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Jacob's Reviews > The Wise Man's Fear
My rating:
The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2)
by Patrick Rothfuss (Goodreads Author)
by Patrick Rothfuss (Goodreads Author)
2/19/2012: Not An Apology
I don't want to seem all knee-jerk and reactionary, but Pat Rothfuss wrote a rather unpleasant blog post recently that damaged my respect for him (long, long, long discussion here), so I'm retracting my apology below. Pat doesn't really seem like "a pretty cool guy" anymore, and I no longer feel bad about writing this review. That is all.
6/1/2011: An Apology
I feel a bit conflicted about this. You can see from the rating that I didn't like this book, and if you’ve read my reviews of War and Peace or The Way of Kings you'll know I’m very eager to tell you why. Problem is, I like Pat Rothfuss. He's a pretty cool guy. I liked The Name of the Wind, I read his blog regularly, I've been to a few of his readings/signings, and I admire his beard. But I didn't like this book. And as much as I want to be honest about my feelings, I'm also reluctant to say anything bad about something Pat created. But I also don't want to let a bad book off the hook just because I like the author, but also...
So I've decided to take a page out of Pat’s book--specifically, his book The Adventure of the Princess and Mr. Wiffle--and give you three separate reviews. Depending on where you stop reading, you are left with an entirely different opinion. One review is fun, another is ordinary. The last one is the true review, the onewhere I tell you exactly how much I hated the book with teeth in it.
Are you ready? Super! Let’s begin!
This is not a review for children.
Review the First
Meet Kvothe.
("This role is a bit different from what you're used to, Mr. Cera. Do you mind dying your hair?")
Kvothe is poor.
Poor Kvothe is so poor, in fact, that he's too poor to pay his tuition at the University (because he's poor and has no money), and he has to borrow money from strangers. Because he's poor.
Also, he's really awkward around girls, especially Denna.
And his parents are dead.
But he does play a mean lute.
So after being poor and an orphan and really awkward around girls, Kvothe leaves the University for some reason, goes to some city somewhere, meets some guy, runs into Denna again--
(She's pretty! And mysterious!)
--and goes to a forest somewhere to do something for some reason. Then he meets a freakin' hot sex fairy.
And they have freakin' hot sex-fairy sex.
Then he goes to some awesome land of ninja warriors where he trains to be an awesome ninja warrior.
Then he goes back home.
Where he runs into Denna again.
Review the Second
So here's the thing: Kvothe is poor. Kvothe is very, very poor. Poor Kvothe is so poor, in fact, that in his time at the University, he can only afford to buy a few sheets of paper for his classes. Kvothe may have access to the largest library in the world with its tens of thousands of books, but for a pauper like Kvothe paper doesn't come cheap. I imagine all this is important--after all, it's mentioned several times throughout the book--so I can only conclude that, aside from learning the name of the wind, Kvothe also learns a lesson about the value of paper.
So why is latter-day Kvothe telling a story that takes three days and thousands of pages to tell?
Thing is, I liked The Name of the Wind. It was clever. Interesting. It seemed original. I may revise that opinion if I ever read it again, but I don't think that's necessary anymore. I already feel like I've read it again. Because The Wise Man's Fear is 994 pages long--a long book by any standards--and, funnily enough, the first 364 of those 994 pages are, in fact, a retelling of the second half of The Name of the Wind. Why look, it's Kvothe! And he's at the University! And he's too poor to pay his tuition, and he has to borrow money, and he's an awesome musician, and he doesn't get along with Ambrose Jakis or Master Hemme, and Denna keeps showing up to make him flustered, and he's poor! He's very, very poor!
I. Fucking. Get it.
I just don't see how any of it matters. I mean, there appear to be hundreds of different legends floating around about Kvothe, but I doubt any of them are about his money troubles. How he got into the University, sure. How he didn't bleed after a whipping, how he saved a girl from a chemical fire, how he called the wind, brought down lightning, burned down the town of Trebon--but not how he scrounged together the cash to pay for another term. Realism? Sure, I'll accept realism. This book is supposedly about Kvothe laying bare the facts of his own life and deflating the myths that surround him (even if, later in the book, he turns out to be just as awesome as the stories say). I just don't see why it's necessary to add another three hundred pages to that part of Kvothe's story.
