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So, I just finished book 2 of Rothfuss’ trilogy – A Wise Man’s Fear (3rd has not yet been released).\u00a0 It’s 30% bigger than the first at 993 pages (vs 672); and at 43 hours and 18 minutes of listening, it took better than a month to ‘read’ on my commute.\u00a0 So, was it worth it?\u00a0 Well…sort of.\u00a0 I’ll quote the best description I saw of it on Amazon. “It’s kind of a mess.\u00a0 An engrossing, brilliant, hot and swanky mess, but a mess just the same.”<\/p>\n
Book 2 continues the story of Kvothe – a young man enrolled in an university dedicated to arcane arts such as sympathy (magic), crafting of magical items, etc.\u00a0 However, in this installment, he ventures out into the world.\u00a0 He journeys to the court of the uber-rich Maer Alveron (line of Vintish kings), he journeys to the Fea world, visits the Adem and has many other adventures. It’s quite a ride.<\/p>\n
The good:
\nWell written and has engrossing and really imaginative bits.\u00a0 The battle Kvothe has with the bandits has to be one of the most fantastic tellings of how a D&D style magician would do battle.\u00a0 Honestly, it’s worth the read alone despite being bloody and dark.\u00a0 Some of the court adventures in Severen are quite entertaining and original.\u00a0 You’ll read the whole thing, and should well enjoy it.<\/p>\n
The bad : So, would I recommend the book – yes – with conditions.\u00a0 I give it a C+.\u00a0 It’s still got some great storytelling in it, and very imaginative parts.\u00a0 But you’ll have jarring jumps, an author who is kind of throwing in the kitchen sink to build up the resume of a somewhat unbelievable uber-character.\u00a0 I’m honestly not sure what the third book will bring – but I sense it will not end well.\u00a0 I think Rothfuss over-promised a character that is a ‘legend’ and he’s fighting to get that character from the streets to the stuff of legends in too short a time.\u00a0 Unfortunately, he’s doing it by throwing everything in at once instead of a the more believable\/organic growth. We want to see the core struggles and relate\/learn about becoming ‘great’, but Kvothe has little of this subtlety and what there is of it is a little stilted. So, enjoy the story but expect plenty of flaws.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, I just finished book 2 of Rothfuss’ trilogy – A Wise Man’s Fear (3rd has not yet been released).\u00a0 It’s 30% bigger than the first at 993 pages (vs 672); and at 43 hours and 18 minutes of listening, it took better than a month to ‘read’ on my commute.\u00a0 So, was it worth it?\u00a0 Well…sort of.\u00a0 I’ll quote the best description I saw of it on Amazon. “It’s kind of a mess.\u00a0 An engrossing, brilliant, hot and swanky…<\/p>\n
\nIt is simply not the best storytelling at times.\u00a0 While Rothfuss is a good writer, the story takes some jarring jumps and is beginning to put pants on Kvothe I’m not sure he could\/should be wearing.\u00a0 He spends too much time on some boring parts and far too little on the really important parts.\u00a0 For example, after a drudgery of pages about a search for bandits, there is an amazing battle scene. In like 2 more pages they then run into a mythical fae creature and he quite literally runs off to 50 pages of sex-romp in the fairy world only to return and immediately go to Adem for a very different story line.\u00a0 Yet there is very little ‘internal’ growth of Kvothe.\u00a0 The jumps are jarring and it feels almost like Rothfuss is just trying to hit everything on a shopping list as opposed to a really flowing story that shows how Kvothe is evolving.\u00a0 There is also an over-abundance of sex.
\nSex by itself doesn’t bother me so much if it’s handled well, but it’s becoming part of a pattern of distasteful….smugness to the writing of our adventurer Kvothe.\u00a0 He is an amazing lover with knowledge of fae lovemaking techniques.\u00a0 He’s a minstrel who’s songs woo queenly maidens.\u00a0 He learns swordplay from the best fighters in the world.\u00a0 The list goes on as Rothfuss tries to take the street kid and make him into the best…everything.\u00a0 It’s honestly getting a bit unbelievable because we never hear Kvothe’s internal workings when he goes from killing a dozen men right into a month-long fae orgy.
\nAt times, I almost hear the author being a nerdy kid imagining what ‘the best’ looks like.\u00a0 Problem is, the ‘best’ in reality doesn’t look like this.\u00a0 True greatness looks more like a Frodo or Aragorn from Lord of the Rings.\u00a0 People with greatness of character often discover that greatness through trial and tribulation by doing the good, beautiful, and right despite challenges to do otherwise.\u00a0 They touch upon great truths via these struggles.\u00a0 Kvothe’s is more like greatness externally draped on a character as a cloak and feels as sterile as a list of things on a resume.\u00a0 It doesn’t really fit when we see nothing of inner growth or struggle in Kvothe to suggest he has the character <\/em>of greatness or the heroic.<\/p>\n