The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

Mar 06, 2011 Valerie rated it it was ok

Shelves: read-in-2011

update 4/20/12: Right-o, so I've been pondering this for a while and thought this required some clarification. My feelings after reading the book became more negative the more I thought about it, and I considered dropping it down to two stars; reading a certain post from the author kinda confirmed some suspicions about the way some things were written and gave me the final incentive to do it. The original review is still intact under the spoiler tag below -- and I even said upon originally finis update 4/20/12: Right-o, so I've been pondering this for a while and thought this required some clarification. My feelings after reading the book became more negative the more I thought about it, and I considered dropping it down to two stars; reading a certain post from the author kinda confirmed some suspicions about the way some things were written and gave me the final incentive to do it. The original review is still intact under the spoiler tag below -- and I even said upon originally finishing it that I wanted to rate it 2.5 stars, so I just chose to round it down instead. That is all.

(view spoiler)[I loved The Name of the Wind. I loved the first half of The Wise Man's Fear - I enjoy the university setting in general and thought that Kvothe's foray into court intrigue with Alveron was really well-done. But as soon as he was sent off with the Adem mercenaries, everything slowed to a pace like oozing molasses. And when he started having his Neverending Magical Sexytimes with Felurian (he's the only one who hasn't gone mad from her, guys! THE ONLY ONE!), I honestly wanted to toss the book across the room.

But since I was persuaded that the last sixth of the book was really really really good, I persevered. I justified to myself: "Well, he certainly has an ego, so he probably isn't the most reliable of narrators. Hopefully." I gritted my teeth when he saved the two girls from the fake Edema Ruh in ALL OF HIS AMAZING GLORY and had people in the town justify him: after all, "Some people are worth killing," according to the random sagely healer. Another reviewer mentioned that he had bad flashbacks to Richard's random ability to carve life-changing statues in Goodkind's Faith of the Fallen. Personally, I was reminded of the village slaughter in Naked Empire. Not the same, I know, but the justification made me incredibly uneasy.

And then he went back to the court and then stirred up trouble. And then he went back to the university. And just when things started to pick up again, the book ended.

So, what actually happened? We learned the names of the Chandrian. He saw one of them again. He's also become a total stud and an amazing lover who, of course, wants the one woman he can't have. And he learned how to fight. Did this really have to take 1000 pages?

I'd rate this 2.5 stars if I could, but I'm rounding up to three because, as I said: a) I really enjoyed the first half of the book, and it's always a joy to read about Elodin and Auri; b) I loved Rothfuss' world- and myth-building and use of language. Now I have to re-read TNotW to see if it was actually as good as I remembered. (hide spoiler)] ...more

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