Great! Only problem... waiting for the next two to come! | The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle,...

The Past is not Behind | The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day 1) | Patrick Rothfuss

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	• The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day 1) Patrick Rothfuss DAW, 2008 - 736 pages average customer review:based on 371 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

DON'T LET THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS FOOL YOU!

DON'T LET THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS FOOL YOU!

Seriously, look at them, people who did not like this book consist of:

1. People with short attentions spans, who didn't even read the whole book in it's entirety. People are looking for the fantasy book equivalent of a B class action movie.
2. People who were intimidated by the main character, who probably work at McDonald's for a living, who have dull minds and dull futures.
3. People who think the main character isn't possible, again, people who are so mediocre they can't even fathom how somebody like Kvothe could exist.
4. People who think the story was missing something, should this story include everything about everything in the world it's set in? Of course not.
5. People who find the book too wordy, who think being less descriptive, less detailed, and less thoughtful is a good thing when writing epic fantasy novels.

AGAIN! DON'T LET THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS FOOL YOU!

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Great! Only problem... waiting for the next two to come!

I consider myself to be a fantasy fanatic! This had something different from all other fantasy books i have read. It goes into great depth on the growth process of one young man, Kvothe. As a character Kvothe is very relatable and interacts with others like a young man in his position would. Although this is written in first person perspective it doesnt lack the intrigue and suspense of what is going to happen. This may be written in a new world but the author doesnt focus on the surroundings but uses the characters to create a world. It is a great work of literature and i would recommend it to anyone who wants a great read!

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The Past is not Behind

In the first book of The Kingkiller Chronicles we meet Kvothe, a powerful magician who ashamed of his past has retired to run an inn at the edge of his civilized world. With the help of an assistant who is more than he seems, he attends to the simple people of the village hoping to be left alone.

But an unknown evil from the outside world is advancing towards this remote place and, willingly or not, he must confront it.

And while he does, we are introduced to his early life as a story he tells to a chronicler who has come to the village looking for him.

Kvothe's story of his early years full of adventure and heartbreak resonates with the reader. He may be a very talented musician and fearless hero but he is also a very lost child. Left alone in the world after an event that will shape his future forever, he must learn how to survive on his own. From feral child to impoverish student, he struggles to keep his dignity, hoping to learn the name of the wind that, he believes, will introduce him to a world of power he guesses must exist beyond the known world.

The Name of the Wind is an engaging story with outcast characters you will fall in love with despite, or maybe because, their flaws. Highly recommendable.

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Slow start, but once it got going ...

First, let me say that this book was a welcome surprise. I had problems in the beginning, it started off way too slow for my taste and it seemed to jump all over the place without showing me any real reason for it. I kept starting, losing interest, stopping and then forcing myself to trudge on. The various scenes without explanation in the beginning were initially annoying. The reason for this, I now realize, is that it is an intricately woven plot and all of these seemingly inconsequential pieces mattered in the end. I was well over 100 pages into the book before it got really interesting for me. Once it got started, there was no letup. I couldn't put it down, it was as though I were compelled to read it every waking moment.

Rothfuss does an excellent job of character building in this book. Because he has taken the time to show his readers Kvothe's struggles growing up and all of the circumstances that he endured, the audience is able to really know the character. [SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD] Is Kvothe a little over-hyped? Yes, I agree that he seems slightly too good; however, given the circumstances of his childhood (again, kudos to the author for sharing that) it is believable that he would be a fast thinker (to survive in the streets you must be fast), an excellent musician (alone for months with nothing but your instrument - of course you would excel), and good at the magic (having a personal one-on-one tutor while traveling with his troupe could have given him an edge). That being said, the current state of his magic (when the story flashes to the present) shows that he is flawed. [END OF SPOILER SECTION]

It has been a long time since I've been this pulled into a story. Except for the lengthy, wordy beginning, I enjoyed the book and I look forward to learning more about the characters in the upcoming novels.

Anyone reading this book is in for a real treat.

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More Hype Than Substance

About the biggest flaw in Patrick Rothfuss' debut novel The Name of the Wind just so happens to occupy the inside cover and those pages before the story itself even begins to unfold. Indeed, it may sound rather counterintuitive to fault the work for the vast praise heaped upon it but as a fantasy aficionado, truly many gratuitous comments from some of the industry's biggest names are either misaligned, contrived, or in some cases downright inaccurate. But more on that later, let's take a look at the work itself in attempt to judge it on its own merit.

