Books read in 2014: No. 23 -- Stone of Tears (The Sword of Truth #2)

by Terry Goodkind

Started: June 11
Finished: June 26

Notes: I read the first novel in this fantasy series, Wizard's First Rule, about a decade or so back, and while I found the writing strong enough and several interesting aspects to the author's world, I was kind of turned off when some of his philosophizing became a little too apparent within the story. It's not that I object to objectivism itself, though I do believe it has problems almost always glossed over by its proponents, but that I didn't appreciate such being forced into my face, so to speak. Well, time has passed, and I thought I'd give this writer another chance, especially as I do seem to recall his particular writing style being pretty strong. I guess I'll find out whether my memory is correct.

Mini review: This novel started right off where the first one ended, and because it had been so long since I had read that first novel, it took me a while to recall names and events. Still, despite the jarring sensation early on, soon enough I was back into the flow of things. This book confounds me. There are aspects of it I truly liked, but there were also plenty of things for which I did not care. Most of the characters came off a little flat to me, for instance, and some events seemed to drag on for far too long while others, seemingly important ones, were glossed over or even outright omitted though explained later by characters. Also, and this not the author's fault, this was one of the absolute worst proofed e-books I have ever read, with constant spelling mistakes every few lines; I'm generally willing to give an indie author a lot of slack, but this was a long novel from a major publisher and a pretty major author. As for things I liked about this book ... well, it's a little difficult to describe, but when all fires were burning, the reading was quite enjoyable, the story flowed well and the characters were at their best. I noticed the most fun parts of this novel, at least for me, were when the characters were faced with seemingly insurmountable odds. Despite being epic fantasy, this is mostly written in a modern voice with character names common to the real world, but that didn't bother me though I realize it might others.