Rating: 
Summary: richard battles a rebel nudist colony
Review: if you hated pillars of creation and loved faith of the fallen you'll like this one...but i know that this editorial isnt gonna change whether you buy it or not if you're a fan of the series... how could you pass up the next book? seriously, this book rocked...
Rating:
Summary: Back on Track
Review: It seems as though Terry Goodkind had trouble with 2 things recently: 1) he didn't know how to combine a moral message he considers important with the storyline, and 2) he was having trouble thinking of new (and "fresh") problems for Richard and Kahlan. Goodkind is truly an amazing author, and I feel that this book is a testament that the fire is not out of him yet. While I would still rank WFR, SOT, and TOTW over this book, it is the most energetic and engaging book he has written in some time. I would go so far as to say that chapter 53 (I'll stay vague so as not to spoil it) was my favorite single chapter of all time. Terry Goodkind found a second wind with this book, and was able to make an exciting and believable conflict, while still expressing a strong moral conviction. Some great plot twists. Definitely worth reading, even if you've become disillusioned by his last 3 books.
Rating:
Summary: Rates 3.5 Stars
Review: The good news is: Richard and company are back (unlike POC); unfortunately, there is no new ground covered. The story takes far too long to get going. Then, it falls into the same old story line that filled the pages of previous books. Moreover, since TOW, the books have become less Fantasy and more political explorations with Fantasy overtones. Gone are the great story telling and fantasy. The SOT series is starting to go the way of the Wheel of Time series. Goodkind is a great writer and I wish he'd write something on par with WFR or SOT again. Worth a read for die-hard fans.
Rating:
Summary: Back on Track
Review: Great book. Goodkinds' last two books really went off on a tangent. Glad to see he got back to the main story. Pillars of Creation was hard to read. It just made no sense for the most part. Naked Empire is a much better read. I just hope that Goodkind does not let this series become like Robert Jordan and his never ending, string us along wheel of time series.
Rating: 
Summary: now he goes after the hippies with the communists
Review: I like the series as a whole but the quality of the books has been falling off as he does the same theing over and over again. Unlike almost every other reader of the series, I loved The Pillars of Creation. It was a breath of fresh air in a series that is stagnating. The aspect of the books that I can't tolerate anymore is the constant preaching. There wasn't much of that in the early books, but it happens every couple of pages now. Could Goodkind be more of an obvious card carrying Republican? From the anit-socialism, to the anti-peace movement, he continues to spout political ideaologies. My favorite by far is the whole "don't take away my magic" thing. This reminds me a little too much of the NRA. "Don't take away my magic, I needs it to protect my family. I don't want the evil gov'ment messin' wit my rights." If the next book isn't less preachy, I don't think I'll bother to read it.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Bad....
Review: But it could have been better. My main peeves with this book are: 1) The Political Agenda. It seems like every time you turn a page there's another speech preaching the virtues of mercilessly punishing evil-doing communists/imperialists/conquerors and the self-defeating nature of pacifism. Don't get me wrong, those ideas are perfectly fine, but instead of being subtlely implied by the story, they felt like they were being driven into my skull by a sledgehammer. Faith of the Fallen also had this problem, although it was to a lesser degree. 2) The Speeches. Like another reviewer said, Richard's speeches feel like they are written by a team of speechwriters. They are lengthy, and they are pretentious. He's supposed to be the Seeker of Truth, not the Absolute Authority on Truth; he often states opinions as facts. Anyway, the way he speaks sounds unnatural at times, not like a born leader gifted at rhetoric, but like a programmed robot. Richard was the worst, but several other characters, unfortunately, also displayed this behavior. 3) Déjà Vu? The way events occur, how they are resolved, and how they progress, all feel the same as the other books, somewhere between the predictable and a deus ex machina miracle. It contributes to a feeling of stagnancy that has pervaded these last two books. Well, that and the fact that little of substance has actually occured in them. In any case, the story is not horrible, and there are some funny, and touching, moments. And while the metaplot remains nearly stationary, a few potentially course-altering variables are introduced. Hopefully, the next book will be as much an improvement over this one as this one was over the last. If so, it will be a true work of art.
