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Wind of Truth
The Emperor is dead, the Empire in chaos. The Clans hover on the brink of ruinous war. Only one man, Toturi Sezaru, knows the true danger threatening the Empire. In a desperate attempt to stop chaos from destroying the world, he must travel beyond the mortal realms into the very heart of the universe.
278 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 1, 2003
101 people want to read
About the author
Ree Soesbee
78 books50 followersRee Soesbee is a writer, game designer, and lore editor for massively multiplayer online games as well as traditional pen and paper RPGs. She has authored more than sixteen novels in a wide variety of fantastic worlds ranging from the popular Legend of the Five Rings setting to Star Trek, Dragonlance, Deadlands, and Vampire: the Masquerade. Her body of work includes over a hundred RPG texts, and inclusion in numerous short story anthologies and professional literary journals. Currently, she is a lead designer and lore writer for Guild Wars 2; innovative follow-up to the award-winning Guild Wars MMORPG. Already, Guild Wars 2 has recieved Gamescom's 'Best Online Game' and MMORPG.com's 'Most Anticipated MMO' awards.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 21, 2020
The Emperor is dead, and all the factions in the kingdom are going to war. One boy holds the key to peace and security.
Nothing memorable.
Nothing memorable.
October 3, 2007
In this series we can explores a different character's perspective on the events taking place. The overall storyline is based on the Legend of the Five Rings trading card game.
The story is complicated for me to make understandable review ^_^"
The story is complicated for me to make understandable review ^_^"
June 23, 2019
what to say about this book? it was...what’s the word...bad.
first of all, let’s start with the ending: the resolution of the entire five book series takes place in the last three chapters, with no preamble. everything in this book prior to those is an unrelated story about Sezaru. this is perhaps not Ree Soesbee’s fault — the other Winds all got books that told their own stories, so Sezaru had to, too, but his book also had to resolve the crisis overall, which none of the other books needed to do. nonetheless, it’s — charitably — a jarring transition, and as a result, the fact that a grand total of one (1) chapter is devoted to the confrontation with Daigotsu feels extremely rushed and so lacks the emotional impact that it should have. Wind of Honor was a good book — I should feel something when Tsudao sacrifices herself.
second of all, there’s the question of characterization. Naseru’s inconsistent characterization I dealt with in my Wind of Justice review; here the problem is more Kaneka, who goes from an angry but sympathetic and compassionate man (who, we might add, is well-educated and adopted into a prominent family within the Akodo) in Wind of War to just, like...a stereotypical knuckleheaded jock soldier. it’s once again jarring and also just really fucking disappointing. I had hoped that by the end of the series the Winds might have learned to see each other as more than just caricatures, but, alas, this book just embraces caricature. then we have Sezaru. I wanted to like Sezaru, I really did. he’s a wizard-priest! his nickname is “the Wolf”! but he’s just so boringly written — there’s very little there to like (or to dislike, for that matter), and so his epiphany in the Void falls totally flat, along with most of the rest of the character drama in the book.
third of all, it would be remiss of me not to mention the two bizarre Harry Potter allusions. first there was the puzzle at the gate of the Oracle of Water’s palace, a logic puzzle presented in the form of a poem that set off a bunch of Sorcerer’s Stone alarm bells in my head — but I brushed it off on the grounds that it’s not like J.K. Rowling invented riddle-poems. (side note: the puzzle as presented to the reader doesn’t align with the narration of Sezaru solving it — multiple animals are in the wrong place and his narrated solution doesn’t match as a result.)
but then we got to the scene where Koshei refers to Fu Leng as — literally! — “He-who-must-not-be-named”, and Sezaru, in his best Dumbledore voice, says: “Fu Leng[.] [...] Always call him by his name. To hide his name is to inspire fear. Though he may be dead, we must not allow him even that faint power.” sound familiar? it’s not like this was written in 1999 when Harry Potter hadn’t quite taken off yet — it was 2002, the first movie had already been released, and it was a household name. and yet Ree Soesbee just went for it! you kind of have to admire the guts. I guess she figured after the IOC legal action about the L5R logo nothing else could compare.
on a final, lighter note: Koshei sure is gay and in love with Sezaru, huh! it’s almost enough to make me want to write fic about them. almost.
also shoutout to all the Winds except Kaneka having faithful Scorpion retainers — and. like. the village Kaneka’s in is in Scorpion lands, so. close enough. just a funny coincidence.
overall I’d say:
1. Wind of Justice, unfortunately
2. Wind of Honor
3. Wind of War (which would be higher except for...the second half)
4. Wind of Truth (at least it had a plot that didn’t skip years at a time with no context!)
...
