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That would depend on the standard of the good. For a hedonist, the standard is pleasure, not man's life. If we take "what is good for me" as an objective good, by man's life as the standard, then the statement is a good presentation of the proper attitude to have about values and their relation to one's own life -- that having such values is right. In other words, it would be a statement of righteous moral pride. Obviously, however, Mr. Hickman was not an Ayn Rand hero in the John Galt sense of the term. What he did was hideous and viciously evil. Without reading the whole context of her statements in her journals regarding this case, but knowing what I know about Ayn Rand aside from that, I think it was a case of an individual man up against a mob mentality that she was defending. It is rather interesting, though, that she made those statements about the jury, since she had a different attitude about the jury in The Fountainhead and in Atlas Shrugged. If, in principle, a jury is supposed to be a jury of one's peers, I can understand her disdain that Christians would be judging a man who in her opinion made a statement of rational pride. Would a devote Christian even understand that? and would they judge him as guilty for having that attitude? would they want to lock him away, not because he committed murder and torture, but because he was guilty in spirit, even if he never committed that particular crime? I think these were the issues she was thinking of.

Rand thought Hickman was "degenerate".

I'd like to see a superhero movie that isn't about saving the someone. Want to use your powers for good? How about doing something useful with them. Barring that, there are a couple of novels I'd like to see made into movies: Snow Crash, by Neil Stephenson: sweetest Cyberpunk book EVER, I tell you The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley: cool female heroines The Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (there's seven books in this series, but I figure, if they can do Harry Potter, the sky's the limit)

I've read part 1 to 10 and must say i'm utterly bored up with the series. Part 1 was boring enough to get through, but all the other parts thereafter don't add much spice to the whole story. After reading all 10 parts you can tell exactly what everyone is wearing when going formal, casual and or on holiday. I can tell the names of most farmers in each country and there wives names and I know what clothes they prefer to wear during some national festivity. I know the names of indescrbitive characters who perform guard duties and what their emotional state is during the day. But I can't tell you, if my life depended on it, what the story is actually about and where all of this is going to other than the fact that the last battle is comming somewhere in the future. Probably when Jordan's bank account is fat enough. I wish that Robert Jordan would look more to the writing skills of Weiss and Hickman, they master the act of writing fantasy stories far better. They can conjure of a fluid, spectacular and gripping story like it's nothing. Just read the Dragonlance series as a testimony to their skills.

The only information that should be in the prologue of a book, if one is necessary, is setting information. If you're introducing the main characters that's your exposition and it should be part of the main story, not an addendum at the beginning. What is the difference between Terry Goodkind and David Eddings that makes them belong to entirely different literary sub-genres? Gods in their writing? Both. Dramatic sword fights? Both again. World-saving? Both. Incredibly powerful magic wielded only by a handful of elites? Fiend-like enemies with no subtlety whatsoever that torture people for the heck of it? Both again. If I were to get persnickety (as well as accepting your categories), I'd say Eddings was the High Fantasy because he sticks more with the thematic stuff like mounted knights, jousts etc. Heck, they even deal with some of the same PLOT POINTS: Eddings did that plague that happened in The Temple of Winds, and Goodkind's female sorceresses remind me a lot of Polgara and Ce'Nedra (They look a lot like Aes Sedai, too) . . . they even both have a mysterious seer appear. (Nathan and what's-her-name that falls in love with Zakath . . . starts with a K I think.) Differences in style are not enough to put a work into a different genre, as the genre is dictated by setting and literary conventions such as (for fantasy) how magic is used and presented. Your reliance on the names of two authors to define the difference indicates to me that you have no idea what the actual difference is. So, I'll rattle off a few authors and you tell me whether they belong to High or Low Fantasy, what the difference is, and how it is consistent with your idea that David Eddings and Terry Goodkind are definitive examples of these two sub-genres. Patricia McKillip, Robin McKinley, Anne McCaffery, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Robert Heinlein (yes, he wrote fantasy), J.K. Rowling, Eric Flint, David Drake, John Ringo, J.R.R. Tolkein, C.S. Lewis, Robert Jordan, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, R.A. Salvatore, Celia Dart-Thornton, Roger Zelazny, Stephen R. Donaldson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Mercedes Lackey Some of these you probably haven't read, though.

Not worth it. Maybe after he finishes the series, but not until then. If you like sword and sorcery fantasy, which is the genre that LotR really springboarded, I recommend you try: The Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman Dragon Wing, Elven Star, Fire Sea, Serpent Mage, The Hand of Chaos, Into the Labyrinth, The Seventh Gate Their Dragonlance stuff is fairly good, too, and the Starshield books aren't bad. Steer clear of anything Margaret Weis writes on her own, it is saturated with Christianity. Even the stuff they write together has heavy-duty sacrificial motifs, but the characters and other oddities are thoroughly engaging. Fortress Series by C.J. Cherryh Fortress in the Eye of time, Fortress of Eagles, Fortress of Owls, Fortress of Dragons C.J. Cherryh can be a little surreal, but the complex political manueverings in her books are positively mind-bending and highly enjoyable. A number of books by Stephen Brust The Phoenix Guards, Five Hundred Years After, The Paths of the Dead, The Lord of Castle Black, Sethra Lavode Jhereg, Dragon, Phoenix, Orca, Athyra, Taltos, Issola, Yendi (may be one in there I missed, and these are not in order) Brokedown Palace To Reign in Hell Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn Trilogy by Tad Williams This is an interesting one, albeit long. Also check out the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett. I'd have more for you, but my books don't live with me any more so I can't just look at my shelves. I miss them sometimes.