Stone of Tears

Sword of Truth, Book 2

By: Terry Goodkind

Narrated by: Jim Bond

Length: 38 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

An epic of awesome power from Terry Goodkind, the second installment of the bestselling series A Sword of Truth

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.

War, suffering, torture, and deceit lie in their paths, and nothing will save them from a destiny of violent death, unless their courage and faith are joined with luck and they find the elusive...Stone of Tears.

Epic edge: listen to more in the Sword of Truth series.

©1995 by Terry Goodkind. (P)2004 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

The narrator isn’t that bad

At first the voice bothered me a lot but it grew on me it wasn’t actually all that bad and by the end I like it quite a bit

Amazing story, disappointing read

Second time listening to it, still love the story, still painful to listen to. The reader has zero emotion, and you can tell he hated reading it. I'd rather listen to B.D. Wong read. At least he has some emotion behind it, and it doesn't sound like he's trying to force his way through. This guy should be narrating text books.

Great Book

This is a great book, but I think the narrator was average. I need to add more words.

narration was robotic and synthetic

reading this left me filled with a multitude of emotions and visions. listening to the narrative brought back much of those. the narrator lacked in much of the telling though. most of the narration seemed synthetic and robotic, as if someone activated a read aloud program for the text. there was very little variance in the different characters and the reading seemed too abrupt in the words. love the story. wasn't a fan at all in the reading.

How can this reader be acceptable?

As many others have pointed out, it’s hard to tell that this book is read by a human and not a computer…

What idiot decided to change the narrator?

Someone should have been fired for the decision to change the narrator for the series. This guy is just subpar and pretty much ruins the experience.

Really good story. Narrator was terrible

I read this story like 20-25 years ago and loved it. Thinking to re-live the series I started with Wizards First Rule and the narration was... ok. I've heard better but not bad. But Jim Bond, who narrated Stone of Tears, had me honestly questioning for a time whether I had accidentally purchased a book read aloud by a text-to-speech engine like Siri or or a Google Home device. I ended up going on a quest to find an old copy of the original cassette narration to be able to enjoy the story. I returned the Audible copy, which is unfortunate as the story itself really is quite good (dark, but good), if you can get bast Jim Bond's narration.

Voice sounds robotic

I didn’t care for the narrator in book 1 but this is much worse. It is real rough to listen to. I read these books a while back and loved them but this narration makes the dialogue sound empty. Seriously, at times it sounds worse than if you asked Siri to read a paragraph out loud.

Readers matter

Series seems to be going through a few voices. This isn’t the worst reading but an almost utter lack of inflection or range of accent or tenor leaves much to be desired. Hoping the next one is better, but I can’t do another book by this teller.

whiny characters

This was my first time listening to this book, but I have read it, but that was years ago. I forgot how whiny Richard can be. I understand a lot has been thrust along him and his life turned upside down, but sometimes I just wanted to slap him. I have read this whole series. they do get better. I wouldn't want that review to shy you away. Every book in this series builds on itself. All are important.

The narration was good, but I listened to Wizards first rule with another narrator and I didn't like the change in characters voices. He did a good job and does narrate more in thr series. I'm sure I will grow to like him, then the narrator will change again.