A Wise Man’s Fear

by Patrick Rothfuss

Originally posted to Goodreads on September 24, 2015.

I have just completed listening to the second of the series during my commute. The story is setup beautifully for that! As it is long and there are multiple smaller stories within the larger one, it’s an enjoyable piece of work for that type of experience. At this point in the story, I still have more questions than answers, but honestly, that’s OK in this series.

I am engrossed into the life of Kvothe and his supporting characters. To comment on the flaw other reviewers have mentioned about Kvothe being an unlikable character, I personally find that it gives him a little more depth and interest. Others have commented that he seems too perfect or lucky. Lucky, to this point in the story, I will give them, but not in all regards. And respectfully, I must disagree with him being perfect. I find that he has a number of flaws in being overly eager and overly confident. Likewise, he is oblivious to many things that are obvious if you were not in his head. Of course when telling one’s own story, your own voice is skewed, so I admire the writer for being able to very subtly hint at the things that Kvothe misses along the way.

Regarding the secondary characters, I do not find any of those presented appearing to be empty or with a lack of a back-story. Some of the ones that pique my interest the most (or are the most frustrating) are Elodin, Denna, and Devi. In fact, it would be interesting to see the character sketches that make up the details we don’t readily see within Kvothe’s story.

After the second book, I still want to delve deeper and know what happens in multiple aspects of the story. Given that I have put aside other epic fantasy series with a blah feeling about returning to those worlds, this alone says a great deal about the quality of every detail of the story as well as the performance. After all of this, I am somewhat dismayed that the third book has yet to be released.

The writing in this series is poetic. While that seems overbearing at first, I have found myself enjoying the voice more as I continue through the story. I find several lines throughout the book poignant, and I want to save and remember those for later. Some of the magic in this story is not normally what I would want in this type of epic. However, it never seems out-of-sorts for the world Mr. Rothfuss has created. Also, the story doesn’t seem to have any what I would call “dead” parts. Those being the parts where the writing seems to have no contribution to the story’s direction or parts that stir disinterest in the audience.

Audio: The performance is well done with voices truly portraying the characters. Pacing is nice. I do not find myself trying to speed up or slow down the reading as I have done with other audio books.