“The Name of the Wind and Wise Man’s Fear are the very finest examples of first-person storytelling. It’s comparable to sitting across from someone, in a comfy chair, before a log fire, listening to them recount one of the most intricate and fascinating stories you’ve ever heard. To quote Ursula Le Guin: “It is a rare and great pleasure to find a fantasist writing… with true music in the words”.
– Fantasy Book Review
“I have stolen readers back from the doom of endless repetition. I revitalised an entire genre. This book is the product of eighteen years and two thousand revisions….I escaped with both my sanity and my life. I spent two years as an undergraduate before my college made me declare and finish a major. I ride the line of modern and classic writing like a master, managing to write with tantalising beauty, poetry, and music. I have talked to myself, and written books that make the beta readers weep.
My name is Patrick Rothfuss. You may of heard of me…”
The Dwarf
Told in Kvothe’s own voice, this is the tale of the magically gifted young man who grows to be the most notorious wizard his world has ever seen.
Kvothe tells the story of his life to the Chronicler, who will write Kvothe’s entire chronicle starting from his childhood up to his present life as an innkeeper in Waystone Inn. Kvothe will tell the entire chronicle of his life within three days and The Wise Man’s Fear encompassed Day Two of his storytelling.
The Kingkiller Chronicle:
- Day 1: The Name of The Wind
- Day 2: The Wise Man’s Fear
- Day 3: The Doors of Stone
I hated this book. You might ask why? The book was rated higher than The Name of The Wind on Goodreads, right? Well yes…that’s true. It’s also true that the prose, the wit, and the foreshadowing are all nothing short of perfect.
Ah, damn.
The only way I can explain it is in this illogical, ill considered, inexplainable, inexcusable formula…
Felurian (1000 Years of Age) x Kvothe (16 Years of Age) = 10 Chapters of Sexual Intercourse
I was left feeling disgusted by the end of that part of the book since I didn’t want to skip through and miss a vital plot point in the series (he can be so subtle with clues, hints and foreshadowing). In my opinion it had zero contribution to the story.
If I’m being honest…I’m more than a little bit embarrassed for Patrick Rothfuss.
“I think I slipped into a coma when Kvothe spent pages and pages just laying around having sex with a fairy. It was like a fever dream.”
Harrry Gibson
This wasn’t the only problem too because the final half of the book felt like a massive waste of time (a great big tangent if you like) leaving me to wonder how The Door’s of Stone is going to fit everything in.
In a completely pointless tangent he’s sent on a mission to bring bandits to justice, loses himself on a tangent from the tangent when he meets a seductress who teaches him how to please women. Then the tangent from the tangent takes another tangent to another distant land where he learns to tangent from a group of tangentary tangents, but is tangented by yet another tangent after leaving when he tangents upon some young tangents in need of being tangentially tangented away from–wait, what as I talking about again? Oh right, I’m reviewing a book. One could say that the entire last half of the book is just one gigantic tangent that has absolutely nothing to do with anything, and ultimately leads nowhere.
Eric Allen
The series was shaping up for one of the greatest tales in the modern era in my opinion. The hints, the foreshadowing, the incredible prose, the wonderful magic system. The books were a thing of beauty. Now I’d be embarrassed to recommend this book to a friend. Nonetheless if you want to see how bad Patrick screwed up then I’ll leave a link to the book below.
Enjoy!
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Here’s one of The Fantasy Nobility’s opinions on The Wise Man’s Fear…
I’m genuinely at a loss here. I don’t think I’ve read a fantasy series that started of this strong and flopped this hard in the middle.
This was a giant waste of my time.
James