Rating: 
Summary: Finishes Strong
Review: I'm a big fan of the SOT books. The series has had it's ups (Faith of the Fallen) and it's downs (Blood of The Fold) but it's been pretty steady so far. I personally dug Pillars of Creation even though Richard was non-existent through most of it but I'm glad to see him back. However, It seems that during his travels from the end of FOTF, through POC, and into this work Richard has picked up a few copies of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Don't get me wrong, Ayn Rand had a lot of things right, and Socialism is ...backwards and self-defense is perfectly cool but... Didn't we go over all this in FOTF? There is plenty to keep fans reading but Richards repetitive speeches and the inane comments from random people in the crowds he talks to take all the life out of the segments with him. Zedd and Adie's storyline though, keeps things moving nicely. The book end strongly though, regardless of the pretty unbeleivable salvation of Richards life. I'd give the first 400 pages a 1 but the last 200 make up for it. And did I mention that the book was 600 pages? Not nearly enough effort was put into this book. Hopefully 9 will be the redeemer.
Rating:
Summary: jeffmpls
Review: The book was okay...period. I think Goodkind has a formula and simply elaborates on it. He has an astounding talent for making his charactors seem human...and that's why I keep coming back. If I were making the money he is I'd keep cranking them out too. As with most of the reviewers I think his 1st two books were by far the best. I keep buying the new hoping to see their equal again. So far it's a no go.
What's with the Iraq comparisons anyway? He's simply commenting on a flawed philosophy from a bunch of fools. I'm hardly a pacifist and am/was totally against the Iraq thing. Sorry, I just don't think it's right to invade a country (no matter how nasty it's ruler is) based on lies and 1/2 truths. All for the purpose of gaining access to oil fields and or reshaping the middle east. He addresses nothing even close to this in his book. Anyone who thinks he's drawing a comparison between people against the war and the people of Bandakar well.......my Mom always said "if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all" so I'll just end this here.
Rating: 
Summary: Richard Needs to Be Put Out of My Misery.
Review: After Pillars of Creaton I was hoping Goodkind would get back on track, and concentrate this newest book on Richard. Unfortunately, he did. Don't get me wrong, there were good parts too; every section without Richard in it was good. Goodkind is becoming absolutely obsessed with having Richard do nothing more than spew out Goodkind's own philosophy on life. Every time Richard started "preaching" his doctrine of reason, I got a mental image of Goodkind wearing a filthy monks robe and foaming at the mouth while screaming at the top of his lungs that reason will be your salvation, and anyone who doesn't agree should be put to the sword.
Rating: 
Summary: Not too bad...
Review: It is the same plot structure as the majority of his other books. As someone else has stated here in a review, the same sequence of events happen in this book as they did in his others. Richard goes on adventure. Richard can't control his magic and has no idea how to use it. Richard gets sick. Zedd is once again not with Richard. Zedd and Adie get in trouble. Kahlan gets captured. Richard comes to the rescue of Kahlan. Richard finally meets up with a wizard to help him understand the magic, but he runs in the other direction yet again. Richard gets better. So we are right back where we started..almost exactly where they book started.Anyways..it is still a good read..I just hope that he breaks from the current plot mold he is stuck in.
Rating:
Summary: Sloppy and Simplistic
Review: My problem with this book is really twofold. One, it's redundant. It constantly repeats itself, sometimes on the same page, and I'm not sure if it is just poor editing or the what, but after page 300 or so it becomes really obvious and annoying. My second reason is related. And a spoiler. See, we have a people in the Old World that are essentially hippies. And Terry spends way too much time telling these hippies that being hippies is evil. I don't even disagree with the point the author is trying to make, but I hated how he beat me over the head with it, I hate how idiotic and simplistic he made the hippies, and I hate how this one bit really derailed the book for me. I think it just came off as insultingly lowbrow, really. Heck, it would have been fine if he had stopped after the first go round between the hippies and Richard, as Richard teaches them that being against violence is all well and good till you get your head bashed in. But again, the redundancy takes over, and we end up with essentially the same conversations and the same points being repeated over and over till it drives one mad. Again, I even agreed with the authors point of view, and I was still - ok, got it! Move on already!
