The Name of the Wind: 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Kingkiller Chronicle)

I'm a little torn as to how to begin this review. On the one hand, I enjoyed it, and I read it quickly despite its size. When I wasn't reading it, I thought about it, and when I finished it, I wished I'd had more. On the other hand, I spent a good deal of time annoyed at it, frustrated by both my

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expectations and a sense of what this book /could/ have been with a bit more finesse.

So let's start with the good: Rothfuss as a writer has a lovely voice, with a knack for description and character both. His world feels fully realized, and unlike some other reviews, I found his University both fascinating and fairly unique ('magic school' is nothing new, and wasn't even with HP - but they certainly don't all look the same!). His main character ripped my heart out through the first half of the book, alternately entertaining and horrifying me. He sets up a good mystery that, if not terribly unique, at least holds my attention pretty well. Although his pace is slow in terms of 'main plot happens' and the majority of this book does feel like set up or backstory for the 'real' plot that's coming, I found the actual reading of it to be enjoyable, to be a good trip along the way.

And now the bad: For one, this is not a book that lives up to the hype. It is a good fantasy novel - it is not the best book I've read in years. It is an entertaining story - it is not groundbreaking and original.

For two, the main character, who I started out liking quite a bit, wore on me more and me as we went on. He doesn't seem his age in the least, he's so amazingly special at everything that it is flat out unbelievable even for a prodigy, his struggles (as with money) seem to exist only when it's convenient to the story, and his characterization is increasingly uneven. I /like/ stories about prodigies, but this was straining my credulity a ridiculous amount by the time the (MINOR SPOILERS) musically gifted (to put it mildly), academically amazing, magically fantastic, sharp-tongued actor, songsmith, poet, horseman, etc, etc, etc main character started jumping hurdles that took most people a few years in a matter of months - despite the fact that he was young and supposedly spent most his free time trying to earn money for his tuition.

Further, although I enjoyed the ride, the end was entirely unsatisfying, because we spent the whole book with a looming shadow of the fore sort hanging over us, waiting eagerly to find out how we'd get there and what it'd look like when we did. And then it turns out that I don't even get to know the shape of this foreshadow for /two more books/? That's just bad writing.

Ulimately, I think what Rothfuss has here is a somewhat uneven debute novel that promises amazing things to come - but there are some things that could be worked on. I will most certainly be waiting eagerly for the sequel, because I want to know what happens and he engaged me in the characters. I do wish, however, that I hadn't gone into this with all the hype ringing in my ears. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been focusing on everything it could have been, and almost was.

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I'm finding it rather hard to rate this book; it has much going for it. However, the major problem is that, as the main character says, "We have all the groundwork now. A foundation of story to build upon." Put more simply: the whole book feels like a prologue to the real story which, I guess, will

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occur in the next two volumes. Given that my edition is 662 pages long...that's a long prologue.

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy this book. The characters are enjoyable (which is not the same as likable) and have some depth to them. Though the main character, Kvothe, is a bit straightforward, his apprentice, Bast, provides us with some intriguing mysteries for future volumes. I enjoyed the fact that the love interest is anything but storybook and perhaps not even that appealing.

The writing is well done. I felt the book moved right along and I had no impulse to skip past anything. Something fairly telling for me was that though major elements of the book were derivative (the magic system will bring LeGuin's Earthsea immediately to mind; the University with Hemme and Ambrose not much different from Hogwarts with Snape and Malfoy; some Ringwraith-ian bad guys running around, etc.), still nothing felt stale.

I hope the next two volumes of the reported trilogy get on track and we get the good story that is in the offing. If that happens, and the writing maintains its level, I think the series will definitely rate higher than the 3½ stars I'm giving this now.

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The hero of this story is always perfect and the most skilled at everything he ever tries, and a total genius. He's infallible. It's really annoying. The protagonist has no flaws and is pompous about his abilities and therefore as a reader I could not sympathize with him. After awhile reading about

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him becomes tedious. I don't care about his story or how he overcame his problems.

Also most of the women in the book are one-dimensional, and almost none are given names. Rothfuss doesn't even pretend to care about women. Or anyone but his precious protagonist.

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This was not the book for me.

