Book Thoughts: "Stone of Tears" by Terry Goodkind

I really enjoyed the first Sword of Truth book, "Wizards First Rule" and actually read it a couple of times before moving on to Stone of Tears. I didn't like this one as much. Not that it's a bad book by any stretch of the imagination, but it just ended up frustrating me.

Many reviews talk about the lack of character development in Gookind's novels. Ok, well it might no be his strong point, but watching the characters, particularly Richard and Kahlan, have the adventure TOGETHER through most of the first book was part of it's charm and to me it negated any lack of individual development. Heck, in the first book Richard and Kahlan are together from the opening pages until the last hundred or so. In "Stone of Tears" after the first 100 or so pages, they're hardly together at all. It gives two distinct threads to the story that set up the third book, but in doing so, this one lost some of it's charm for me. Plus it made me wonder if Richard was going to have a collar in every one of these books!

Goodkind's action writing and battles are one of his strong suits however, and this novel showcases them brilliantly, so despite a little bit of a lull in the 2nd quarter or so of the book, it picks back up and definitely finishes strong.

So for me it's not as good as the first but surely worth the read.