Rating:
Summary: Horrible
Review: I am very disapointed in Mr. Goodkind. I find his constant preaching of his own quite conservative republican ideals to be annoying and out of place. I was very pleased by the first four books of the series. Fast-paced romantic exciting, if a little uninspired definately four star books. Since then Mr. Goodkind's writing has gone down hill, to hit rock bottem in book eight Pillars of Creation. It can, will and has gotten worse in this book. Mr. Goodkind unless i read some glowing reviews about your next book you've lost a customer. The preaching in this book is worse than ever. Charecters seem flat an dull. If your looking for an exciting fantasy read i'd recommend Robin Hobb or George RR Martin. If you'd like to see our war with Iraq justified eighteen times while reading a (rather stupid pointless) fantasy novel stick with Goodkind.
Rating:
Summary: Tired and predictable
Review: Well, if you've read the prevoius 7 books like me, you'll probably read this one too just to see what the characters are up to. But you may want to just skim the book quickly. Large sections of the text are just too tedious to read (I know I found myself skimming through several sections). Why Richard has the compulsion to spew forth 3 page diatribes of dim-witted philosophy every few hours is beyond me. Certainly his little band of friends is tired of his preaching. And the author doesn't even bother to work the sermons into the storyline half the time - his babbling is plainly aimed at the reader. It wouldn't be bad if his ideas were deep or challenging or new. But they are the same rehashed ideas from the last few books. Yes, communism is bad. We get it. Even the Soviets got it eventually. I guess the author is preaching to Fidel Castro or the other 78 people on the planet who still think Communism is a great idea. And do we really need 40 pages of justification about why the peasants should rise up and kill the rapists and murderers who are oppressing them and torturing their children? These are not moral dilemmas that anyone of moderate intelligence struggles with. It makes me wonder who the author's target audience is. The graphic violence and sexual themes clearly make his work unsuitable for young children, but much of the text is tedious for any intelligent adult to read. The other major flaw in the book is that we are told every few minutes that Richard is a great wizard, when in fact he is utterly clueless and struggles through the obstacles like any good fantasy swashbuckler would. That's fine. I'm never one to skip over a good swordfight. But in the end it's less than satisfying because the reader knows that if things ever go bad, Richard's mystical wizardly powers will kick in, often in absurd ways. We have great detailed battles where Richard and his friends struggle to kill a few dozen bad guys. And then suddenly he'll decide to kill thousands in a single pop. And then it's back to bumbling along. It's frustrating for the reader and it totally eliminates any fear or empathy for the main characters. The reader knows that no matter what deadly situations they get into, they'll magically be saved at the end by Richard's stupid gift. He lacks the skill to do even the simplest magic for 90% of the book, but as with the past few books, he'll suddenly be all powerful and all knowing, only to then revert to his normal self. If his sidekicks were written with anything close to realism, they would have long ago smacked him upside the head for letting them bleed and die to accomplish all their quests when he is apparently omnicient and omnipotent on a whim. It's almost as if the author regrets ever having made Richard a wizard. In the end, it'd be much more satisfying if Richard was a normal swashbuckling hero without any foolish mystical powers. Then we'd really get drawn in to his struggles and worry about it. But I just can't bring myself to care very much about his troubles when I know that no matter what stupid things he does or how powerful his enemies are, he'll triumph in the end with his magical "get out of jail free card".