Have you ever wanted to read about a special snowflake so amazingly, fantastically awesome that they can do anything they want, and not only that, they will be the youngest and/or the only person to ever do it, and they will never be bad at anything, ever, unless it is

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presented as a secret strength? And have you ever wanted to hear that person tell you all about all the amazingly, fantastically awesome things they did in one realllllllly long flashback that takes up multiple books? Oh, and let's not forget that all of these amazingly, fantastically awesome things must only happen to men? That you don't care that there are perhaps three named female characters, and one is the dead mother and the other is the love interest?

Then perhaps this is the book for you. At the very least, I will say that the author can use proper grammar and construct readable sentences. So, you know, if he wrote about something else, I might read it. But I couldn't finish this one.

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Why, why, why did my cousin neglect to inform me that, although I should read this book as I'd probably love it, that Rothfuss has yet to produce the manuscript for the second book in this series?!?

Don't get me wrong -- I don't begrudge Rothfuss one bit, as he doesn't owe me anything, nor does he

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owe anything to any of his readers. However, I'd prefer to not to read a compelling series that's going to make me yearn for the next book until that next book is actually available in the immediate or near future!

That said, I'm glad I read this one anyway, because I loved it. It was compelling and very interesting, even though -- all told -- not a lot happened when you think about it. Still, Rothfuss filled this book with a very flawed but very intriguing main character -- a hero with enough problems to carry the story, as opposed to carrying it on his strengths -- and a unique approach to telling the story to the reader.

It's like... a fantasy origin story with more realism than you'd expect in a fantasy epic. If that makes sense. It's hard to explain without giving things away, and I found that part of the delight with this book was discovering how the story would be told (halfway through the novel I flipped back to the front page and saw the subtitle, "Day One" and had a moment of revelation and shock... those of you who've read it will know what I mean, and at the time, I hadn't realized that it was supposed to be a series... those of you who will read it in future will likely also have a similar moment).

Anyway, I don't want to give away the plot or say much more about the characters, other than -- if you enjoy fantasy novels, give this one a try. The world is short on new, talented fantasy writers these days, so I say we need to support and treasure the ones we've got.

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I don't know about entitlement, or social contract for books in general, or the demon of writer's block - but with Rothfuss and Kingkiller it was said to be a book in three parts and I think the author claimed to "know" the three parts or overall story. I think in this case it was fair to expect

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the books be published in a reasonable timescale. I used to recommend Kingkiller to fellow fantasy fans but not any more, I now just don't believe in the existence of a third book now or any time soon. How could I recommend that knowing it'd just annoy anyone new to it? Unfortunately it feels like the author, possibly like Martin, has been distracted by more interesting projects - here seeing their work brought to the screen. If the author can't be bothered why should I? Calling it a trilogy in any current advertising should be done under the trades descriptions act... The worst of it is that this has now put me of reading series of books until all the series has been published. I've actively avoided books because I don't want to be left hanging again. Which is the worst of all - effectively the Kingkiller books have narrowed my reading list!

Simple solution is to read books from the vast selection of finished works. Ideally pick a deceased author and you'll sleep soundly knowing that they can't decide to write an appalling sequel and ruin your beloved series. Or read current fiction on the reasonable understanding that the author may be hit by bus and you'll never find out what happened! Or read Abercrombie’s “The Age of Madness” trilogy which is already finished (I’ve already got the first two volumes on hold in my TBR pile; as soon as the third volume comes out in September 2021 it’ll be blast off time for reading the 3 volumes in a row!)

Rothfuss's obviously made enough money to be cool doing whatever takes his fancy as opposed to grafting for a living. Try looking at the productivity of people who self-publish via Amazon and Kindle: the likes of Chris Nuttall and so on. Mr. Rothfuss, he is very active on the Web, and even lectures about writing. This seems odd given his lack of.....writing.

Bottom-line: Don' buy Rothfuss’s next Kingkiller book whan ut eventuallay comes out. That'll teach thjm to type fstser even if theyre nort touch typists, like I jsut did (yse, writing books is just typing, don't glorify it, like it's some secreat of the universe involvoing hard thinking, jsut type away raelly qucikly like a mothertucker until you reach the end,!(



NB: I have decided to NEVER read the Kingkiller chronicles again! Not because of the wait, but because the lead character is an insufferable Mary Sue…Especially in the chapter where he discovers the sex faerie and every chapter after that. Ugh.

