Posted by Sari
Patrick Rothfuss: Name of the Wind, Wise Man's Fear
When I was younger I used to love big fantasy series. Thousands and thousands of pages of adventures and worldbuilding. There was no bad there. LotR was and is the defining novel of my life, and after that I read everything I got hold of from Donaldson, Modesitt and Eddings to to Feist, Tad Williams and Hobb.
Then I sort of went off the format. I tried some really awful ones, like Brooks and Jordan, and some really well recieved ones, like Martin and Erikson, but nothing really took. Name of the Wind had been waiting on the shelves for a year or two, and I don't suppose I would have gotten around to reading it without Tähtifantasia Award. It was a 2011 nominee and as a member of the shadow-panel of the award at Finncon, I was forced to tackle the daunting tome.
And I was pleasantly surprised. Name of the Wind, and especially the sequel, Wise Man's Fear have their share of problems but for a first time in years, I really got into the groove, and ended up ordering part two when I was only half way through part one. Kingkiller Chronicles is the story of Kvothe, whom we meet at the beginning as a humble innkeeper Kote, telling his life story to a travelling chronicler. Though Kvothe is still young, he is already a legend, who – according to the blurb on the back – has stolen princesses back from the sleeping borrow kings, burned down the town of Trebon, spent the night with Felurian and left with his sanity and life intact, has been expelled from the university at a younger age than most people are allowed in, tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during the day, talked with Gods, loved women and written songs that make the minstrels weep. Busy life, one might say.
A hypercompetent protagonists growing up and having adventures is the meat and potatoes of fat fantasy. Nothing new, exciting or different here. The hook is that Rothfuss does what he does very, very well. His worldbuilding is interesting, he unravels his plot little by little, thus making the reader wanting more, and there are a lot of hints (and hopefully also red herrings) to keep the reader engaged. As far as the protagonist goes (as my favourite character in all fiction is that king and emperor of hypercompetents, Crawford of Lymond) I have no problem with Kvothe being good at everyting at the age fo seventeen. Besides, there are ecxellent character details, like the way Kvothe handles money (he is always short of it and thus much of his life revolves around getting some), or the way it is apparent that teenagers, even hypercompetent ones, are morons at times.
But as I said there are problems. Traditional fantasy like this is supposed to run for hundreds and hundreds of pages, but the level of detail here is daunting. Kvothe's first year at the magical university takes about three hundred pages, and Wise Man's Fear has a hundred page training montage. I know this is all about the growth and education of the hero, but come on! In the novels there are episodes of Arsenal level boredom where nothing happens. Also, is there any reasonable way to bring the story to the end in the next volume without the whole feeling unbalanced? Two thousand pages on and our protagonist is still seventeen(ish) – depending how you count the time he spent in the fearie.
Kingkiller Chronicles are page-turners because you really, really want to know what happens next: who is Denna's mysterious patron? Who is Denna, for that matter? How does the moon figure into anything? Where did Kvothe pick up Bast? Who is this king he is supposed to kill? Or is he? And what is the real deal with the Chandrian? Lets hope it does not take Pat another four years to tell us.
Comments