Temple of the Winds (Sword of Truth, Book 4) [Mass Market Paperback]

Terry Goodkind (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 1998 | Series: Sword of Truth (Book 4)

On the red moon will come the firestorm...

Wielding the Sword of Truth, Richard Rahl has battled death itself and come to the defense of the D'Haran people. But now the power-mad Emperor Jagang confronts Richard with a swift and inexorable foe: a mystical plague cutting a deadly swath across the land and slaying thousands of innocent victims.

To quench the inferno, he must seek remedy in the wind...

To fight it Richard and his beloved Kahlan Amnell will risk everything to uncover the source of the terrible plague-the magic sealed away for three millennia in the Temple of the Winds.

Lightning will find him on that path...

But when prophecy throws the shadow of betrayal across their mission and threatens to destroy them, Richard must accept the Truth and find a way to pay the price the winds demand...or he and his world will perish.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

A deadly plague sweeps the fantasy world of Goodkind's best-selling series.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

Another independently intelligible doorstopper addition to Goodkind's Sword of Truth series (Blood of the Fold, 1996, etc.). This time, sword-wielder and wizard Richard Rahl, his warrior beloved Kahlan, grandfather Zedd, and the rest of the cast are threatened by the Imperial Order and their dream walker, Jagang, who sends a wizard-assassin, Marlin, to kill Richard. Meanwhile, old flame Nadine, befuddled by a witch, shows up intending to marry Richard; close behind comes the healer Drefan, Richard's half- brother. Marlin/Jagang announces gleefully that he's caught Richard in a ``bound fork prophesy,'' a fancy way of saying heads I win, tails you lose. Another one for the fans. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 992 pages
• Publisher: Tor Fantasy (September 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812551486
• ISBN-13: 978-0812551488
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.8 x 7.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (537 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #53,338 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Terry Goodkind is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Sword of Truth series, Richard and Kahlan stories, author of The Law of Nines, and writer of Legend of the Seeker, the Sam Raimi produced, ABC television series based on The Sword of Truth books.

Goodkind was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, where he also attended art school, one of his many interests on the way to becoming a writer. Besides a career in wildlife art, he has been a cabinet maker and violin maker, and he has done restoration work on rare and exotic artifacts from around the world -- each with its own story to tell, he says.

While continuing to maintain the northeastern home he built with his own hands, in recent years he and his wife, Jeri, have created a second home in the desert Southwest, where he now spends the majority of his time.

Join the fan community at TerryGoodkind.com for all of the latest.

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#33 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy

#40 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Fantasy

#58 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy

#62 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Temple of the Long-Winded Sermons March 11, 2005

By Book Fiend

Format:Hardcover

While I am an avid fan of Terry Goodkind and I await each book with some anticipation, I must admit that this book was a little...windy (forgive the pun, please). The beginning was a little slow, and was it just me or did anyone figure who the sicko was w/in the first 5 lines of the first murder scene? The evidence was placed in this person's belongings too soon and the excuse they made was a little pathetic. Couldn't the evidence have shown up later in the book, just to sort of throw the reader off, and delay the eye-rolls?

Anyway, there were also sappy love scenes that sort of made me want to put the book down. I understand Goodkind may have been trying to evoke some sympathy for Richard and Kahlan's frustrating (and overly drawn out) wait to complete and consummate their love, but the stolen-kiss scenes sort of dripped with sap. Also, Richard's dealings with Kahlan and with the lords and delegates from different countries were a little drawn out and preachy. His long philisophical explanations, and Goodkind's seeming need to continuously refer us to Richard's "raking raptor gaze" and Kahlan's "sparkling green eyes" and tight, white, regal Confessor's dress, get repetitive and you end up skipping large chunks of the dialogue. The stubbornness of the main characters will at times frustrate you, and after all the waiting and yearning and restraint the main duo has endured, how could the writer snatch away the sanctity of their first union by turning it into such a horrid experience? It was so terrible, it worked. That part just killed me...

But after all this passes, the book begins to pick up and roll with the formula that made Goodkind's first book such a riveting story. He did a good job at evoking irritation and murderous inclinations towards a new character, Nadine. There are parts that draw out giggles and appreciation for the humorous and angry sides of Richard's loving personality and seemingly deep well of patience with stupid or insipid characters. And again, I must stress that, for the typical female, Nadine will boil your blood. The scenes involving the sick children and some of the characters close to Richard dying, were just enough to make me misty-eyed (I am a sucker for well-described death scenes).