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The first time I read this book, I was hesitant to do so. I had heard great things about it (which is why I picked it up during a sale at Half Price Books in the first place) but I also knew that it was the first book in a trilogy, and that the second book had already seen a couple of years of

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delays. Did I really want to get invested in a story without having any idea when the next chapter might come out?

Nevertheless, when I put up a little "What should I read next?" poll on Facebook and the Malazan forums I included The Name of the Wind as an option, and it was the clear winner. So I went ahead and dove right in, and boy, was I ever glad I did! So glad, in fact, that when the second book's publication date was announced as March 2011, I got excited about the prospect of rereading TNotW beforehand. Thus it was that, after finishing the final volume of Steven Erikson's magnificent Malazan sequence, I began rereading TNotW almost exactly a year to the day of my first read. And I loved it just as much this time.

The Name of the Wind begins the story of Kvothe the Kingkiller, legendary warrior, wizard, and musican. The book opens with Kvothe in hiding as a humble innkeeper named Kote, but when a scribe tracks him down to record his tale, Kvothe demands three full days to tell it properly. Thus we get justification for the trilogy (and indeed, the books are subtitled "Day One", "Day Two", etc.) as well as a nice framing device; "present-day" events at Kote's Waystone Inn get the standard third-person treatment, with Kvothe's past related in a first-person narrative given by the man himself.

Kvothe's tale makes up the bulk of the book, and what would otherwise have been pretty standard, unoriginal fantasy fare becomes a wholly-gripping saga as told by Kvothe. Rothfuss's prose never calls attention to itself—it never feels flowery or particularly sophisticated—but it has a flow to it that grabs you and pulls you along in its wake. "Can't put it down" fails to convey the grip that Rothfuss sinks into his reader; "It's 1:30 in the morning and I need to get up for work in six hours but the next chapter's only like eight pages and DEAR GOD I CAN'T STOP NOT NOW YOU CAN'T MAKE ME STOP" is perhaps a more accurate account. I don't think my wife has yet forgiven me for recommending it to her, thereby rendering her completely unproductive for a full week last summer.

So anyway, the bones of the story isn't particularly inspiring stuff: young boy prodigy meets with tragedy, survives on his own until he can attend the University where he'll learn the answers to his questions and eventually grows up to be the big legendary Kingkiller. (I'm trying to keep things as spoiler-free as possible here; if you're well-versed in the traditional "farmboy grows up to save the world" brand of epic fantasy, you'll probably see a lot of it coming from a mile away like my wife did—I, however, have long made a conscious effort to avoid such books, so it was all a revelation to me.) But Rothfuss puts so much love and care into all of these things that it all feels completely real. From struggling to survive on the streets, to scraping together money to pay for tuition each semester at the University, to the minute details of the magic system, to the solidity of the history and mythology of the world, Rothfuss makes it plain that there's nothing generic here.

The first time I read TNotW, there were a couple key points that kept it from being a perfect book for me. The first was one particular sequence toward the end of the book (you know the one I'm talking about) that seemed to drag on for far too long. The second was that the beginning of the book took too long to get to Kvothe's narrative and, in essence, the real story. After a second read, I took far less issue with both of these things; the one particular sequence wasn't nearly as long as I remembered, and the first few chapters of the book, now that I was invested in the "present-day" story, were that much more interesting. A couple of flaws did surface on a second read, though; most prominent was a device that I noticed Kvothe using far too often in the telling of his tale: "If you've never been poor, you don't understand what it's like..." or "If you've never tasted methelgin, I can't describe it to you..." and the like. I mean, a dozen occurrences over 800 pages or so isn't really a lot, but it's one of those things that once you've noticed, you can't un-notice. But even coupling that with the fact that most of the big plot twists lost a lot of their impact was offset by being able to approach the story with the insight gained from a previous read.