It probably wouldn't be so bad--it might even be somewhat tolerable--were it not for what happens next. Near the end of the University segment of the book, two things occur:
1. Kvothe gets arrested and tried for a violent act he accidentally committed in the previous book, and
2. Kvothe leaves the University and travels to Vintas, but is shipwrecked, robbed, and nearly drowned along the way.
Latter-day Kvothe refuses to talk about the trial, declaring it too boring to discuss (never mind that the entire book up to that point is too boring to discuss as well), and devotes barely a page to the eventful trip because it's not important to the story at large. It rings hollow, in a "Gotcha, suckers! Aren't I clever, playing with your expectations like that?" way, especially since it only serves to reduce Kvothe to near-poverty yet again so he can show off his awesome acting skills again and gain access to the palace of the Maer of Vintas, who he must immediately save from an assassination ("My lord, you're being poisoned!" "Of course I am! How else are you supposed to earn my trust and keep the readers interested? A letter of introduction and a demonstration of your musical skills? Booo-ring!"), and on to the next convenient adventure, and the next, and the next...
This is supposed to be a story about a boy named Kvothe who accidentally became a nearly-mythical/semi-legendary hero-of-sorts named Kvothe the Kingkiller, told by a slightly older and very un-mythical innkeeper named Kvothe. That story is there, but you have to slog through a lot of pointless filler to find it. The Wise Man's Fear devotes 360 pages to Kvothe's time at the University, 140 pages in Vintas with the Maer and Denna, 120 pages hunting bandits, 150 travelling to and from Ademre and learning how to fight, 150 pages rescuing two kidnapped girls, returning to Vintas, and going back to the University...
And 65 pages having sex with a fairy.
We're going to have to talk about the Felurian bit.
Review the Third
The Felurian bit.
THE GODDAMN FELURIAN BIT.
So this is what happens: Between pages 500 and 628, Kvothe and a band of mercenaries wander around a forest looking for bandits. After they kill the bandits, in an awesome-but-not-worth-the-preceding-hundred-pages kind of way, they run into Felurian, a legendary nymphomaniacal sex fairy whose sex is so sexy, every man who sexes her gets sexed to death. Or insanity. Kvothe dives right in, but instead of being sexed to death and/or insanity, he survives. Moreso, he out-sexes Felurian. You read that right: Kvothe, a young teenaged kid, completely inexperienced in theart sex of sex, manages to impress an immortal sex-fairy with the power of his sex. Because the sex he does is soooo good. He is amazing. Spectacular. Perfect.
He is sixteen.
But Kvothe isn't just perfect at sex: he also manages to fight off Felurian's sex-power and break free from her sex-spell. Then he has sex with her again, gets her to teach him more about sex, composes a song about how great sex with Felurian is (but refuses to finish it unless she lets him leaves fairysexland so he can have sex with other women for comparison), has sex with her again, and gets her to make him a magical cloak (made of shadows and starlight!) in between having sex with her and having more sex with her. He also talks to a tree that can tell the future. Then he returns to the mortal world and impresses all the mortal women with the power of his sex.
It's not as bad as it sounds, really--it’s much, much worse. How much? I think this calls for a graph. Observe:
Graph 1: The Wise Man's Fear: Rating vs. Progress
Why yes, I did use MS Paint. What did you expect for a one-star book?
We should probably take a closer look at Part E of that graph. Observe:
Graph 2: The Wise Man's Fear: Rating vs. Progress (Graph 1 Detail)
As you see in the above graph, the Felurian chapters (pages 628-693 in the hardcover edition) were so ridiculously awful, they broke the ratings system and plummetted my opinion of the book below zero stars. Problem is, GoodReads doesn't assign negative ratings to books, so I had to come up with a system of my own. Observe:
Graph 3: The Felurian Bit: Rating vs. Progress
This is how bad the Felurian chapters were:
IF there was a way to convert the text of the Felurian chapters into pure energy (e.g.: crude burning; reducing the paper and ink to atoms and then splitting said atoms; or, alternately, having the chapters read aloud by Sarah Palin and the audio file weaponized)...