Rating: 
Summary: redemption is good
Review: i just started reding this eigth book (im about 250 pages in) and i must say that where pillars of creation was an ok individual novel its good to see a sword of truth book from goodkind again.
Rating:
Summary: Naked Empire
Review: This was yet another good book by Mr. Goodkind but it still leaves so many problems unresolved. I know that this can't all be done in one book but it would be nice if Richard couldn't ever get back into the New World or if Richard could ever at least tap into some of the powers that he has been blessed with. I give this a two becasue while this book is interesting, it leaves the reader with a want for more. He preaches too much we already know everything he has to say and we have memorized it the 3rd time he says it. Come on Terry. The First Book splendor and glory is unobtainable but I hope that Mr. Goodkind will take his time for the 9th book and give me 1000+ pages so that it will really be worth reading and taking some time to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book
Review: It was the best book i ever read
Rating:
Summary: Naked Empire
Review: Naked Empire is book 8 of Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. It picks up the story right where book 7 (The Pillars of Creation) left off, with Richard, Kahlan, and Cara, together with Tom and Richard's half-sister Jennsen, far down in the desert somewhere in the Old World. The situation is, as always, desperate, with Richard about to be killed by an unbalance in his own gift, and the Keep up in the New World in dire danger from the hordes of Emperor Jagang. On top of all this, our heroes get sidetracked when a sniveling weakling by the name of Owen turns up, demanding that Richard must save Owen's people from the Imperial Order, and then poisoning Richard to force him to comply in exchange for the antidote. So it's off to the Bandakar Empire, and a confrontation with the main baddie, in this case a wizard by the name of Nicholas the Slide.
Goodkind is in good form, delivering lengthy diatribes on every other page in, even for him, unusually harsh language, coupled with sugary and steamy descriptions of the love between Richard and Kahlan. The strong influences from Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy is as clearly evident as always, which, for me, makes this book all the more enjoyable. Goodkind has lost none of his ability to provoke his readers, and to evoke strong emotional responses to the situations he's describing. As always, it's the story and the desperate situations the main characters find themselves in that are the main things in the book. The fantasy world itself in Goodkind's books never serves as anything more than a loosely defined stage for his stories to play out on, and as a result you never get the "realistic" feeling of the detailed worlds created by, for example, Tolkien and Jordan. When Goodkind does offer detail, it's always intriguing, but you don't get the feeling that it's all part of an interconnected whole. Yet, at the same time, you also get the feeling that the Goodkind world is huge, as large as the real world, with enormous areas still unmentioned and unexplored. This feeling is underscored by the map of the New World, which is almost completely lacking in detail, and the fact that there is as yet no map at all of the Old World.
The Imperial Order, which is the evil ideology that Goodkind attacks in all his books, has very clear parallels to the real world. Exchange "Christianity" for "the Order," and you have what is essentially an accurate description of the Dark Ages and medieval Europe. A lot of the most horrible descriptions of brutality, butchery, depravity and sheer evil in Goodkind's books are lifted almost straight from the blood-soaked doings of the medieval Inquisition, the crusades, the witch trials, etc. It is a very frightening thing to consider that almost all the mind-numbing horrors that Goodkind describes so vividly in his stories have actually happened (if you remove the fantasy trappings) to real people in our real world, and all of it in the name of God Allmighty. And a lot of this stuff is still happening, all over the world, in the on-going (and mostly religiously motivated) conflicts of today's world. Furthermore, the ideology of the Order is, practically point by point, that of Christianity, although few Christians today would recognize what their religion is truly teaching, or how it was practiced in bygone days. Of course, it was probably not Goodkind's intention to single out Christianity in particular as the inspiration for his descriptions of evil, you could just as well, in many instances, place any other organized religion or ideology (such as Communism or Nazism) in the place of the Order.
It is clear, as well, that a lot of this book has been shaped and influenced by current events. The warped pacifist ideas of the Bandakar people, and Richard's dealings with them, is, of course, a commentary on the peace movement and the war in Iraq. Richard's solution is one I myself many a time have wished could be applied to the peace fanatics... Just for that, Goodkind gets an extra star from me.
|
