Naked Empire is a disappointment.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the series, Naked Empire is the 8th book in the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Now, let me first say that I like the series and intend to read it as far as it goes, even post-NE, because I have an emotional attachment to some of the characters and because I think Terry Goodkind has a writing style that is, for the most part, excellent.

I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum here, but of necessity I'm going to have to reveal certain things any intelligent person could figure out. If you want to go into the book completely ignorant of things, stop reading.

That being said... why do I say Naked Empire is a disappointment? Mostly because... it's nothing new. I felt like I've read this book before, that it took elements of Soul of the Fire and Faith of the Fallen, added in plot twists from Pillars of Creation, mixed well, and produced this. It's like... the next episode in a TV show.

The series, which began so intelligently, has almost become a parody of itself. Certainly the empire indicated in the title is a ludicrous paraody of a civilization -- like Altur'Rang in FoF, except even worse -- an empire that is so poorly concieved and constructed on such shoddy intellectual ground, it's impossible to concieve of it lasting three days, let alone centuries. The pages devoted to Richard Rahl, protagonist and superman, dictating perspectives on reality to the members of the empire, seem so painfully blatant. At least in FoF, the Empire was slightly more coherent, and wasn't taken down just by words. But, ugh!

Kahlan annoys the fuck out of me. She's supposed to be a strong, intelligent, competent woman -- the ideal of femininity -- but she's just getting more and more out in crazyland with every book. Now, admittedly there's reason for it, but so much of the time devoted to her is her whining about how she's destroyed the world. Double ugh.

Richard continues to be a superman, who manages to figure out everything, sway everyone, and unleash domination over all. I hate characters like that, so he's now on the list -- which currently includes only Wolverine and Vin Diesel in all his forms. Ugh.

Precious little of Ann, Verna, Zedd, Adie, Nathan... the characters that always seemed so much more human, and consequently much more interesting, than the protagonists.

The magic enemy du jour possesses a truly terrifying and horrible power, one that should have more significant repercussions to the series than the Sisters of the Dark, the chimes, or even the dream walker himself... but he's totally wasted. Nothing at all comes of it. Batman: The Animated Series devoted more time to the psyches and ramifications of its villains that NE did. That more than anything turned me off to the book.

The Wizard's Eighth Rule, while not preachy like the Sixth, is not intelligent like the first. It really seemed pointless.

I guess that after Soul of the Fire and Faith of the Fallen, my respect for the series started to drop. Pillars of Creation really seemed like a breath of fresh air, taking the series in a new direction, with a new perspective. Unfortunately, Naked Empire seems to have gone back to formula, and it really didn't get the best parts of that formula.