...and IF that energy could be collected into a sort of "battery"...
...and IF that "battery" could be attached to a sort of "gun"...
...and IF the energy (or the weaponized audio file) within the "battery" could be concentrated into a sort of "laser beam" (or "sonic wave") and fired from this "gun"...
THEN you might be able to build a crude, yet serviceable, bowel disruptor.
Spider Jerusalem fans, take note.
I don't want to seem all knee-jerk and reactionary, but Pat Rothfuss wrote a rather unpleasant blog post recently that damaged my respect for him (long, long, long discussion here), so I'm retracting my apology below. Pat doesn't really seem like "a pretty cool guy" anymore, and I no longer feel bad about writing this review. That is all.
6/1/2011: An Apology
I feel a bit conflicted about this. You can see from the rating that I didn't like this book, and if you’ve read my reviews of War and Peace or The Way of Kings you'll know I’m very eager to tell you why. Problem is, I like Pat Rothfuss. He's a pretty cool guy. I liked The Name of the Wind, I read his blog regularly, I've been to a few of his readings/signings, and I admire his beard. But I didn't like this book. And as much as I want to be honest about my feelings, I'm also reluctant to say anything bad about something Pat created. But I also don't want to let a bad book off the hook just because I like the author, but also...
So I've decided to take a page out of Pat’s book--specifically, his book The Adventure of the Princess and Mr. Wiffle--and give you three separate reviews. Depending on where you stop reading, you are left with an entirely different opinion. One review is fun, another is ordinary. The last one is the true review, the one
Are you ready? Super! Let’s begin!
This is not a review for children.
Review the First
Meet Kvothe.
("This role is a bit different from what you're used to, Mr. Cera. Do you mind dying your hair?")
Kvothe is poor.
Poor Kvothe is so poor, in fact, that he's too poor to pay his tuition at the University (because he's poor and has no money), and he has to borrow money from strangers. Because he's poor.
Also, he's really awkward around girls, especially Denna.
And his parents are dead.
But he does play a mean lute.
So after being poor and an orphan and really awkward around girls, Kvothe leaves the University for some reason, goes to some city somewhere, meets some guy, runs into Denna again--
(She's pretty! And mysterious!)
--and goes to a forest somewhere to do something for some reason. Then he meets a freakin' hot sex fairy.
And they have freakin' hot sex-fairy sex.
Then he goes to some awesome land of ninja warriors where he trains to be an awesome ninja warrior.
Then he goes back home.
Where he runs into Denna again.
Review the Second
So here's the thing: Kvothe is poor. Kvothe is very, very poor. Poor Kvothe is so poor, in fact, that in his time at the University, he can only afford to buy a few sheets of paper for his classes. Kvothe may have access to the largest library in the world with its tens of thousands of books, but for a pauper like Kvothe paper doesn't come cheap. I imagine all this is important--after all, it's mentioned several times throughout the book--so I can only conclude that, aside from learning the name of the wind, Kvothe also learns a lesson about the value of paper.
So why is latter-day Kvothe telling a story that takes three days and thousands of pages to tell?
Thing is, I liked The Name of the Wind. It was clever. Interesting. It seemed original. I may revise that opinion if I ever read it again, but I don't think that's necessary anymore. I already feel like I've read it again. Because The Wise Man's Fear is 994 pages long--a long book by any standards--and, funnily enough, the first 364 of those 994 pages are, in fact, a retelling of the second half of The Name of the Wind. Why look, it's Kvothe! And he's at the University! And he's too poor to pay his tuition, and he has to borrow money, and he's an awesome musician, and he doesn't get along with Ambrose Jakis or Master Hemme, and Denna keeps showing up to make him flustered, and he's poor! He's very, very poor!
