but he still manages to make it his own:

"The only sovereign I can allow to rule me is reason. The first law of reason is this: what exists exists; what is, is. From this irreducible bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. This is the foundation from which life is embraced.

"Reason is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a means to discovering them. reason is our only way of grasping reality--it's our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see.

"If I fail to use reason in this struggle, if I close my eyes to the reality of what is, in favor of what I would wish, the we will ... die in this, and for nothing."

To those who have read Ayn Rand, the above will be familiar reading. What I should endeavor to make clear is that Goodkind's character has reached these conclusions over the course of about 3000 pages of story. I stopped reading at this point to write this blog entry. I'm very excited right now. What is great about reading this is the fact that Richard has reached these conclusions only through the experience of a long and difficult journey--a journey the reader has traveled with him. I'm anxious to see where it goes next...