Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, a short review
4 stars out of 5, first impressions, Patrick Rotfuss’s opening of the Kingkiller Chronicles shows his talent as storyteller. The story is moving and moves at quick enough pace along with solid and likeable enough characters.
The story starts with an injured local stumbling bleeding into the village inn with a spider-like dead monster that killed his horse and nearly him. From there on everything starts to wind out with the innkeeper Kote taking the lead role. It turns out that he previously was Kvothe, notorious mage-warrior whose story we partly hear. So the format is story in a story as Kvothe stars to tell his tale.
Despite the little slow and stumbling start the tale starts to move fairly quickly and you realize that the book in fact is a coming-of-age story. I like the way Rothfuss dances on the tight rope over the abyss that is the implausible. The one gripe I have is that the whole Kingkiller story arc was apparently written as one and then pieced so there isn’t any natural ending. There also are couple of inconsistencies in the story, though they do not take away much of the pleasure. Anyone interested in the specifics should read Thomas M. Wagner’s review of the book.
I’m very curious as to where the Rothfuss is taking us with the story. Too many times all the hints at greater epics just end up flat on their faces after everything starts to come to light. It is fairly easy to keep the reader in the dark interested, but after turning on the lights the mystery goes away and so many times so does the interest.
Anyone interested in Rothfuss’s work should check out his website. There are also couple of very good interviews done by Fantasy Book Critic and Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist.
Tags epic fantasy, fantasy, Kingkiller Chronicles, Name of the Wind, Patrick Rotfuss, reviewRelated Posts:
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