I. Fucking. Get it.
I just don't see how any of it matters. I mean, there appear to be hundreds of different legends floating around about Kvothe, but I doubt any of them are about his money troubles. How he got into the University, sure. How he didn't bleed after a whipping, how he saved a girl from a chemical fire, how he called the wind, brought down lightning, burned down the town of Trebon--but not how he scrounged together the cash to pay for another term. Realism? Sure, I'll accept realism. This book is supposedly about Kvothe laying bare the facts of his own life and deflating the myths that surround him (even if, later in the book, he turns out to be just as awesome as the stories say). I just don't see why it's necessary to add another three hundred pages to that part of Kvothe's story.
It probably wouldn't be so bad--it might even be somewhat tolerable--were it not for what happens next. Near the end of the University segment of the book, two things occur:
1. Kvothe gets arrested and tried for a violent act he accidentally committed in the previous book, and
2. Kvothe leaves the University and travels to Vintas, but is shipwrecked, robbed, and nearly drowned along the way.
Latter-day Kvothe refuses to talk about the trial, declaring it too boring to discuss (never mind that the entire book up to that point is too boring to discuss as well), and devotes barely a page to the eventful trip because it's not important to the story at large. It rings hollow, in a "Gotcha, suckers! Aren't I clever, playing with your expectations like that?" way, especially since it only serves to reduce Kvothe to near-poverty yet again so he can show off his awesome acting skills again and gain access to the palace of the Maer of Vintas, who he must immediately save from an assassination ("My lord, you're being poisoned!" "Of course I am! How else are you supposed to earn my trust and keep the readers interested? A letter of introduction and a demonstration of your musical skills? Booo-ring!"), and on to the next convenient adventure, and the next, and the next...
This is supposed to be a story about a boy named Kvothe who accidentally became a nearly-mythical/semi-legendary hero-of-sorts named Kvothe the Kingkiller, told by a slightly older and very un-mythical innkeeper named Kvothe. That story is there, but you have to slog through a lot of pointless filler to find it. The Wise Man's Fear devotes 360 pages to Kvothe's time at the University, 140 pages in Vintas with the Maer and Denna, 120 pages hunting bandits, 150 travelling to and from Ademre and learning how to fight, 150 pages rescuing two kidnapped girls, returning to Vintas, and going back to the University...
And 65 pages having sex with a fairy.
We're going to have to talk about the Felurian bit.
Review the Third
The Felurian bit.
THE GODDAMN FELURIAN BIT.
So this is what happens: Between pages 500 and 628, Kvothe and a band of mercenaries wander around a forest looking for bandits. After they kill the bandits, in an awesome-but-not-worth-the-preceding-hundred-pages kind of way, they run into Felurian, a legendary nymphomaniacal sex fairy whose sex is so sexy, every man who sexes her gets sexed to death. Or insanity. Kvothe dives right in, but instead of being sexed to death and/or insanity, he survives. Moreso, he out-sexes Felurian. You read that right: Kvothe, a young teenaged kid, completely inexperienced in the
He is sixteen.
But Kvothe isn't just perfect at sex: he also manages to fight off Felurian's sex-power and break free from her sex-spell. Then he has sex with her again, gets her to teach him more about sex, composes a song about how great sex with Felurian is (but refuses to finish it unless she lets him leaves fairysexland so he can have sex with other women for comparison), has sex with her again, and gets her to make him a magical cloak (made of shadows and starlight!) in between having sex with her and having more sex with her. He also talks to a tree that can tell the future. Then he returns to the mortal world and impresses all the mortal women with the power of his sex.
It's not as bad as it sounds, really--it’s much, much worse. How much? I think this calls for a graph. Observe:
Graph 1: The Wise Man's Fear: Rating vs. Progress
Why yes, I did use MS Paint. What did you expect for a one-star book?
