Stone of Tears: A Sword of Truth Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

Here, let me give you some parallels:

Richard = Rand
Rand is in prophecies, gee, so is Richard....
Rand becomes a sword master, hmm, so does Richard, although via spirits instead of actual practice.

The White Tower = Palace of the Prophets, both establishments are on an island next to a big city with a river. Goodkind hardly even makes an effort to make anything different.

Sisters of the Light = Aes Sedi
Sisters of the Light want to control Richard, the Aes Sedi want to control Rand.

Wizards in this series are basically the male Aes Sedi of WOT.
In this series, new wizards must learn to control their magic or it causes them a horrible death if they are not rescued and taught how in time. In WOT, the men must overcome the 'taint' of the male half of the power or they die horribly.
Wizards are at odds with Sisters of the Light...Male Aes Sedi are at odds with the Female Aes Sedi....

There are 'Black Ajea' in the White Tower, and surprise, there are 'dark sisters' in the Palace of the Prophets. In both series, it's forbidden to mention the 'Dark sis...er Black Ajea' and they are mythical, scary, and powerfull. Identical in both series.

In WOT, the "Dark One" is trying to escape his prison where he was put by the Creator...the "Nameless One" in this series is trying to escape his prison where he was put by the Creator. There aren't even minor differences here. They are the same.

Richard is the only one who can stop the Nameless One from escaping. Rand is the only one who can stop the Dark One from escaping. Both Rand and Richard are headed for the 'big showdown one on one fight with the Nameless One.

Chase the border guard = Lan in WOT. Both the formidable almost unstoppable fighters of the series.

Blood of the Fold = White Cloaks in WOT.

The Bak Ban Mani = Aiel
Both have men and women fighter sects. Both series, Rand / Richard ends up ruling them.
Rand becomes the Caracarn, Richard becomes the Caharin.

I can go on, and on, and on.... but I'm running out of space to shoot holes in these books.

Bottom line: Both the Wheel of Time series and the Sword of Truth series were essentially written by the same author, Robert Jordan.

It's too bad that he copied someone else's work, because the 'few' places where the books actually diverge, the characters are interesting...like Kahlan...and he did do a decent job of getting some emotion into the story, which was fun.
I loved the part where Kahlan leads 5,000 young recruits against 50,000 battle hardened men. I was rivetted and that was one of the more original parts of the book, so trust me, I'm not just bashing the series. The problem is that there are just too many similarites to WOT.

Maybe next time he'll actually take the time to come up with his own story and write a real book, but this stuff is mostly just a work of cut and paste. Goodkind has lost my trust as a reader. Skip this and go read WoT....