The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
If you read the Name of the Wind, then you need to read the Wise Man’s Fear. If you haven’t read the Name of the Wind, you need to.
I didn’t get to write this review hot off reading the book, but it still left a lasting impression that it took some time before I could even read another fiction novel. If you aren’t familiar, this follows the tale of Kvothe. An almost mystical adventuring mage, as he recounts his life story to the Chronicler, a scribe of note. The novel bounces back and forth from present day, tavern telling Kvothe and the past.
I won’t recount all the tales, or the plot, but we find Kvothe fighting against another magician using blood magic, calling the name of the wind, helping a high powered lord, working with a certain type of mercenary and learning their finger language, helping fight bandits and finding one of the demons that killed his family, falling into the Fae realm, recounting his stories, and learning and fighting to become well trained in the path and earning a right normally not given to outsiders.
As mentioned in my previous book review, the language and writing is magnificent. It falls so easily off the tongue, yet is so pleasant to the ears. While Kvothe has so many crazy abilities, it might not make the journey fun, it some how is. And more so than you realize.
This book was nearly twice the length of the Name of the Wind, and I think I finished it within 4 days. It was voraciously devoured as my craving for the completed stories of Kvothe needed to be fulfilled.
I am anxiously awaiting Rothfuss’ third novel in this series; and hope this gets picked up similar by MTV (Shannara Chronicles), Netflix, AMC (Walking Dead/Into the Badalands) or HBO (Game of Thrones).