We should probably take a closer look at Part E of that graph. Observe:
Graph 2: The Wise Man's Fear: Rating vs. Progress (Graph 1 Detail)
As you see in the above graph, the Felurian chapters (pages 628-693 in the hardcover edition) were so ridiculously awful, they broke the ratings system and plummetted my opinion of the book below zero stars. Problem is, GoodReads doesn't assign negative ratings to books, so I had to come up with a system of my own. Observe:
Graph 3: The Felurian Bit: Rating vs. Progress
This is how bad the Felurian chapters were:
IF there was a way to convert the text of the Felurian chapters into pure energy (e.g.: crude burning; reducing the paper and ink to atoms and then splitting said atoms; or, alternately, having the chapters read aloud by Sarah Palin and the audio file weaponized)...
...and IF that energy could be collected into a sort of "battery"...
...and IF that "battery" could be attached to a sort of "gun"...
...and IF the energy (or the weaponized audio file) within the "battery" could be concentrated into a sort of "laser beam" (or "sonic wave") and fired from this "gun"...
THEN you might be able to build a crude, yet serviceable, bowel disruptor.
Spider Jerusalem fans, take note.
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Reading Progress
| 05/16/2011 | page 994 |
|
100.0% | "Good riddance to that." |
| 05/14/2011 | page 817 |
|
82.0% | ""There is a great deal of difference between a penis and a heart." Best. Line. Ever." |
| 05/13/2011 | page 752 |
|
76.0% | "Boooooored. But Embassytown isn't out yet, so what else is there to read? Is it Tuesday yet?" |
| 05/12/2011 | page 694 |
|
70.0% | "The first 300-odd pages weren't bad, but these last 400-odd pages have been blarg. Well, except for three things: emotional sign language, Kvothe's ambush of the bandits, and the Cthaeh. The rest is blarg. BLARG." 3 comments |
| 05/11/2011 | page 632 |
|
64.0% | "Oh blarg, it's the Felurian bit. No. Oh, sweet blarg, no." |
| 05/10/2011 | page 537 |
|
54.0% | "So they're in the forest, tracking the bandits...wonder how long this is gonna take?...*skims ahead*...ONE HUNDRED PAGES? C'mon!" |
| 05/09/2011 | page 450 |
|
45.0% | "Wow, the flowery language just reached critical mass. I just came thisclose to vomiting." 1 comment |
Comments (showing 1-50 of 210) (210 new)
Fun book so far. Only problem I have with it would be Kvothe. He is kind of a little twat. I shall leave it at that.
Pharminator wrote: "Glad to hear that you're about to start this! Can't wait to hear what you think about it!"You...may want to wait. It's not going so well.
Kyle wrote: Only problem I have with it would be Kvothe. He is kind of a little twat.
He's also a little boring. That wouldn't be such a bad thing, but the rest of the book is a little boring too.
It definitely hasn't been one of my favorite reads, but once you get 600 pages in you are pretty much committed to finishing it. Oh well, at least I have a bunch of Lovecraft to read when i finish.
I'm about 400 pages in. It's dull, but readable. I'm just speeding through right now because Embassytown will be out in a week, and China Miéville beats Patrick Rothfuss every time. Have you read Miéville? You should read Miéville.
Jacob wrote: "I'm about 400 pages in. It's dull, but readable. I'm just speeding through right now because Embassytown will be out in a week, and China Miéville beats Patrick Rothfuss every time. Have you re..."You could see him with just a 4 hour drive, Jacob! You have 3 weeks to plan!
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/04/china-m...
Oooh, tempting. But that's the week of the Printers Row Lit Fest, and I can't take off another day of work. Why can't China come to Chicago, too?
You mean it's Chinal Melville, bitch. I don't know what Michael's been smoking, I've never been able to picture China talking like that. Bitch.
china mieville talks like the weaver unless he eats a brain a day. it is the only way to keep the madness in check. fact.
Unfortunately for Ceridwen, China Mieville is completely sexless. Early in his youth, certain parts of his brain decided the pituitary gland was taking up wasted space. There was a violent coup, and that part of China's brain now houses another brain. Fact.
Hah! I was actually wondering if he was free to become Ceridwen's 2nd husband. There's surprisingly no info on his personal life, at least to my lazy and unskilled googling.
