The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle #2) by Patrick Rothfuss

This was an awesome sequel, despite being over 1000 pages, I flew through it. I also laughed hard when I flipped past Chapter One Hundred and Eleven and saw there were quite a few chapters to go...Who writes a book over 111 chapters long? Patrick Rothfuss, that's who.

As to the actual story: The story picks up pretty much where the last one left, Kote the Innkeeper, telling the story of his days as Kvothe the student. Kvothe is back at school, still looking for information on the Chandrian and the Amyr, trying to find the mystery of who killed his family. He gets in a bit of trouble (no big surprise) and is asked to take a vacation. He travels in search of answers and a patron, one adventure leading into another.

I loved and hate that we got to know Denna...In the previous book, I noticed how many strong female personalities were involved in the story and speculated that Denna didn't really add anything. Kvothe loves her, but he can't tell her or himself...But PR delved into Denna a bit, and now instead of disliking her I feel sorry for her. All she knows of men, is that they will oppress women, and while that's not true of every man, she's clearly been hurt enough that she can't ever move on to someone else. I loved Kvothe's journey with Tempi and the Adem; I thought it reflected well on real life: some cultures will never understand each other unless an effort is made to try. I think the Maer's wife is a biotch but what can you do... I think there is reflections on reality there too: racism and unpleasant people will alway be a part of life.

I'm curios about Bast. What is his place in all this. He isn't human, but he's Kote's student. He wants his teacher to remember who he is, but why? and is he good or evil? at the end of the book it looks like his character could be considered either.

The only reason this book misses out on a five star rating is, Kvothe's dalliance with Felurian. I'd like to chalk up the story to Kote lying to the Chronicler; maybe the fairy took pity on the virgin, trained him and set him loose; He's the hero after all, he's entitled to lie a bit about arriving early... My problem with this section isn't really with Kvothe's surprising sexual prowess...It is more about the length? This part of the story went on sooo long... The first few chapters on it were interesting but then I felt this gap, in between the start of their relationship to where Kvothe met the sadistic tree and the story started up again...

But overall, I enjoyed it, the story meandered enough you could believe this was someone's life and not so much the story strayed from point. Its just a fantastic adventure.

Rating 4/5

Review's original post date:

Apr 12, 13