Naked Empire - Sword of Truth Book 8 by Terry Goodkind

Naked Empire is the 8th book in the Sword of Truth fantasy series by Terry Goodkind.

And a new and powerful wizard, one on the side of Emperor Jagang, the Imperial Order and the Old World, is stalking Richard and his allies on their journey away from the area also known as the Pillars of Creation. On top of that, Richard is beginning to have trouble with his magic and his connection to the Sword of Truth.

Relatively early on in the book Richard is poisoned and then has to go to various places to try and put together an antidote. This involves him and his troupe in sundry adventures and also acts as a mechanism for him to confront this new Wizard.

The book also sees a development of Richard's character. Goodkind had made Richard somewhat bitter and resentful because throughout the entire series he is being used to accomplish the goals of other people, while his own friends are dying.

If there are weaknesses in this book, it is the repetition of what has happened in the other books. Perhaps this is needed as a way of pulling things together to a finale for the book, or for the beneift of readers who might wait a long time between reading books; but when you read the books in quick succession, it does get a bit wearing.

It does take a long time for things to happen in this book, apart from the bits with the wizard Zedd in it - the book does liven up around Zedd.

Richard does find out what is interfering with his magic and he manages to come to terms with it and get his magic back and this leads to the Wizard's 8th rule.

This book gives us the Wizard's Eighth rule: Deserve victory.

it is elaborated on in the as 'Be justified in your convictions. Be completely committed. Earn what you want and need rather than waiting for others to give you what you desire.'

Now I recently came across this video by David Woods and it probably embodies this idea.

Book 9 is Chainfire