Terry Goodkind: The Stone of Tears

Posted by Raphael on January 20th, 2011

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The Stone of Tears by Terry Goodkind is the second volume of Sword of Truth. After their victory, Richard and Kahlan travel back to the Mud People to return Siddin to his family and have — finally — some peaceful time together. Things are bound to get busy soon, anyway, since the magic of Orden damaged the veil that keeps the Underworld apart from the living. The heroes want to ask the Mud People spirits for advice but end up releasing Darken Rahl’s spirit from the Underworld. But they are confronted with more urgent, tangible problems: Kahlan has to travel to Aydindril in order to pacify the Midlands again; after the end of the war, petty local conflicts have broken out everywhere. Richard needs to train with the Sisters of the Light — their keep situated in the opposite direction of Aydindril — in order not to die of his inborn and now manifesting magic. Both face long and hard journeys with many an unexpected event. In the meantime, Zedd picks up Adie; he needs her knowledge about the Underworld in order to figure out what to do about the tear in the veil.

This book is mainly devoted to character development. While Richard behaves stubbornly juvenile for most of the time, there are some very funny, but also moving scenes with the Sisters and, of course, Gratch. Richard is taught a lot, but sadly learns only little. He seems to spend his time mostly with threatening Sisters and plotting his escape departure. Kahlan’s journey is a lot more intense, showing off her martial talents and giving more insight into the Midlands. I greatly enjoyed her parts. Kahlan is the more mature character and it shows; she also got the more twisted, less predictable plot.

Goodkind sows a multitude of hints throughout that nicely — if a bit obvious — come together in the end. Long missed shades of gray are introduces, both in the form of characters and events. Our main characters seem to be much more suited for future tasks than they were before. In general, there is more action as well as more involved character handling and plot design than in Wizard’s First Rule; therefore, Stone of Tears is by far the better book.

Stone of Tears is not perfect, though. My critique of Goodkind’s style stands; especially Richard’s ramblings are very annoying. Furthermore, Kahlan’s fighting and Richard’s manipulation Palace staff seemes slightly out of character. While the former is explained sufficiently, the latter is not. Richard oscillates between cool thinker and angry hothead on the author’s command; I do not get a clear picture. Finally, I had the impression that a lot of time is spent on traveling and slow development but then, suddenly, the book has to end at once. At least the part from Richard in the forest with Liliana to his arrival in D’Hara is really overhasty. Richard refuses to listen to any reason and makes every mistake possible. But in the end, against all foreshadowing, he does the right thing, of course. This, I can not understand; it feels like a broken promise. There is now way Richard could have acted like he does in D’Hara, given all we have read before.

All in all, The Stone of Tears is a fine book. I am looking forward to volume three and whatever it brings.