Not too much plot to give away, but to keep from doing so, let's just say that Naked Empire is a fairly well contained separate story unto itself. Without going much deeper into the realm of the core storyline, Goodkind introduces a new Empire, a realm of people similar to Richards' siblings, all pillars of creation. The story follows his race against time to try and save himself from the deadly threats of both his own in born gift and a poison, slowly killing him, and to try and liberate a people that are unwilling to see the truth necessary to be liberated.

Fans of the Sword of Truth series. If you are only a casual reader, or haven't read all the other books, this is not a necessary read. It sticks to the realm that Goodkind has crafted and its world is a beautiful draw for anyone familiar with that world.

As always, Goodkind's characters are quite enjoyable. His insight and method of writing allows all the different aspects of their personality to bleed through the pages, really grabbing the reader.

In the past few books Goodkind has gotten rather preachy with his approach to the morales and reactions in the stories. As a result, the reader is presented with long stretches of wooden speeches and non essential sermons (One speech in this novel is about 50 pages long. Very repetitive.)

Read more about the actual story. The last little bit of the book really got me back to the mood I felt when reading the first few books and made me really want to experience that world and see some true resolution come to pass.

I was caught up in the story and yet quite dissapointed in its lack of final oomph. I wanted more from it, and the entire time it felt like there could have been more. In the end, it felt like a good chunk of the book could have been cut out and a good deal more could have been added.

As I said, Goodkind is an amazing author, capable of craftind appealing worlds, and personal characters. Of late, he digresses to preachy reflections and long unnecessary speeches though that really detract from the real power of his writing.

If you want to read a bit more about Richard and Kahlan and were angered by their lack of presence in Pillars of Creation, you should definately read this. They are in there a lot and you get a heavy dose of their inner dialogues.

If you find the method in which Goodkind has started to present his stories of late angering, this might be one to skip. Whether or not he is able to redeem himself with his next entry is still to be seen, but like so many other epic fantasy writers that begin to reach so deep into a story, his is beginning to wane and I personally wasn't impressed.

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Created Aug 11, 2003 at 10:11pm • Submit your own review...