I bought the book at three PM today. I finished reading it at Three AM and have, for the last three hours, been scouring the web for a legitimate e-book variant of the second book - released at the end of April - because I felt mentally asphyxiated by the thought of having to wait until stores open to find out how it continues. No dice, but the store opens in three hours and I’m feeling like I have to be at least a casual three minutes after opening hours to pick up the second book.
It’s a very interesting read because it focuses as much on the telling of a story as it does on the story itself. I’m not going to go into detail about the plot right now, but suffice to say the story is told from the outside. Which highlights both the narrative touches and manipulation and gives you breathing room from the main character’s actual story without having to go through the tiresome and frequently botched work of creating secondary characters. The main character is interesting enough, has enough depth and character realization that it stays fresh.
The Onion AV club has this to say of it; The Name Of The Wind is quite simply the best fantasy novel of the past 10 years, although attaching a genre qualification threatens to damn it with faint praise. Say instead that The Name Of The Wind is one of the best stories told in any medium in a decade..
I was firstly a bit perplexed at having bought it - since the praise on its back was firstly a commentary from the Onion AV [which I at that point hadn’t realized were entirely serious] and another was about how “Terry Goodkind and Robert Jordan better watch their backs.” I wasn’t entirely sure how to interpret the last one, since I consider Goodkind and Jordan to be the most bloated hacks in their profession (in Jordan’s case adoration turned to bitterness as his books not only dug their own graves with ceiling room to spare, but proceeded to throw down enough rope to hang a dwarf from a cathedral spire as well as cyanide pills that may have contained traces of nuts). But the very nice and, I repeat, very cute girl behind the desk in Outland mentioned him in the same breath as Neil Gaiman, Scott Bakker and Joe Abercrombie so I really had little choice in the matter.
Now I’m just kicking myself for having passed it up last I looked at it back around Christmas because Rothfuss had a photography contest for which he handed out signed copies of his first and second books, back in May. And I had a great idea, too!
I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but the second book isn’t due until April 2009. I’m looking forward to it too. A Rothfuss interview (video) is here , or rather the first of three parts of the interview. I read somewhere that you can get the second and third parts of the interview if you’re signed up for his newsletter.
I missed the first day of my vacation back in April because I started reading Name of the Wind on the plane and could not put it down until I’d finished it later that night. It’s very, very good.
I wish. I truly enjoyed Name of the Wind (so much so I got a signed copy) and am eagerly anticipating the next release. I read it more than a year ago, so I’ve been waiting a long time. But as was pointed out, it isn’t due out until April of 09. I will be a little steamed if the third one takes 2 more years to come out.
I read the book last fall and was not impressed by it. I would certainly give Rothfuss credit for being above average at the nuts and bolts of writing and for trying something different, but overall I count the book as mediocre and I don’t plan on reading the sequels.
Certainly the best point in the book is that Kvothe’s life feels quite real, with him struggling with financial difficulties, pining for beautiful women from afar, and so forth. (Have you ever noticed that most fantasy characters can afford to stay in inns every night, even if they’re poor farmboys or orphans?) Also the fact that he doesn’t succeed at everything he tries, so the story isn’t predictable. Ultimately, though, there’s simply too much of his daily business and not enough of anything else. There must be something like 600 pages between when his parents get killed and when he encounters the Chandrian for the second time. Most frustrating of all is the ending or absense thereof. I despise new this idea that it’s okay to end one book with an advertisement for the next book, as opposed to a genuine showdown or finale.
Another problem that I had with the book was inconsistent world-building. The villagers appear to be stuck in the Middle Ages while everyone at the university has a 21st century attitude.