Thread: Patrick Rothfuss' "Wise Man's Fear"

Hey gang. Is anybody else reading or finished reading Wise Man's Fear? For those of you who aren't familar with Rothfuss, he's a fantasy writer, relatively recent, and Wise Man's Fear is the sequel to his first book, The Name of the Wind.

As an avid fantasy reader, I'm often discouraged by the enormous amount of absolute crap the genre can produce, but Patrick Rothfuss' work is, in my very humble opinion, phenomenal. His expression his exquisite, he's a fantastic storyteller, the characters are fleshy and compelling.

Surely somebody else has read one or both of his novels? I'd love to get a discussion going, as I have dozens of conspiracy theories that I'm just dying to bounce off of somebody.

Patrick Rothfuss - The Reviews

That's a link with reviews from some major publications, as well as authors that I have enormous respect for, such as Ursala K. Le Guin, Orson Scott Card, Anne McCaffrey, and Terry Brooks. All offer ringing endorsements.

Cheers!

This one snuck up on me. I remember enjoying The Name of the Wind and wondering when its sequel would come out. Will have to pick it up. My biggest complaint with The Name of the Wind was Kvothe is too intense, he's too grandiose. He's the best wizard, the best student, the best lutist, the best singer. Still, good fantasy is hard to come by.

Oh, I do agree with that, but I think it's slightly tempered by two things. For one, there's a definite sense of... Reexamining some of the quintessential fantasy tropes? That's the best way I can phrase it. So I do see that Kvothe is pretty ridiculously talented, you can also see that at times he's full of pride, and his cleverness tends to lead him astray as often as it serves him. The other mitigating factor is that the story is literally being recited by Kvothe, and obviously some of his own bias will leak in to the prose.

What I find very impressive about Rothfuss is the careful precision in his writing. You'd be suprised at how often minute details later become enormously significant.

Originally Posted by Farror

there's a definite sense of... Reexamining some of the quintessential fantasy tropes?

There's something similar that I think of as reveling in the cliche. Cliche doesn't have to be a bad thing, and if the writer is aware that the ground he is treading has been tread before he can find ways to play with it, poke fun at it, and breathe fresh life into it.

From a marketing/publicity standpoint, I think Kvothe is a bad name. First of all, the pronunciation isn't readily grasped. "So did you read this new book Name of the Wind?!!" "No!! Who's the main character?!?!" "Well, his name's Kah-voo. . . It's kind of exotic. You just have to read it."

He does explain that it's pronounced "quoth", as in "quoth the raven".

No, you pronounce the V. But it does rhyme with quoth. So far as I recall in the book itself there's no explaining of the pronunciation. I think this is a common fault of many fantasy/sci-fi novels having names that are weird to say out loud.

I'm not really having trouble with it, even with a subtly v in the. Kvoth... The way I say it, it's like saying quoth with a very light v noise, that I don't think you'd hear unless you were listening for it. Not to be pushy or anything, but hurry up and buy/read the new one. I need somebody to put on my tinfoil hat and discuss it with.

I find I'm quite excited to get into it. This one may have to take priority over a few other novels I have lined up.

If you do get it soon, be sure to read very attentively. Like I said, little details often become significant later. The plot makes sense even if you don't make the connections, but I had multiple moments where I was thinking "Ahhhhh, clever! I see what you did there!"

I read The Name Of The Wind last year and really enjoyed it. I haven't read any fantasy for years, but this was recommended to me by my brother so I gave it a try and loved it. I look forward to reading the sequel.

Ok, time for a bump. Has anyone finished it yet?

I just finished 'Wise Man's Fear' two nights ago and I can assure anyone that Patrick Rothfuss is one of the best fantasy authors writing today. Sheer brilliance.

I'm a little over half-way through. I'm liking it, but my opinion on the whole is critical. The editing's pretty shoddy because I've ran into around 5 errors so far (this is on the hardback), and it's kinda boring. Maybe things will pick up.

I read The name of the Wind, and it quickly became one of my favorites. Wise Man's Fear, at least seemed to me, to be a much harder story to write. Very few people could have pulled it off, but Rothfuss did great. Though there are slow parts, that is a simple fact of books, stories, and life. Well worth it, and still among my favorites.