Simultaneously sad and happy about finishing The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss.
The Wise Man's Fear
The fact that I have to wait so long for the next one makes me sad, but the power of the storytelling is just invigorating. I'm not gong into any spoilage, but epic definitely qualifies here. I read a very good article in Clarkesworld Magazine called Something Greater: an Epic Discussion of Epic Fantasy. July and August.
Several Authors talking about various facets of what makes epic fantasy, theirs or others.
I started to write a review for The wise man's fear but found that the other ones, already present, said most of what I wanted to say. 5 star and 1 star seem to dominate for it on goodreads, either people hate it or love it. I give it five stars because it, and it's predecessor, were beyond engrossing. The characters are not unbelievable, though in a fantasy they do engage in unbelievable things. They are not paragons of good or evil (well mostly not). The characters do not just move, unchanged, through the landscape of the story; the story changes them, and they it. The retelling of the main character's story, by the main character, lends a change by the retelling. These are living folks in a living world, while you are reading it.
If you don't like long, skip it, both books are very long, I expect the third to be very long as well. But we aren't talking Dumas filler word count, or page after page of description with no purpose, but story telling; the telling of a story, by the main character, of his own story.
I think Patrick Rothfuss does a fine job of story telling, and whether you like what the people in the story do, or are, he tells a compelling story in a way that draws you in and keeps you focused on it.
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