I read an article last year that casually mentioned he has an American girlfriend. It was somewhat devastating. I always assumed China was a holy being who transcended sex. Or his sexuality existed in a quantum state, like Schrödinger's cat, and actually finding out whether he was straight or gay would just make it boring.Yeah, I've probably thought about it more than Ceridwen. Don't give me that look.
He seems to have such a solid physical presence that comes through photographs, I would be surprised to learn he was asexual. Hahaha, I love that you spent thought on the subject!
Eh?Eh! wrote: "He seems to have such a solid physical presence that comes through photographs, I would be surprised to learn he was asexual."Well, see, he's quasi-angelic. Or something. And, and, and, he's so powerful he projects his body onto this plane of existence twice. His overlapping double-presence is what makes him so solid.
Ok, most of that's bullshit. But he is quasi-angelic.
I'm about 400 pages in. It's dull, but readable. I'm just speeding through right now because Embassytown will be out in a week, and China Miéville beats Patrick Rothfuss every time. Have you read Miéville? You should read Miéville.Have never read any Miéville but I will probably search for a pdf or cheap version for my kindle. My local library seems a bit lacking in some areas. Any suggestions for someone just picking up any of his books?
Oi! People are using my name! In connection with Mieville! Also, squee! He's coming to Minneapolis! (Or suburban Roseville, which I do not get.) Cmon, Jacob, it's only 4 hours! I'm sure your boss will totally understand.
C'mon, Jacob! You can listen to Mieville audiobooks on the drive over! And then see the quasi-angel in the flesh!
Kyle wrote: "Have never read any Miéville but I will probably search for a pdf or cheap version for my kindle. My local library seems a bit lacking in some areas. Any suggestions for someone just picking up any of his books?"China Miéville likes to play around with different genres, but he's also fond of Lovecraftian-style weird fiction. Since you're already planning to read Lovecraft, Perdido Street Station is the perfect place to start.
Well, I feel bad as though I led you wrong with my review of this book. Sorry to hear you're not enjoying it!
Hey, no worries. I was planning on reading it anyway, so it's not like you tricked me or anything. 'Sides, I liked the first book--it's just something about this one that isn't working for me.
Jacob wrote: "Hey, no worries. I was planning on reading it anyway, so it's not like you tricked me or anything. 'Sides, I liked the first book--it's just something about this one that isn't working for me."I felt the book lacked the substance of the first book. It jumped around too much. Kvothe went from being a tortured and introverted person to Mr. Everything overnight. He is too many things at once and way too clever to be believable. It seemed to not go anywhere while going too many places at the same time. If people get what I am saying. :\
I get what you're saying. Mostly, though, I think he needs to get laid. But I'm probably going to regret saying that when Felurian shows up, aren't I?
Haha. More than you know...Part of my frustration with the book will become evident when that part rolls around. I will not spoil it, I just hope you get the same vibe I get from Kvothe after the Felurian part. So I won't be one of the few.
Kyle wrote: "I just hope you get the same vibe I get from Kvothe after the Felurian part. So I won't be one of the few."Is that a "I'd rather shoot myself with Spider Jerusalem's bowel disruptor than read any more of this" kind of vibe? Because I totally have that vibe.
Jacob wrote: Is that a "I'd rather shoot myself with Spider Jerusalem's bowel disruptor than read any more of this" kind of vibe? Because I totally have that vibe. "By the end of the book that is how it got for me as well. It's just not as fun to read as the first one. Also he goes into some magical realm and emerges Mr. LovaLova, pretty damn ridiculous.
Kyle wrote: "Also he goes into some magical realm and emerges Mr. LovaLova, pretty damn ridiculous."Pretty damn ridiculous is pretty damn right. The Felurian bit was awful. Painful to read. I had to stop every few lines just to look away. The super-special magic poet fairy sex was just...ugh.
I have a friend who talks like Rothfuss writes, the whole flowery-poetic-super romantic way that sounds ridiculous no matter who tries it. I was complaining about the Felurian bit on Facebook and he said "Must you hate beauty and love so, my friend?" Really. He said that. I kid you not. And all I could think was "Fuck. That."
