The Hutt Recommends: The Name of the Wind

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.

First of The Kingkiller Chronicles.

   The road of life has been long, winding and most arduous for Kvothe – adventurer, famous musician, arcanist and living legend - now living out his life quietly and as anonymously as possible as an innkeeper in a rural town. He's been across the world and seen many things, been hunted by demons, studied the arts of magic and swordsmanship, spent time with the fae and is even rumoured to have killed a king...

So when Chronicler is attacked by demons on the road and Kvothe saves him (which also leads to Chronicler realising just who his saviour is) he offers to put Kvothe's story on record as thanks. After some consideration, Kvothe agrees and with that our story begins.

   I really enjoyed this novel. It's a story within a story within a story, because while we're listening to a life as told by the old Kvothe, young Kvothe is chasing a completely different story - the layering is excellent. Sure, we might have heard the story before; brilliant young man becomes hero, but it's still a welcomed story and Rothfuss actually does something quite new and exciting with it despite the predictability that experienced fantasy readers might feel. It leaves you wanting for the next part of the story.

My big weakness nowadays, especially with fantasy and scifi fiction, is finding the major female characters and analyzing them to bits. In this case we have in our main girl a variation of Sexy Lamp with Manic Pixie Dream Girl syndrome. Lets be frank; I hated her. The story could have gone on without her and been better off for it. I know Kvothe would be better off without her, that's for sure.

   The novel's on the heavier side with 700+ pages so if you're not in to  that you can download it and instead listen to 40+ hours of Kvothe's adventures. In either case, I recommend it.

   With the immense success of Game of Thrones I'm very surprised that the rumours from several years ago that Kingkiller Chronicles were going to be adapted into a tv series haven't given results yet. I guess we'll just have to give them a few more years...

...just like we seem to have to give Rothfuss a few more years for the continuation of the Kingkiller Chronicles.