The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day 1) | Patrick Rothfuss

The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day 1) | Patrick Rothfuss | Surprising brilliance for Fantasy Lovers

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The Name of the Wi...

	The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day 1) Patrick Rothfuss DAW, 2008 - 736 pages average customer review:based on 379 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

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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Compelling world-building and magical system

He's a humble inn-keeper--despite his red hair. Or so he tells the world. But Chronicler knows better. Kote was once Kvothe, a mage and hero. With monsters on the prowl again, the world may need Kvote the hero rather than Kote the innkeeper. But first, he's got to awaken himself--and maybe telling his history is a good start. The bulk of the story in THE NAME OF THE WIND is just that--Kote recalling his life for Chronicler.

Kvothe has had an interesting life--starting with his childhood in an acting troop, his studies under a mage, the destruction of his dreams by forces supposedly out of fairy tales, his living on the streets of Tarbean, and finally his attempt to gain admission and success at the University and its famous archives.

Author Patrick Rothfuss delivers really strong world-building and a fascinating story of a young man's attempts to survive and to find his place in the world. With a full range of mythology, a host of monstrous creatures, plenty of plants that pay off through the story, and a consistent magic system, I had a hard time doing anything but read this story.

Although THE NAME OF THE WIND makes fascinating reading, in many ways it feels like a prequel. We know that Kvothe is the Kingkiller, but we don't actually get to see him deal with any kings. That, perhaps, is reserved for the follow-up volume. Also, although telling the story from the standpoint of the older and more cynical adult Kvothe adds poignancy and sets up a powerful scene at the end, I really wanted to know more about why we needed the hero Kvothe back--and why he refuses to emerge from the shell he's created for himself. Finally, while Rothfuss did an excellent job with his male characters, his female characters seem one-dimensional.

I'm amazed that Rothfuss was able to pull off such a complex and compelling piece of story-telling in his first novel. I'll definitely be looking for the sequel--with the confident hope that it'll provide a great payoff for all of the (wonderfully written) setup through THE NAME OF THE WIND.

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Surprising brilliance for Fantasy Lovers

The book begins by dropping you into a story that feels like you've missed a volume, then it gathers speed and you're in the race. As a fantasy fiction lover, the slightly sci-fi bent to it is fascinating, disturbing, irritating and with time completely normal. Not realising that this is a trilogy made the race to the end of the book very intertesting. It is full of intelligence, intrigue, clever and lyrical description and it wound it's way, no doubt via wizardry magic into my daily life so that reading it became the goal of the day.

While the ending (the last 100 pages) is slightly less absorbing, simply needing to find the climax and resolution pulled me through, but I did find it a little '$2 ending' as I like to call the quick and cheap endings of movies, as was the case of this book. But none the less, I immediately jumped on line to research this author and to my delight discovered the triology.

Lovers of lyrical and passionate story telling will indulge greatly in this. A fine read and a wonder to let the imagination journey on. You can't help but wonder at those of us, Patrick Rothfuss namely, how may have already enjoyed a lifetime surrounded by this magic in the real.

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Splendid

Let me just say that this book is a work of genius. It is really all you need to entertain yourself for a while. The story is so good and just keeps getting better as you read, through all 700 pages. At the end I literally felt like I wanted to read about 2000 pages more of it. And for anyone who starts reading now, you don't have very long to wait for the second book. Believe me, you WILL be waiting for the second book.

Gripping fantasy debut

It's taken me a while to get around to reading this, but it was worth the wait.
Kvothe comes from a travelling troupe, a bit like a mini circus, but his family are slaughtered by the mysterious Chandrian and as a young boy he sets his sites on gaining magical skills and finding out more about the Chandrian. How do we know this? Well we are presented to an older Kvothe who is managing a small village inn who is convinced to tell his life story to a biographer. So we hear how a typical legend of fantasy books came to be that legend and eventually, we presume, we will find out what brought him to a small inn....
This is the first part of a trilogy and takes us from Kvothe aged about eight to about sixteen, the majority is spent in 'The University' where he learns skills, makes enemies and finds love, all set against his drive to find out more about the Chandrian.
This is original and an engrossing read over about 650 pages. A good start for those who have not read this kind of stuff, and also good for those of us who have read a great deal of fantasy and want a twist on the usual.
It does end abruptly just as you are drawn into Kvothe's life and it is a shame we have to wait until April 09 for the next part of the story...

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Solidly Good.

I tend to avoid High Fantasy these days. With a few notable exceptions, I tend not to like it very much at all. When done well, it's a lovely lovely thing. When done badly, it's more tired than tired and hardly entertaining.

I picked up The Name of the Wind because it seems to be loved by-- well, by everyone. The book starts with three pages in tiny print of rave reviews, all from very Serious Names in Fantasy. Generally speaking, anything this well hyped disappoints me, but some of those raves were from people I like well enough to give it a try.

I'll say one thing for sure, I really enjoyed it. I stayed up all hours reading it and was honestly pretty disappointed to find that the next book isn't due out until April. And that only in hardcover.

I don't, however, love it as much as many of its fans seem to do. I found it extremely good, but not great. To me, there were a number of flaws which seriously diminished my experience of the novel.

First, the Prologue annoyed the spit out of me, and very nearly caused me to put the book down. Rothfuss is a very rich writer, and it tends to be well done and not overdone in the rest of the book. But the pompous mystery around the three silences was too much-- a much simpler opening would have been better in keeping with the book, I found. As a result, I found myself suspicious and waiting to pounce on any purple prose for the first long section of the book.

Second, I did get a little bit tired of Kvothe-the-Prodigy-at-Everything. Although in places this worked very nicely to set us up for genuine humor, in others it merely felt trying. It also didn't play very well together with Kvothe's economic circumstances, of which so much is made during his school days. I had the feeling that Rothfuss had to do some pretty heavy-handed things with the plot (Rich Boys Are Evil!) to explain why someone as talented, musical, etc. etc. as Kvothe can't seem to earn a buck. Prodigies do exist, for sure. However, I think that they're more interesting when their bounty in one area is a study in contrast to what they lack in others.

Third, Denna seemed to me to be utterly unappealing. Perhaps this is because I'm a woman, myself. I found her more unreal than affecting-- kind of a fantasy Nadja-- and that made me trust the other characters just that little bit less.

These flaws shouldn't talk you out of reading the book. Particularly if you like Epic Fantasy, this is a very good current example of the genre. Rothfuss writes well. I wasn't particularly put off by the length. The outsider-goes-to-academy theme is tried & true, and this is a decent example of same. I'm certainly interested enough to pick up a copy of the next book in the series.

I will admit that I'm a little perplexed by all the gushing praise. But different strokes for different folks, right?

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