Review : The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Day Two: The Wise Man's Fear.

"There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man."

An escalating rivalry with a powerful member of the nobility forces Kvothe to leave the University and seek his fortune abroad. Adrift, penniless, and alone, he travels to Vintas, where he quickly becomes entangled in the politics of courtly society. While attempting to curry favor with a powerful noble, Kvothe discovers an assassination attempt, comes into conflict with a rival arcanist, and leads a group of mercenaries into the wild, in an attempt to solve the mystery of who (or what) is waylaying travelers on the King's road.

All the while, Kvothe searches for answers, attempting to uncover the truth about the mysterious Amyr, the Chandrian, and the death of his parents. Along the way, Kvothe is put on trial by the legendary Adem mercenaries, forced to reclaim the honor of the Edema Ruh, and travels into the Fae realm. There he meets Felurian, the faerie woman no man can resist, and who no man has ever survived. Under her tutelage, Kvothe learns much about true magic and the ways of women.

In The Wise Man's Fear Kvothe takes his first steps on the path of the hero and learns how difficult life can be when a man becomes a legend in his own time.

 The Wise Man's Fear was an epic of a novel, a whopping near-thousand pages. It is the sequel to The Name of the Wind, released in 2007.

The beginning finds Kvothe (assumed name Kote) in his role as the innkeeper at the Waystone Inn. He continues narrating his life (to Chronicler and Bast) at the University, where he is starting with the second term. Only the first quarter of the book focuses on his time at the University.

At the beginning of the term, Kvothe is drugged with an alchemical substance during the admissions lottery which induces him to do stupid and impulsive things and causes his anger to flare at the slightest provocation. Armed with a recommendation from Thrope, he sets off to Vintas to seek patronage under Maer Alveron.

This books was immense in length and detail but it has a lot of positive aspects to it. It fills up the map, adding more places and generally giving a wider view of Rothfuss' world. His ideas are original and refreshing after the slew of vamps and weres in current YA. His writing is as captivatingly poetic as ever and within minutes, I was hooked.

There is a lot of interaction between previously ignored people in the University, (like Fela, Devi and Manet) and makes it a lot easier to connect with individual characters and understand their motive and reasoning. Fela and Devi are active players in the escapades of our three miscreants. I liked the fact that there was emphasis on a female character other than Denna, who keeps up with her random disappearing acts in the book.

Yet, by the end of the book, Kvothe is no wiser to the identities of the Chandrian and the Amyr, despite the fact that he spends a large part of the book researching them in the Stacks and in Vintas, and endlessly quizzing everyone he knows about their existense. The only thing he does learn about them is in the form of a short poem describing each of them.

Also, Kvothe's time with Felurian in her realm was a tad unclear. I felt like it had just blurred past with him lounging around and alternating between either him or Felurian in a moody temperament. Or that might just be my dislike of Felurian acting up.

On the whole, The Wise Man's Fear was a wonderful if exhaustingly long read, with an ominous undertone that will have you wondering what will come to pass in the sequel. I'm drumming my fingers now, hoping I won't be waiting 5 years for the next book....