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Books : Science Fiction & Fantasy : Authors, A-Z : G : Goodkind, Terry
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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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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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Each time Goodkind's hero and heroine save the world from supernatural menaces, there turns out to be a catch involved; what we learn, interestingly, from his particular take on fantasy is to be suspicious and cynical. Last time, in Temple of the Winds, the problem was a plague of supernatural origins; this time, it is beings of water, fire and air, who cause sudden and inexplicable death and are gradually eroding the very magic on which the structure of Richard's world depends. And there is still a crusading emperor, a variety of witch-hunters and the complex uncertainties of Richard's emotional life to deal with. It is typical of Goodkind's bleak take on the stock material of fantasy that when, after four previous volumes, Richard finally marries his beloved Kahlan, there should be terrible consequences. We get to see more of this ingeniously thought-out fantasyland--a doomsday weapon in the hands of dim young conscripts and a society whose corruption enables Goodkind to lecture us on the evils of democracy. Most heroic fantasy has an attachment to autocracy as one of its unspoken values--Goodkind is not least interesting because he tends to follow those values through to their limit. --Roz Kaveney
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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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Terry Goodkind has always been stronger on visionary description than on explanation: Debt of Bones goes back to a time before the realms of The Sword of Truth were sundered by deadly barriers to explain much of what we have seen. At the same time, it is a moving human story rather than an appendix to larger texts; Abby, the young mother desperate to save her child, is placed in an impossible dilemma, and Goodkind is fascinated by the process whereby she comes to her eventual decision. He also shows us a younger, brasher, fiercer Zedd than the wise old sage we meet in the other novels, a man who has not yet formulated his devastatingly tough-minded instincts into a set of misleading proverbs. This impressive, tightly-driven novella is full of ingenious retro-fitting of information we already know the outcome of; we know that some of the decisions taken here will have consequences of which the characters cannot imagine and we find ourselves all the more torn by their dilemmas because of it. Anyone who has been moved and delighted by Goodkind's sequence cannot avoid reading this book, not just for its explanations but for its ruthless yet loving portrait of a group of flawed human beings trying to do the closest thing possible to the right thing. --Roz Kaveney
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In the sixth volume Faith of the Fallen of Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series, things have, as usual, gone from bad to worse. Richard Rahl, understanding that the sanctimonious Imperial Order of Jagang is too vast for him to defeat by military might, has retreated into the wilderness to think things through, and to allow his beloved Kahlan to heal from nearly fatal injuries, and left his supporters to fight for their own freedom. Part of the point of Goodkind's series has been that people need to work out their own salvation ; Jagang, with his creed of universal mutual support and habit of committing atrocity to bring it closer, is just as sincere a messiah, after all, as Richard. And then Richard is kidnapped by Nicci, a Sister of Darkness, who has Kahlan magically hostage and is determined to persuade him that Jagang is right by taking him to the heart of the Empire and showing him how it works. Goodkind's tic of aphorism, and some laboured Libertarian satire on the welfare state, do not prevent this being an effective continuation of this popular series. Battles, revolts and the creation of art are things Goodkind does well--and there are plenty of them here. --Roz Kaveney
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In the sixth volume Faith of the Fallen of Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series, things have, as usual, gone from bad to worse. Richard Rahl, understanding that the sanctimonious Imperial Order of Jagang is too vast for him to defeat by military might, has retreated into the wilderness to think things through, and to allow his beloved Kahlan to heal from nearly fatal injuries, and left his supporters to fight for their own freedom. Part of the point of Goodkind's series has been that people need to work out their own salvation ; Jagang, with his creed of universal mutual support and habit of committing atrocity to bring it closer, is just as sincere a messiah, after all, as Richard. And then Richard is kidnapped by Nicci, a Sister of Darkness, who has Kahlan magically hostage and is determined to persuade him that Jagang is right by taking him to the heart of the Empire and showing him how it works. Goodkind's tic of aphorism, and some laboured Libertarian satire on the welfare state, do not prevent this being an effective continuation of this popular series. Battles, revolts and the creation of art are things Goodkind does well--and there are plenty of them here. --Roz Kaveney
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