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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Temple of the Long-Winded Sermons, March 11, 2005
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.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Spiralling downward..., March 11, 2005
I enjoyed the first three books in the series. However, I've read about 500 pages into the 4th injenction and I must say it has some good points, but not nearly enough to fill out the amount I have read so far. He's beginning to be very redundant; not just about reiterating events from pasts books, but even the ideas fairly indigenous to this book are just about beat to death! I don't think I care to even finish the whole thing, its just too boring and lacking overall.
With this, like Robert Jordan's voluminous series, I think you can put only so much into such a hugely continuous story centered around the same characters, and not have it peter out eventually.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Beginning of the downward spiral?, July 3, 2006
I was forewarned that although the first few novels in the "Sword of Truth" series are pretty entertaining, that the series gets stale fast, and becomes almost unreadable the further in you get. After just finishing "Temple of the Winds", I have to wonder if this is where that slide begins. The story itself isn't BAD, per se... it's rather formulaic, with a magical plague and the hero needing to stop it. He's got a pretty good war brewing with the Old World Imperial Order, and an interesting foe in the Dreamwalker Jagang. Where this story really fell flat for me was in the constant bickering, the incessant apologies, the melodramatic dialogue, and the rather ridiculous (and repeated from book 1, and book 2, and book 3) "plot twists" that fate, and every other character keeps throwing in to try and keep Richard and Kahlan apart. Really, when it came down to the requirements for Richard to enter the temple, the story became pretty ridiculous.
Those significant complaints aside, the story still moved along pretty quickly and had a good deal of action. For that reason I do give it 3 stars, but the dialogue and melodrama really started to get to me around the halfway mark of the novel. I have yet to read book 5, so I'm not sure where he picks up from this point, but I definitely thought that this was a step down from "Blood of the Fold", and I hope that Mr. Goodkind loses the "everybody's trying to keep Richard and Kahlan apart" plotlines in his future work.
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