...
...
5. The Steel Throne
first of all, let’s start with the ending: the resolution of the entire five book series takes place in the last three chapters, with no preamble. everything in this book prior to those is an unrelated story about Sezaru. this is perhaps not Ree Soesbee’s fault — the other Winds all got books that told their own stories, so Sezaru had to, too, but his book also had to resolve the crisis overall, which none of the other books needed to do. nonetheless, it’s — charitably — a jarring transition, and as a result, the fact that a grand total of one (1) chapter is devoted to the confrontation with Daigotsu feels extremely rushed and so lacks the emotional impact that it should have. Wind of Honor was a good book — I should feel something when Tsudao sacrifices herself.
second of all, there’s the question of characterization. Naseru’s inconsistent characterization I dealt with in my Wind of Justice review; here the problem is more Kaneka, who goes from an angry but sympathetic and compassionate man (who, we might add, is well-educated and adopted into a prominent family within the Akodo) in Wind of War to just, like...a stereotypical knuckleheaded jock soldier. it’s once again jarring and also just really fucking disappointing. I had hoped that by the end of the series the Winds might have learned to see each other as more than just caricatures, but, alas, this book just embraces caricature. then we have Sezaru. I wanted to like Sezaru, I really did. he’s a wizard-priest! his nickname is “the Wolf”! but he’s just so boringly written — there’s very little there to like (or to dislike, for that matter), and so his epiphany in the Void falls totally flat, along with most of the rest of the character drama in the book.
third of all, it would be remiss of me not to mention the two bizarre Harry Potter allusions. first there was the puzzle at the gate of the Oracle of Water’s palace, a logic puzzle presented in the form of a poem that set off a bunch of Sorcerer’s Stone alarm bells in my head — but I brushed it off on the grounds that it’s not like J.K. Rowling invented riddle-poems. (side note: the puzzle as presented to the reader doesn’t align with the narration of Sezaru solving it — multiple animals are in the wrong place and his narrated solution doesn’t match as a result.)
but then we got to the scene where Koshei refers to Fu Leng as — literally! — “He-who-must-not-be-named”, and Sezaru, in his best Dumbledore voice, says: “Fu Leng[.] [...] Always call him by his name. To hide his name is to inspire fear. Though he may be dead, we must not allow him even that faint power.” sound familiar? it’s not like this was written in 1999 when Harry Potter hadn’t quite taken off yet — it was 2002, the first movie had already been released, and it was a household name. and yet Ree Soesbee just went for it! you kind of have to admire the guts. I guess she figured after the IOC legal action about the L5R logo nothing else could compare.
on a final, lighter note: Koshei sure is gay and in love with Sezaru, huh! it’s almost enough to make me want to write fic about them. almost.
also shoutout to all the Winds except Kaneka having faithful Scorpion retainers — and. like. the village Kaneka’s in is in Scorpion lands, so. close enough. just a funny coincidence.
overall I’d say:
1. Wind of Justice, unfortunately
2. Wind of Honor
3. Wind of War (which would be higher except for...the second half)
4. Wind of Truth (at least it had a plot that didn’t skip years at a time with no context!)
...
...
...
5. The Steel Throne
June 11, 2013
The best book in The Four Winds saga by Ree Soesbee, the character's use of magic is gripping and so is his challenging journey until the very end of the particular saga.
October 19, 2022
I’m glad this series is over. In the final book, we follow sorceror son Sezaru in the aftermath of his imperial father’s death as he tries to reconnect with his lost mother and stop evil forces taking over Rokugan. I didn’t hate it. But so much of the importance of this book—villains, places, Oracles of powerful gods—were never set up in the previous books. And the villains and powers either mentioned directly in the other books or implied within the storylines barely appeared in this, the conclusion of the entire Winds Saga. I don’t want to blame on this book; poor planning on the entire series caused this disparate books to be combined with little interaction between the different authors (I assume). However, this book in particular was a difficult read. It was hard to get into Sezaru’s story and so much time was spent explaining the workings these Dark Oracles—which I don’t ever remember hearing about before but were insanely powerful and important here. Maybe by this point there were just too many groups, the Elemental Masters, the Oracles, the Dark Oracles—too many seemed like they did the same exact thing as each other. Did we really need more, nearly identical peoples? The conclusion of the whole series storyline was anticlimactic as well. Daigotsu, who should have been a powerful force behind all the machinations of the four books and their prelude, sort of just shows up, cackles evilly, and then battles the Winds. Too much time in these books was wasted on lead-ups that went nowhere when it should have been devoted to properly describing the powers at play.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews