Temple of the Winds

Terry Goodkind

Book 4, Sword of Truth

Gollancz (2008)

ISBN: 978-0-752-889795

Reviewed by Lorraine Cormack, April 2010

Temple of the Winds is the fourth in the Sword of Truth series, preceded by Blood of the Fold, Wizard’s First Rule, and Stone of Tears, and the prequel novella Debt of Bones. Previous reviews of these books can be found here.

As with earlier novels in the series, Goodkind appears to have made an effort to ensure this novel is sufficiently self-contained to be able to be read by those new to the series.  He’s been less successful than with earlier books; to a large extent this is due to the sheer weight of both the character development and the overarching plot of the series, both of which are well advanced by this point.  He’s engaged in some recapping in the early chapters of this novel, which he generally hasn’t done before, but even so, new readers are likely to have some trouble with aspects of the novel. For ongoing readers, however, this strategy continues to work well. The partially self contained plot means that you get some closure and a sense of achievement with each novel, rather than having to get through three or more novels to reach a payoff.