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: After delightedly reading Goodkind's other fantastic novels, I was a little surprised at Naked Empire. Terry made a myriad of new stylistic choices, some of which I thought detracted from the tone of the book. It felt as if Richard decided to take his friend the thesaurus along for the ride this time, and used confusing, multi syllabic words into his dialogue for who knows what reason. People don't talk like that in real conversation and neither did Richard until this book. It seemed very out of place. Naked Empire was also full of long monologues and Richard's incessant preaching to certain characters who seemed, at times, created solely for the purpose of having his moral doctrines imposed upon them. At times, however, it seemed that Richard was spouting his tenets at no one in particular while he and his group wandered the arid reaches of the Old World during the first third of the novel. It made for some incredibly enjoyable reading, let me tell you. People have said that Terry's preaching was too strong in Faith of the Fallen, but compared to that, Naked Empire is a veritable ethics course. Faith of the Fallen happens to be my favorite book in the series, whereas Naked Empire was definitely not. The preaching in Naked Empire was not subtle in the least and it sometimes seemed that Terry's intention was not to write a novel, but a philosophy textbook. All of the other books in the Sword of Truth series were mainly character-driven, and Goodkind spent many pages working on character development. Many of the characters in Naked Empire seemed unnaturally flat, even the ones who had previously been very complex and interesting. The plot also lacked the usual suspense and intrigue, and during the entire first half of the book, it seemed as if almost nothing happened. Mind you, I am not a person who requires action at all times for a good read, but I found the repetitive explanations of life, the gift, and violence to be too much of one thing. It would have been much better if the characters had interacted with each other more than they actually did. Richard and Kahlan's relationship, for example, lacked substance and didn't seem to progress to another level during this book. Their dialogue was more of the same: they love each other more than life itself. The reader knows that, though. We want more. There were, however scarce, a few high points during the novel and by the end, it almost redeems itself. It definitely is worth the read, though it does not live up to the reputation of Goodkind's other books. However, one can only hope that book nine will start fresh and make up for the disappointment of the two controversial books before it.
Rating: 
Summary: A great addition to the series with a timely message
Review: I've been reading Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series for about the last four or five months. It started out great dipped a little bit around Soulf of the Fire but has jumped right back and the last couple (including Pillars of Creation) have been excellent. Now comes Naked Empire, which is probably the best one so far with the possible excpeption of Wizard's First Rule. Goodkind's writing is as always superb and his ability to flesh out his characters is astounding.
The plot of Naked Empire largely revolves around an empire which is being invaded by the Impirial order. Their defenses have fallen and they are completely vulnerable, naked, to attack. But that's not the only way they are naked. The empire is rooted in pacifism. They believe any use of violence for any reason is competely wrong. Becuase of this attitude they've allowed themselves to become naked to evil. They refuse to fight it so they look the other way and by doing so have recieved evil with open arms. The parallels to today are unmistakeable.
There's no doubt that Mr. Goodkind wishes to comment on the events of today, specificly the Iraq conflict, with this novel. This could have been very dangerous to the quality of the book. If Goodkind had gotten overly preachy it would have made this a long long read regardless of your political views. Thankful Mr. Goodkind has the ability to work this message seemlessly into the storyline, as he did before with Faith of the Fallen. The message is one that needs to be heard. Just like the empire in the novel many people today need to get their heads out of their butts and realize the danger around them. It's refreshing to read a book by a novelists whose willing to call a spade a sapde well still write a great story...You're free not to read Terry Goodkind if you don't like his message. I don't know why you'd ever want to pass on this excellent writer but it's your loss and your money. But don't criticize him for doing this same thing you praise your liberal novelists for. We fans of the Sword of Truth can do without your hypocrisy.
Rating: 
Summary: Grabbed me like typical Goodkind, but nothing new
Review: Terry Goodkind has been one of my favorite authors in the genre for the past 8 years. I even wrote to him and he wrote me back, including several autographs, which was quite awesome indeed. And while this latest installment of his gripped me like almost all of his previous books, I'm beginning to get...concerned. See, my only problem is this book contains absolutely nothing new and absolutely no progress made in terms of plot. We're still at the same point we were in at book 2, essentially, and the patterns of Richard and Kahlan's plight in this book are identical to the patterns of their plight in just about all the previous books. Mr. Goodkind had a beautiful chance to bring some closure to this Imperial Order thread in book 7 (and if you've read it, you probably know which part I'm talking about), but he backed down yet again. Apparently the Order has a cloning vat somewhere (powered by the prospect of another book) where they can just pop out half a million men at a time. C'mon, Terry, you're a great author, but you're stretching this plotline way too thin. We know you love writing about Richard and Kahlan, as we love reading about them, but you don't need to have them fight the same enemy for their entire lives (or is it for OUR entire lives? ;p). It's time to move them, and the plot, to the next level. Kill off the Order in favor of a (badly needed) fresh threat, advance a few years, write about their male confessor kid (assuming he wasn't the unborn fetus killed in book 5), have Rachel grow up, do SOMETHING new. Please.
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