Sometimes he does. Sometimes he does not. Depends on how romantic he thinks he is at the time.But he's moving out to Portland soon, so he'll be your problem.
I'm sorry, but he has Portland-itis, late stage two/borderline stage three, and he cannot be stopped. There's nothing I can do but warn you. Hasn't your city set up a quarantine zone or refugee camp for these cases?
Again, sorry to hear that you didn't enjoy it. Are you going to polish off the series when the third comes out?
Yeah, I know. But it's just one more book. Not like I'm slogging through The Wheel of Time just to see how Sanderson wraps it up. I mean, I'm kinda tempted...but then I remember the series will be 14 books (plus prequel!) when finished.
i almost read book 2 because i had read the first one. then i realized that 1,000 pages of a two-star read is insane.
I still don't see why this book has such high ratings, the first book was pretty good and I really enjoyed reading it. This one felt more like a chore, maybe it does need a few harsh reviews.
Joel wrote: "i almost read book 2 because i had read the first one. then i realized that 1,000 pages of a two-star read is insane."I really liked NotW, but now I'm glad I didn't reread it before this one came out. Unsure if I'll read the third, but I'm definitely not rereading the trilogy for it.
Kyle wrote: "I still don't see why this book has such high ratings, the first book was pretty good and I really enjoyed reading it."
Don't you get it? The book is really, really good, and we just don't like it because we hate love and beauty so, my friend.
"This one felt more like a chore, maybe it does need a few harsh reviews."
I agree, but I'm also reluctant to criticize it too harshly because Pat is a cool guy. Have you read his blog? He's an awesome dude, and it just doesn't feel right to say bad things about his crappy book, even if it is crappy.
Jacob wrote: "I agree, but I'm also reluctant to criticize it too harshly because Pat is a cool guy. Have you read his blog? He's an awesome dude, and it just doesn't feel right to say bad things about his crappy book, even if it is crappy."I have never seen his blog therefore I cannot comment on that, but I can however relate to what wiki has said about his college career. He changed majors like 3-4 times, he seems like the kind of guy that doesn't really feel comfortable unless he is exploring every part of what life offers. I can relate with wanting more knowledge and not being able to make up your mind because you are drawn from one subject to another seeking answers and ultimately fun.
One star? Wow. I'll look forward to yer review when you write it. The overall story of the book isn't that great, especially parts like the whole Felurian thing, but I still really enjoyed it. Piecing together all the lore and stories from the two books was probably my favorite thing about it.
JK wrote: "Piecing together all the lore and stories from the two books was probably my favorite thing about it."Yeah, I liked that too. Most of the book wasn't very interesting, probably worth three stars, but it went off the rails with the Felurian bit and never managed to recover. Was having some trouble with the review ("Pat's a nice guy! I can't say that about the book! That's too mean!") but I think I found a way to make it work.
Spider Jerusalem fans, take note. If the sex fairy looked like Spider Jerusalem, I would have no problem with it at all.
This is a great review. I love the graphs. They're so useful in this type of situation.I'm left with the impression that the author is in fact a fifteen year old boy with time on his hands and no porn collection. Have I misunderstood?
I'm left with the impression that the author is in fact a fifteen year old boy with time on his hands and no porn collection. Have I misunderstood?Chris Paolini? Where? Where??
Ceridwen wrote: "I'm left with the impression that the author is in fact a fifteen year old boy with time on his hands and no porn collection. Have I misunderstood?Chris Paolini? Where? Where??"
Even baby-boy-Paolini didn't give us 65 pages of faery sex.
I am a Spider J fan, and I have taken note. This was a thoughtful and hilarious review. Thanks for taking the bullet for the rest of us.
Holy god...that is a more deserving review than a 1-star book should get.Nice one.
I'm still a little irked that in the same year that The Name of the Wind came out a far superior fantasy novel was also released, and widely ignored by everyone: J.M. McDermott's The Last Dragon.
Perhaps McDermott should wear more Joss Whedon shirts in his photos. ;)
