Sean’s Blog

The Name of The Wind - Patrick Rothfuss

First off, let me say the Name of the Wind is a great book. I don’t read a lot of fantasy, but I had heard some good things about this one and I decided to pick it up.

The story is told as a retelling of the main character’s, Kvothe, life. Apparently, Kvothe is of some repute, but has retired and is living life under an assumed name as a innkeeper in a small backwoods town. When a famous historian tracks him down, he agrees to tell his life story and we get to know some of what was hinted about him in the beginning.

Kvothe starts his story in his childhood as a brilliant child with a group of traveling entertainers. After mysterious forces kill his family and everyone in his group, he is forced to spend years on the streets as a begging child and a thief. he then escapes the city to enroll in the university and learn about who killed his parents.

It sounds like pretty standard fantasy, and as a 30 second recap it is, but the actual implementation is a whole other beast. Rothfuss takes what could have been a cut and paste fantasy story and infuses it with a whole new life. The grittiness and danger of a child living on the streets, a brilliant but proud narrator who thinks like an adult but is still a child.

I won’t go into too much detail, since you really should read the book and I don’t want spoil it.  I do kind of have one gripe though and this is with fantasy novels in general, and is not specific to Patrick Rothfuss’ book.

Fantasy novels never seem to conclude anything in just one book.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a trilogy or a series as much as the next person, but I started racking my brain and every fantasy novel I’ve read in the last several years (at least) has only been part of the story.  I like the depth this brings, but why does every story seem to require this?

Just two examples out side of this book are George RR Martin’s “A Song of Fire and Ice” series and R. Scott Bakkers “Prince of Nothing” series. Both are great stories,  but I have to keep rereading the books to figure out where everything stands since the last one.  They also tend to drop off my radar if I’m waiting a year or more between books in the series and then I forget about them.  A lot of times my local library will  only have certain parts of the series as well.

Maybe I am just impatient and cheap, but this seems much more endemic to fantasy then other genres.  Let me know if I’m wrong, and don’t take this as criticism of the name of the wind.  Maybe I get worked up because like “A Song of Fire and Ice”, and “The Prince of Nothing”, it is good enough that I don’t want to wait to find out what happens.