So, not perfect, but pretty darn fantastic all the same. If you at all consider yourself a fan of fantasy novels, this is about as close to "must-read" as they come. Plus, now that the next book is out, you can spend two whole weeks being unproductive. Sure, the third volume's not going to be out for another three or four years, but just think of all the rereading you can do until then. [4.5 out of 5 stars]

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Think Lord of the Rings meets Harry Potter, and you pretty much have the story line for this series.

I must admit that Patrick Rothfuss is an excellent writer - perhaps one of the most notable writers in the fantasy genre I've encountered.

I would also have to say (begrudgingly) that The Name of the

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Wind is one of the most interesting fantasy novels I've read in a long time. (I say "begrudgingly" because I've been very disappointed in the general quality of writing in this genre - to the point that I have pretty much given up on fantasy novels.)

Briefly, the story is about Kvothe, a young man whose family is a troupe of performers, and who are all killed (except for - of course - Kvothe, who had been away from their encampment collecting fire wood), apparently by a demon named Heliax and his 7 followers, the Chandrian. Kvothe, an extremely bright and talented person, dreams of, and eventually achieves, admission to The University, a place where arcane knowledge is taught, which knowledge Kvothe seeks to use to gain vengeance on the Chandrian. There he meets the love of his life (Denna) and his mortal enemy (Ambrose).

The story of young Kvothe is told against the backdrop of Kvothe many years later, now known as Kote, a humble innkeeper. Kvothe appears to be a broken man, no longer the hero he had become known to be. A war rages on (and Kvothe apparently played some role in getting that started). Kote is accompanied by his friend Bast, who is desperate to bring Kvothe back to his former heroic self.

It would take too long to give much more description of the story. To his credit Rothfuss does an excellent job of constructing an enormous tale, maintaining a detailed narrative, giving us interesting characters, and doing all of this while creating a story that grabs your interest and keeps it.

Why, then, only four stars? One of the reasons I've come to dislike fantasy stories in general is that their authors typically resort to contrivances to keep the story moving in favor of the main character. It may be that some measure of contrivance is unavoidable in fantasy stories (as well as in science fiction stories), but when the contrivances become too prominent and too obvious and stretch credibility too far, there is no "reality" to the story. Contrivances cover up plot holes where the author is unable to maintain a legitimate story line.

While, to his credit, Rothfuss manages to avoid egregious contrivances for the most part, there are still enough to keep me wary of the coherence of the whole series. In the few places where it feels as if Rothfuss is about to unabashedly contrive events, he manages to maintain enough of a realistic (within the context of the story) progression to the story that one is inclined to overlook weak points. But they are still weak points; (SPOILER ALERT) the last meeting (in this volume) of the faculty is the most egregious example.

Stock up on snacks and your favorite beverages when you start reading this book, as you will not want to put it down.

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I came across Patrick Rothfuss in a blog entry describing how he conducted a duck and her chicks safely across a road, and read in the comments that he had written a book called "The Name of the Wind". I liked the image of a guy helping animals and checked my library catalog, and we had it in. I

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checked it out on a Friday, read a few pages, had to work on Saturday and then spent Sunday reading the entire book, slowly, savoring the prose, imagining the characters.
I have gotten jaded of late, of reading fantasy fiction, the stories all seem the same. Kvothe snapped me upright and made me pay attention. A mystery is being played out, characters are slowly revealed, stories ebb and flow like wave on the beach, layers being slowly washed away.
I like an author who takes time to set things up. I found myself building up with anticipation with every new challenge faced, every new adversity piled on. There were calm periods after the exciting times, and new situations I had rarely seen in fantasy novels before. A truly surprising read, and I eagerly await the next works by this author. There will be more. He said so.

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Oh, boy. It took me a while to get through this book, which is fairly long, but it's another debut novel that is staggering in its imagination (the first Kushiel book is another that springs to mind). It tells the beginning of the story of Kovthe; at the start of the book, he's the innkeeper at a

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country inn that attracts a small group of locals, but not a lot of customers otherwise. He goes by the name Kote, but a traveling Chronicler comes along who knows that he's really the legendary Kovthe and convinces him to tell his story.

