Wind and Truth

Story and Plot

Rating: 3.5/5

Picking up in the near immediate aftermath of Rhythm of War, Wind and Truth continues the stories of the wide array of main and secondary characters that we have come to know in the Stormlight Archives series. Dalinar has negotiated an end to the conflict between humans and singers via a showdown with Odium’s chosen champion. However, he has overlooked the fact that until that showdown, any territory taken and occupied prior to the contest will remain in the victors hands. The fighting accelerates, which sets our heroes off on their respective journeys.

Kaladin and Szeth depart for Shinovar, where Szeth seeks to free his people from a darkness that has seeped into the land. Kaladin, who has largely put down his spear, plays therapist to the traumatized Szeth, aiding him with words rather than force of arms. Dalinar and Navani journey to the spiritual realm, searching for an edge in the upcoming showdown with Odium. Shallan, Rlain and Renarin manage to slip into the spiritual realm with them, hoping to stop a great evil from being unleashed onto Roshar. And Adolin and Sigzil fight, Adolin to keep Azir out of Odiums graph and Sigzil to keep the Alethi foothold in the shattered plains.

Many stories play out in Sanderson’s sprawling novels, especially so in Wind and Truth. This multithreaded approach to story-telling usually works well, especially so in the earlier entries in the Stormlight Archives series. There, the author found a balance between story progression, action sequences, worldbuilding and character internal monologue. In this most recent entry though, many of the characters spend the majority of their time in deep introspection about their shortcomings. While this does fit thematically with the world that Sanderson has built, where power is gained by speaking oaths and truths, it falls flat as an engaging and entertaining narrative. While this is less painful as an audiobook, as you’re likely doing other things while listening, it still detracts from the experience. With that said, as someone invested in the series, I did enjoy it overall, and some of the story lines and threads were entertaining in their own right.

Worldbuilding

Rating: 4/5

As the fifth book in a series, much of the worldbuilding of Wind and Truth has already taken place. However, Roshar as a setting has much to offer, with many mysteries not previously explained. In this work, some of the final aspects of Roshar’s unique nature are revealed, such as how humans arrived and how the storms came to be. Learning these origins is satisfying, though its conveyance feels contrived at times.

Narration

Rating: 3.5/5

Perennial Sanderson favorites, Kate Reading and Micahel Kramer return to narrate Wind and Truth. Though I’ve enjoyed their narration in the past and still did so for much of this audiobook, Reading’s seems to have either changed or been impacted by a (hopefully temporary) illness. Especially early on in the story, Reading’s performance has a noticeable frog-in-throat quality that impacted my immersion. It does however sound like her voice improves somewhat over the course of her performance, so I hope she makes a full recovery and comeback for the next major Sanderson release.

Value

Rating: 5/5

With an impressive 1344 page count, the audiobook version of Wind and Truth comes in at just under a whopping 63 hours. While more of this work is made up of navel-gazing by the main characters than I’d like, your audible credit goes a long way here. For me, it came out at just the right time; I picked it up just before I had some long drives ahead of me during some Holiday travel, and the long run time helped eat up the miles and hours on the road.