Phantom

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

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Crushed beneath didactic drivel - Rated
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 - Rated
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... - Rated
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.

Not quite up to the usual standard - Rated
I have read all nine of the books that preceded this one in the series and have eagerly awaited the release of each one. There are certain characteristics which make a fantasy novel outstanding. The primary one of course is that the author creates a world which captures the imagination of readers. In order to be effective, a fantasy world, no matter how many of the rules of our own world it breaks, must abide by the laws of nature that exist within that world. Very few authors since Tolkien have ever achieved this. Most cheat at some stage to resolve the plot complications they have introduced. The beauty of this series was that Terry Goodkind had created a world that was perfect within itself. On top of this his characters were fascinating and the intricate plot he wove was totally gripping. This is the first of the novels that did not live up to the expectations created by the other nine. The magic worked by the `gifted' at times becomes a little too complex and suspiciously close to not conforming to the inner rules of the fantasy world. The intricacies of plot become a little repetitious and we have the notion we have been in the same place before. Fantasy novels almost always portray the fight between `good' and `evil' and at times in previous novels in the series the association of `evil' with a force that seems to represent communism has descended into sermonizing. This is the first novel where that sermonizing seriously detracts from the plot, however. The plot still swept me along (in the second half of the novel anyway - the first half dragged a little) and I am still eager to read the final novel in the series, but I hope that it returns to the standards of the first nine.

Note - be careful of the reviews on this page. It seems that many of them actually relate to 'Naked Empire' or 'Chainfire' and not to 'Phantom'

loved it - Rated
After reading Chainfire and not being overly impressed, I left reading for a while and came back to this and loved it. Not really a fan on Fantasy stories, and not having much time to read, these are the only books I take time out to read, although as one review said the end did leave me a bit "wheres the rest?" but then it just make me want to read the next one even more. I thought it was excellent, definatley one of the better ones, although the amount of complicated spells etc. boggled my mind after a while, too many of those, but above all I thought it was great, looking at the reviews from others that are so varied from Rubbish to great, you can do nothing more than read the book and decide for yourself.