Review of Stone of Tears (Sword of Truth #2) by Terry Goodkind

 

Title: Stone of Tears (Sword of Truth #2)  Author: Terry Goodkind Pages: 979 Publication Date: August 1996 Source: Purchased myself

Back Cover

An Epic of Awesome Power

Kahlan has at last gained the one goal she had always thought was beyond her grasp ... love. Against all odds, the ancient bonds of secret oaths, and the dark talents of men long dead, Richard has won her heart.

Amid sudden and disastrous events, Richard's life is called due to satisfy those treacherous oaths. To save his life, Kahlan must forsake Richard's love and cast him into the chains of slavery, knowing there could be no sin worse than such a betrayal.

Richard is determined to unlock the secrets bound in the magic of ancient oaths and to again be free. Kahlan, alone with the terrible truth of what she has done, must set about altering the course of a world thrown into war. But even that may be easier than ever winning back the heart of the only man she will ever love.

First Lines

"Rachel clutched her doll tighter to her chest and stared at the dark thing watching her from the bushes."

In a Sentence

In spite of a few minor flaws, Stone of Tears was a solid follow-up to Wizard's First Rule.

My Thoughts

When I first sat down to review Stone of Tears, I had a similar problem that I did when I reviewed Inheritance by Christopher Paolini: I had quite a bit of trouble collecting and organizing all of my thoughts on such a LONG book! I let my ideas bounce around inside my head for a few days, jotting notes down whenever I came across something important, and finally, almost a week later, I was able to start writing my review of Stone of Tears. 

Stone of Tears is the second book in Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, a series which I originally picked up because I fell in love with the television series Legend of the Seeker, which is based on the books. Though I promise my review is going to center on the book and not the TV series, I can't help but tell you all that the first season of Legend of the Seeker is available for free on Hulu (it's also on Netflix, if you have that). You should give it a shot. Seriously. It's a little corny but I love it! 

Okay, now that my shameless TV show plugging is over (for now), I'll get on with my thoughts about Stone of Tears. First of all, I have to say my favorite thing about this book was the character development of Kahlan Amnell. It was awesome. I can't exactly tell you the specifics of why it was so awesome without giving away too many spoilers, but I can say this: Goodkind did a brilliant job of exploring the developing dichotomy between Kahlan and her magical role as the Mother Confessor. Throughout the book, Kahlan had to make several incredibly difficult decisions that would drive just about anyone else insane. Yet she managed to retain her determination and perseverance and never stopped fighting, despite all of the challenges she faced. Kahlan is probably one of the strongest female characters I've ever encountered in the genre of high fantasy, and I love that she plays such a big part in this series! 

On the other side of things, I wasn't quite satisfied with the characterization of Richard Cypher, the other main protagonist in the book. Richard's story in Stone of Tears mainly revolved around learning about his newfound abilities, and I felt that he didn't do a lot of growing in the book. Since this is only the second book in the series, I expect that this issue will be resolved in future installments, but I would have liked to see a little bit more in this department. While I didn't mind reading the parts of the book from Richard's point of view, I definitely looked forward to the viewpoint switch to Kahlan, who, as I mentioned above, was fantastic. 

There were a few times in Stone of Tears when things seemed to get a little long-winded, but that often seems to be a characteristic of the high fantasy genre, and not just something that's unique to this series. Unfortunately, it's also one of the things about high fantasy that often discourages new readers. Still, at heart, the story was good in Stone of Tears, and I didn't feel like the book overly dragged on. For the large majority of the book, I had no problem at all flipping through pages and racing right through the book. 

The ending of Stone of Tears felt to me like it was a little rushed and wrapped up just a little too neatly, but it wasn't enough of a serious annoyance to spend much time talking about it, especially since I'm sure the characters won't have all that much time to enjoy their brief respite from danger and despair before they're thrust into another adventure in the next book, Blood of the Fold. 

In spite of the couple of issues I mentioned in this review, I found Stone of Tears to be, for the most part, an extremely enjoyable book. I stayed up later than I should have two or three nights in a row just so I could find out what happened next. I will definitely be continuing this series, and I look forward to reading more of Goodkind's work!

Links

Add Stone of Tears to your to-read list on Goodreads.
Find author Terry Goodkind online.

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Rating

Haven't started the series? Check out my review of the first book, Wizard's First Rule, by clicking the image below.