To begin, the novel sets itself up fairly well with typical fantasy properties: An innkeeper and some small town locals, the arrival of a mysterious eyeless, mouthless spider, third person narrative, and enough intrigue to keep the pages turning. Only very shortly after does the reader come to realize that this structure serves only as a setup for the core of the tale which is told entirely in first-person perspective and backtracks nearly a lifetime in the process. Don't get me wrong, first person fantasy can be done correctly on occasion (Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy is a prime example of it done successfully) but I felt like the biggest flaw in this instance was the continual swing from a dry crisp third person interlude (ala Robert Jordan) into an upbeat first-person recollection that has more in common with Dave Berry's weekly humor column in the Miami Herald than it does a grand fantastical adventure.

Which leads me directly to my next complaint: The book is clearly mismarketed both in terms of direct comparisons right on down to the dreary, almost horror-like look of the cover art. Make no mistake that this work could very easily have been passed off a young adult fantasy/ juvenile fiction entry as the author goes out of his way to keep sexual content and violence to a minimum while simultaneously going into great detail of the mind set of a fifteen year old boy at the start of his collegiate life.

In fact I was a bit perplexed by the fact that 85% of this book is a day-to-day chronological recap of the trials and tribulations of a boy in school. In my opinion epic fantasy should deal with the struggles of ancient races on a grand scale of good versus evil. Unfortunately a vast majority of the struggles presented here involve teen angst and the difficulties of being a broke student; if Lord of the Rings is epic fantasy, then what we have here is petty fantasy in the strictest sense of the word. Throughout the text our hero happens upon money only to lose it time and time again then struggles with having to take out loans to pay for his tuition. We spend many pages at taverns in the college town with drinking buddies and skipping classes (not to mention endless mischief and shenanigans that land the main character in the principal's office, er I mean chancellor's office over and over). At times I found myself wondering if in fact somebody hadn't swapped my copy of The Name of the Wind and replaced it with Animal House The Dark Ages Edition or Harry Potter: The College Years.

Additionally, some of the sociological references are downright blasphemous when used in the fantasy genre: Concepts such as a professor stopping by his house to check the mail or fellow students flashing the thumbs-up to express approval of the actions of our main character. Granted, there is no official rule stating that all fantasy must be set in medieval Europe, many of the references here do little more than pull the reader right out of the fantasy setting (which isn't all that strong to begin with).

I suppose there are a few redeeming factors to mention. The first of which involves a pretty ingenious (and consistent) magic system that just may be the most heavily scientific rooted of any and all fantasy works. The second is Rothfuss' use of short chapters. While some may view this as a negative, most readers I've discussed the book with were glad for the frequent breaks to chop up the monotony of endless recapping. Finally, this is one of few works that can't be criticized for ripping off the classics (as is so often the case in the fantasy genre).

I began this review by expressing disappointment in the rave reviews that have been heaped upon this work and feel the need to justify such an odd complaint. Read the back jacket or the first few pages of the book and you'll find yourself looking at a literal who's who of the fantasy industry with nothing but boisterous praise for the book. Terry Brooks, Ursula K. Le Guin, Tad Williams, Anne McCaffrey, Robin Hobb, etc. are only a handful of the dozens of insiders blowing sunshine up the proverbial backside of this work. So what, right? Well, I suspect that the book would probably have faired better in my opinion had I gone into it without such high expectations. As it stands, the reader is simply set up to be let down as I'm not quite sure any fantasy novel ever crafted could live up to the hype that surrounds this one! A bit of humility could have gone a long way in allowing the reader to come to his or her own conclusions. Instead I continually found myself waiting for something to happen to justify the rave opinions (it didn't happen, at least not in this, the first of a prospective trilogy). Then again, maybe DAW plasters the book with praise knowing that it will help sell copies and in that line of thinking I have to confess that it worked on me.

In conclusion, in reading Pat Rothfuss' blog entries, I feel like becoming published couldn't have happened to a nicer, more down to earth guy and as much as I hate to put down his work, it simply didn't do much for me (even though it seems to be wowing the industry).

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The riveting first-person narrative of a young man who grows to be the most notorious magician his world has ever seen. From his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, to years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime- ridden city, to his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, The Name of the Wind is a masterpiece that transports readers into the body and mind of a wizard. It is a high-action novel written with a poet's hand, a powerful coming-of-age story of a magically gifted young man, told through his eyes: to read this book is to be the hero.

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