Has anyone gotten into this wonderful, wonderful series about our ginger hero Kvothe? It starts with The Name Of The Wind, followed by The Wise Man’s Fear. The title for book 3 is still up in the air.
Amazon and Audible have both recommended the books to me several times, based on other things I like. But I wasn’t sold by the blurb or the audio excerpt. Can you tell me a little more about the characters?
The book centers around Kvothe. He was born into a family of gypsy bards basically, and one day when his whole collective of people get killed by an old, mysterious force, he’s forced to live in less than equitable means. He meets some friends, a girl, and a few other things. It’s hard to say more without spoiling it, but I’d put a LOT on the bet that you’d enjoy it.
I heartily recommend this series. It is beautifully written. By that, I mean that when I got to the end of the first book I actually smiled and wondered at what a pleasure it was to read it. I don’t just mean the story, which I found compelling and deep, but that the author Patrick Rothfuss has an obvious love of language. I feel that is rare these days.
At surface, it does seem to be a typical fantasy kid from a wandering background experiences tragedy and then grows up to be badass magical adventuring hero type. It sets up a lot of tropes and then knocks them down. The framing is of the hero himself relating the tales of his past to a chronicler, and in his tale he has met other storytellers, so you sometimes find you are reading a story-within-a-story-within-a-story. The world and characters are interesting and the magic system feels new (at least to me) and consistent.
I am eagerly waiting for the third book. It’s quite possibly the best new book/series I’ve read in the past few years.
Here’s a review that might say it more elegantly than my attempt above:
“THE NAME OF THE WIND is quite simply the best fantasy novel of the past 10 years, although attaching a genre qualification threatens to damn it with faint praise. Say instead that THE NAME OF THE WIND is one of the best stories told in any medium in a decade. Author Patrick Rothfuss teaches English at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, and he describes himself in self-deprecating terms as a perpetual student, role-playing geek, and connoisseur of rejection letters. That’s all about to change. His debut novel combines the intricate stories-within-stories structure of The Arabian Nights with the academic setting of the Harry Potter series, and transforms it all into a brooding, thoroughly adult meditation on how heroism went wrong. More entries in the series, dubbed ‘The Kingkiller Chronicle,’ are promised; they can’t appear fast enough.”
-Onion AV Club
Thank you for saying what I could not about this series! Well done! 
Somewhat late to the thread, but this is shaping up to be a fun series. I just joined Audible and chose the first book as my first download. I’m about 6 hours in so far and loving it.
It feels a ittle slow to get into at first, but a few chapters in it really starts to take hold. The narrator does a good job, too. He has a good range of voices and a good variety of credible accents. But it all together and it is a worthwhile package.
Tiggs
(via Tapatalk on iPad)
Or to put it another way, this was the first book in an incredibly long time that kept me up all night to finish it. When I found out I’d finished the first book before the second had been published I felt incredibly sad because I couldn’t just go and read the next one (but you can now).
If it helps at all, the incredibly gifted, trope-destroying amazing hero also has a sword he named Folly.
Very late to the thread. I just wanted to concur with previous comments. It might seem to be traditional fantasy books, but the author tweaks everything to make it new and exciting. The result reads like old folk tales despite that they obviously are not.
Can’t wait for the third book.