So, from his youth with his parents as members of a traveling theatrical troupe, through his years as an orphan living on the tough city streets, and finally to his time at the University, Kovthe tells his story during one long day at the inn. Magic, demons, and dragons (or are they?) all feature in the tale, but there are more universal themes at work: love, loss, longing; fear, friendship, learning. Both intelligent and clever, Kvothe makes his way in the world, and there are hints of the qualities that will make him legendary.

I'm both disappointed and excited to realize that there's so much more of his story to be told. I know I'll keep reading this series, though I'm wondering how many books the author has planned to tell this tale.

Okay, a little research reveals that it's planned as a trilogy and the second book, but not the third, has been published. It might be a while, as it looks as though the second book was supposed to come out in 2009 and actually was published in 2011.

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I haven't read a book I enjoyed as much in years. Incredible characters and a storyline that made me late for work and late from lunch several days in row. I hope is busy writing the next book...

I am a BzzAgent and thus was given the opportunity to read Chapters 13-16 of this book and share the link and my opinions with others.
If not for BzzAgent, I would have never picked this book up... but I am very glad I did as I was pulled in from the begging of this section and was captivated by

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every sentence. The book is of magic and travel, of death and storytelling. I look forward to purchasing this book when I get through some of the other ones I have sitting around.

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The first 150 pages of this book almost made me abandon it. Between the lack of any identifiable plot and the equal lack of a female character amongst a rather large cast of men, it was not an auspicious beginning.

However, due to its high outside recommendations, I decided to slog through -- and

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I'm glad I did. While, in the end, the overarching plot still left something to be desired, there were enough subplots (picking up about a third of the way into the book) that I found myself hooked. Also, once the main character hits puberty, there is a sudden explosion of female characters -- the story goes from not having any women to suddenly the three of its most intriguing side characters being such -- a rather sharp contrast that could perhaps have been more gracefully handled, though the end effect gave me what I asked for.

The language itself is very well-crafted; though there are a shocking number of sentence fragments and comma splices, it is overall quite poetic, effectively drawing the reader into the story and the mindset of the narrator.

My largest complaint is with the main character, who, though riddled with enough personality flaws to be believable, was thoroughly UNbelievable in the variety of his talents. He excelled extraordinarily, not at one or two related topics, which would be realistic, but at ALL topics. He learned languages in single weeks. He learned to play the lute in a few days. He covered the basics of chemistry, psychology, and a variety of other sciences, all at the same time, within a few months. All before the age of twelve.

Really, this book has the potential to earn a five-star rating from me -- it has all the complex and enjoyable storytelling I look for in a read -- except for the wholly unimpressive first third and the horribly unbelievable academic capabilities of the main character. If these were any lesser problems, it would earn a fourth star, but as they are both rather major issues, Rothfuss will have to settle for three. However, the book did leave me with an overall sense of improvement, and so I hold reservedly high hopes for the sequel, and will happily read it once it finds its way into my possession.

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A worthy beginning to what is to be an epic fantasy series, the primary detraction being that almost the entire book is backstory.

The Name of the Wind is on the literary edge of fantasy--not China Miéville literary...not experimental and multilayered...but it is well-crafted writing with

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believable characters and a raw serious tone.

Nearly the entire novel takes place via the main character telling a story to a "Chronicler," who is capturing it for posterity. So as such, it is retelling the childhood and adolescence of the main character. To some extent, I admired the author's patience. Telling a story in flashback is considered a terrible device because it steals the forward momentum and leaves you feeling in limbo. If I don't care about this character NOW, why should I care about his PAST? Where is it going? But Rothfuss pulls it off...just barely. At times, I did miss the momentum of a more present oriented story. It's a long prologue. And Book #2...more of the same. And to focus on the negative, my only other criticism is a certain lack of humor to balance the relative bleakness of the story. Rothfuss has created a very serious world with much angst. However, it does feel more "real" than most fantasy novels.

In the world of The Kingkiller Chronicles, we are somewhere between Medieval and Renaissance technology. There are diverse ways to conjure magic that can be learned with hard work and practice. Mystical creatures such as the occasional dragon or fae(ry) exist. Objects can be imbued with magic as well. It's a complex world he builds that has elements of many fantasy constructs but stakes out a unique amalgamation.

