Naked Empire by Terry Goodkind, 0007145594, Lowest Book Price Finder

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	Naked Empire Author: Terry Goodkind ISBN: 0007145594 / Paperback Publisher: Voyager / 2004-10-04 List Price: £7.99 Similar Books More Details from Amazon.co.uk

Editorial Reviews:

Naked Empire is book eight of Terry Goodkind's bestselling "Sword of Truth" fantasy series, following on directly from the events of the previous instalment The Pillars of Creation.

Richard, one of various gifted children of this world's former dark lord Darken Rahl, continues his journeying with the Sword of Truth and his wife Kahlan. Seven volumes of magical and military upheaval, and all too many desperate last-ditch measures, have left their scars: "The world was unravelling, in more ways than one. But there had been no choice".

Ancient sorcerous barriers have been accidentally toppled, freeing the unpleasant "Imperial Order" to rape, loot and pillage the rest of the world. The Emperor and his chief minion are revolting creatures whose sadism begins where Vlad the Impaler left off. Bandakar, a land of pacifists, has little chance of survival until someone gets the bright idea of giving the admired liberator Lord Rahl--that is, Richard--a dose of slow-acting poison. There is no antidote until he, personally and more or less single-handedly, frees Bandakar from the invading horde while, as pacifists, the natives will stand clear and disapprove of the slaughter. Some lessons in ethics and realism need to be learned here...

Goodkind deals in tougher issues and greater moral complexities than the typical blockbuster fantasy series, and underlines the dreadfulness of his characters' choices with unsparing descriptions of Imperial atrocity. Big trouble is also spreading elsewhere, with the Rahl homeland under siege and the fabled Wizard's Keep--a bastion that is actually the home of just two elderly magicians--threatened by magic-immune infiltrators.

Meanwhile in Bandakar, Richard and friends have greater problems than overwhelming opposition and useless allies. His personal magic "gift" is failing, he gets terrible headaches, his relationship with the Sword of Truth is in trouble, poison symptoms worsen, and the three vials of antidote are hidden in widely separated places. Worse, the local boss of Imperial forces is a soul-stealer who rides the minds of birds and beasts, watches Richard's progress through their eyes, and can gloatingly anticipate his plans. No-one said this was going to be easy.

A violent finale sees some good surprises and ingenuity, plus one cheeky deus ex machina, bringing this adventure to a neat conclusion. The greater war continues, though, and further sequels must follow. Newcomers to "Sword of Truth" may be dizzied by the number of back-story references, but the saga's legions of admirers will welcome this slickly crafted and compulsively readable episode. --David Langford

Customer Reviews:

Dreadful

Appalling, dreadful rubbish. I've never liked Goodkind's work, finding it preachy and whiny with very little 'world-buidling' and characterisation. I picked this up very cheap at boot-sale and thought I would dip in to see if the writting has improved. It hasn't. I struggled through a few hundred pages and thought 'there are better things to do'. In comparison with George R R Martin, Tad Williams, even the later Robert Jordan, he is very low on the skill scale. Not many main-stream book shops stock his books now as they sell poorly. Hopefully we will see his publisher drop this soon to give new authors a chance.

What Happened?

In the preceding book "Chainfire", Richard Rahl is the only person who remembers Kahlan existed. He spent the whole book trying to find proof to convince everyone that he wasn't insane and that something was dreadfully wrong.

Phantom carries on this story. Richard, after having proved that Kahlan is not a figment of his imagination, that she is his wife and also the Mother Confessor, to certain of his friends and family, now has to figure out a way of getting her back. At the same time he has to find a way of dealing with the evil Sisters of the Dark, stopping The Imperial Order from sweeping through the Midlands and destroying civilization, learning how to finally use his magical powers as the only War Wizard to have been born in living memory, and finding a way to replace everyone's lost memories.

I had been waiting for this book after having read all of the previous 9 plus the prequel novella and enjoying them, some more than others. When I began to read I was so disappointed, where was the humour, the fast paced adventure, the wonderful characters that I remembered. The book rambled on with long passages of political invective, magical formulas and spell forms, even algebra was mentioned at one point.

Characters came and went and I found myself wondering why on earth the author had bothered to bring them back if they were not going to be allowed, at the very least, to show their personalities. I can only imagine that the memories lost to the people of the Midlands and D'Hara had also been lost to Mr Goodkind himself.

Then at the end of the book the story still isn't finished. Now we have to look forward to another whole book to finish off the things that quite possibly could have been brought to a satisfactory conclusion in this one.

I was not impressed at all.

Crushed beneath didactic drivel

Once upon a time there was a superb author of a great series. Phantom is actually two books. One an imaginative story, building on previous episodes, but crushed. The other, a didactic, patronising drivel of a lecture. Just when the story begins to flow the author stops. . . so the main character can yet again patiently explain to anyone nearby in patronising and repetive ways for page after page how social equality is bad and an everybody should focus on bettering themselves (capitalism good, communism bad ugh). The tone talks down to the reader "well you see little Johny, its like this. . . ". ignore or skip the lectures and flashes of why the earlier books were so popular become apparent

superb

I absolutely fail to understand why all the people who have previously reviewed and appeared to hate this book bothered to buy it in the first place. I don't doubt many of them if not all have read all of the series so far and have been similarly disappointed - so why perpetuate your own misery??
I for one have read all the books in the series and thoroughly enjoyed every one of them. Yes, he is guilty of telling you a bit too much about what happened in previous installments but I guess if you were to pick up the books out of sequence it may help to fill in some gaps. I love the way he tells his story and I love the characters and have been eagerly anticipating every installment.
My opinion? If you're fed up getting burnt don't keep putting your hand in the flame.

Remarkable...

I personally have nothing against a good old speech, and I think that Richard Rahl has pulled off some fairly impressive ones in his time. However, *A* speech is what I like. He had his nice little anti-pacifism lark at the beginning with Owen, and that was wonderful. Then, he went and gave the same speech to the villagers. Then he went and gave the speech to the high council. Then he gave it to the respected elder. Then, once he'd run out of people, he gave the same speech to himself! Frankly, that is just absurd. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough for Mr. Rahl. He thought these people hadn't yet been given enough of the wisdom of a Rahl, so he decided that they, along with the reader, needed to know all about the evils of communism as well! So we received the communism lecture just a few times...

Frankly, at this rate, I find it astounding that his friends can cope with him. I already hate the man! They actually have to spend day after day wandering along drinking in the speeches that are revolutionary despite the fact they have watched him give them to five different groups of people already.

And, of course, everyone's viewpoint but his is wrong, and people know it! I would be impressed at the debating power of any man, were he able to take a group of religious fanatics and convince them of their incorrectness within the span of a single novel - it simply cannot be done.

This book is absurd in every possible way. The only reason it recieved two stars was that it was (thank God) better than the one that wasn't related at all to him (I can't remember the name - my, what an impact it made on me!). I didn't finish that one.

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