Product Description

Though attached to his bestselling Sword of Truth series, Naked Empire works as a standalone novel and jumping-in point for new readers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5728 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

Anne McCaffrey
'A real born storyteller'

Synopsis
The tenth book in the Sword of Truth series from bestselling author Terry Goodkind. Fantasy adventure on a grand scale featuring the popular wizard-hero Richard Cypher. As her husband, Richard, desperately searches for his beloved, who only he remembers, he knows that if she doesn't soon discover who she really is, she will unwittingly become the instrument that will unleash annihilation. But Kahlan learns that if she ever were to unlock the truth of her lost identify, the evil itself would finally possess her, body and soul. If she is to survive in a murky world of deception and betrayal, where life is not cheap but fleeting, Kahlan must find out why she is such a central figure in the war-torn world swirling around her. What she uncovers are secrets darker than she could ever have imagined.

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