The story itself features the childhood of a man who appears to be one of the world's great heroes, Kvothe. A powerful magician although in the present he seems to be "retired" as an innkeeper and we never learn why. Both this book and the subsequent one (The Wise Man's Fear) tell how he came to be where he is, and then I assume by the time we get to book three (or four?) we will be carried into the present entirely, and he will once again take up sword and magic to defeat the dark forces rising in the world. Yes, that sounds quite cliched but it works.

In the end, I was carried by the solid writing and sophisticated world-making. And the believability of the characters. Highly recommended for fans of epic fantasy. Recommended for those who dabble in it.

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Once he was Kvothe the Bloodless, legendary hero of stories. Now, he's just Kote the innkeeper, running a tavern in the middle of nowhere. Who or what he's hiding from is unknown, but Kvothe is soon discovered by Chronicler, a scribe he rescues from a horde of monstrous spiders. Kvothe agrees to

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tell his own story to Chronicler over the course of three nights, each a book in Patrick Rothfuss's "Kingkiller Chronicle."

At first, The Name of the Wind comes of as yet another Medieval Europe inspired fantasy, with taverns, castles, troupers, and fairies. However, about a fourth of the way in, something just "clicks." A tragic event happens that shakes Kvothe's life, and the intricate mythology of this world is slowly revealed.

The story really picks up when Kvothe enters the massive University. While the idea of a school for magic is not new, its treatment as a serious subject of scholarship comes off feeling fresh . The idea of sympathetic magic is not unique either, but the way its presented feels believable here.

Kvothe himself is actually a surprisingly well-rounded protagonist. While he does possess natural talents for music and Sympathy, his hubris actually gets him into trouble more often than not. Also, as Kvothe is the one telling the story, it's quite possible the reader gets a biased view of events.

The theme of stories and their power pervades, going beyond Kvothe's own tale to the religious mythology of this world and the main villains of the story. There's also an amusing look at how some of Kvothe's adventures have become exaggerated legends told in tavern taprooms.

This is a pretty satisfying read, despite a ton of unsolved mysteries and plot threadsl= left dangling at the end. The fact that these mysteries are so interesting and engrossing that the next book is an absolute must as well.

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This book had a lot going for it, but there were too many things that impeded my enjoyment.

I liked the frame-story, both as a way of increasing mystery and reader engagement and as a way of presenting the first-person narrative. I like the University, and the very logical magic system.

However, my

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suspension of disbelief strained as the scope of the main character's multifaceted genius became larger. There were also some inconsistencies about his abilities -- occasional lapses of insight, as well as capacities that seemed like 'one-offs', remembered and explained solely in order to deal with the challenge at hand. These issues jarred me out of the narrative. I also found some plot elements stale -- for instance, the manner in which Kvothe leaves home, and the obstacles and adversaries of his university career. The fantasy library is full to bursting of boy-wizards and even wizard schools, so my tolerance for familiar tropes was already somewhat exhausted.

I'm not sure whether I'll read the next installment. The plot did draw me along once Kvothe reached the University, and the frame story has definitely fanned the flames of my curiosity, but it was often a frustrating read, and I'm not sure I want to travel any farther with the character.

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I can see why the lovers of immersive epic fantasies love this book to death. There's the deep history that Rothfuss has built into his world There's also the sympathetic way in which the main character Kvothe the Bloodless (a hero in apparently self-impossed exile at the end of his emotional

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resources) is handled. Finally, there is quite a lot of nice writing between these covers.

That said, this is still a first novel and I'm not sure that the author did himself any favors in the way he structured the work. At least for me and my reading group we found the flashback structure to be more distracting than anything else, at least until some critical mass is achieved and our protagonist finally manages to get himself to his society's magical academy.

Again, not being a usual fan of the huge, immersive fantasy epic, I also found myself rhetorically asking are we there yet about every hundred pages or so. While I most certainly like this novel, I'm not sure that I like it that much that I want to take up permanent residence in it either. Maybe it's no longer possible in the current market to get away with writing short, picaresque novels (say like Steve Brust's "Vlad Taltos" series) that eventually become a whole, but a book of this length really pushes one's power of attention, but maybe that's just me. I do notice that lots and lots of folks would disagree with that assessment.

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