It also made you appreciate the love, devotion, and trust in the developing relationship between the Mord-Sith (mostly Cara and Berdine) and Richard. The overall story is good and you're able to forgive some of the flaws in this book. Richard is still one of the best characters developed in any science fiction I ever read. Goodkind makes him a handsome, strong, sensible, likeable, and intelligent hero, but at the same time he allows Richard to make mistakes, admit to them, and learn from his mistakes, without making apologies and enemies. In other words, a man that will never exist in real life.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book, but the weakest of the four October 31, 1997

By Jason Reid

Format:Hardcover

A lot of people prefer to get into arguments when talking about Terry Goodkind's work. But the simple fact is that if you want to read Robert Jordan, you should go read it, and the same applies to Tolkien. I read Goodkind because I like Goodkind, and any complaints I have aren't because I also read other works. As to Temple of the Winds, this is perhaps the weakest book in the series so far. I've always thought the biggest problem with these books is that it looks as if he set out to write a stand alone novel, only to have it become so popular that he was asked to do sequels by the publisher. The proof of this in my mind is that nowhere in Wizard's First Rule is there and mention that it's Book 1 of the Sword of Truth series. But, conversely, Wizard's First Rule and Stone of Tears sat very well together. Blood of the Fold was thinner, but here in Temple of the Winds, the first real knots start to come undone. Significant characters pop into this book out of the main characters pasts, having never even been alluded to before, and as is Goodkinds most irritating wont, these turn into red herring plot lines that endup being closed again before the end of the book. Meanwhile, little or no progress seems to be happening with the furthurance of the supposed current main plot point having to do with Lord Richard Rahl's battle for supremecy over the Dream Walker Jagang. Without the hype and without the comparisons to others, this was the least satisfying of the series. I WOULD recommend it to anyone who asked, and will continue reading the books myself, as I'm a big fan, but I can't see myself re-reading this book over and over again, as I do with the previous three in the series.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A decent series whose strengths have steadily waned. May 30, 1999

By Elyon

Format:Mass Market Paperback

What began as an interesting fantasy in "Wizard's First Rule" and "Stone of Tears" has begun to devolve into episodic serialization and somewhat sophomoric heroic posturing. To be honest, I never felt this series to be among the best, an equal to Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings," Donaldson's "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant," William's "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn," or Martin's or Jordan's ongoing series. There has always been the sense of Goodkind writing in the shadow of Jordan for reasons that are obvious, and, regardless of arguments over "The Wheel of Time's" flaws, the "Sword of Truth" series by Goodkind has never approached the scale of Jordan's work, and appears now to be flagging in both energy and focus.

What began in "Wizard's First Rule" as a fantasy epic with a solid story line and much original content, despite a few obvious broad borrowings from past writer's, including Jordan, has become, with this book, a series of adventures only loosely connected to the grand conceptual story promised by the first book. The original premise presented in "Wizard's First Rule" is now forming the excuse for 800 page excursions into secondary stories that exist in large part separate from the larger struggle that is the premise behind this series. As a stand-alone, this book is unsuccessful, and succeeds only because it is propped by the previous works. Nor does it advance the earlier story established by those books. Instead, if you examine the plot closely, it revisits a lot of old ground. The thread of Goodkind's legend has begun to become unravelled.

A further problem has begun to manifest itself in his characters: They have begun to become stereotypes of themselves. They are far too full of their roles, and much of their response to situations becomes a form of posturing, and therefore predictable. The more I saw of Richard and Kahlan, the less sympathetic they became. The overall population in this series have become caricatures of themselves, and if one looks closely, one does not really care for what one finds.

In closing, I wish to address a couple issues that crop up repeatedly in reviews of this work, as well as other fantasy fiction:

1. I weary of all the reverent comparisons to Tolkein. Let's judge a work based upon it's own merits, not some "mythic" comparison to a work that is considered by many to be the founding work of a genre, and therefore flawless. This ignores not only certain weaknesses in Tolkein's writing ability, but the strengths of writers that have followed. If "Lord of the Rings" is the ultimate achievement in fantasy fiction, why are we reading further?

2. The accusation of derivative work: It's all, to one degree or another derivative. There is, perhaps, no more derivative work in fantasy than Tolkein; one only need read the Norse or Germanic sagas, or watch Wagner's "Ring Cycle" to realize how closely Tolkein copied these works. So to those who cry foul when they perceive similarities between contemporary authors and Tolkein, I say know what of you speak: Likely you've never even heard of E.R.Eddison.