Saturday, May 28, 2011

Bookish Review: The Wise Man's Fear

The Wise Man's Fear is the sequel to the awesome The Name of the Wind and picks up the story exactly where the last one left off. Kvothe continues to tell his life story to the Chronicler and Bast continues to worry that his master has forgotten who he truly is. If anything, this one is even more of a page-turner than the first. We get more of Kvothe's adventures at the University, but even more exciting is when he leaves the University for a while after being brought up on charges of violating the Iron Law (he is acquitted, but he needs some time for the memory to fade if he is going to be assigned a tuition he can actually pay). He leaves town in the hopes of gaining the patronage of the Maer, a very powerful and rich man. He performs many important services for the Maer, gaining some important knowledge along the way, and even enters the Fae and learns of fairies and learns the secrets of Ademic mercenaries. He does return to the University, where everyone thought him dead, newly equipped to pay his tuition, but not with everything he'd hoped to gain. We see again the weakness of the present-day Kvothe in comparison to who he used to be, but the story is not yet over, so how it all came to pass is still a mystery. I was fortunate enough to read the two stories back-to-back, which was wonderful, but also terrible. Because now I have to wait a year for the end of the story. Which isn't that long to wait for a new book from a beloved author, all things considered, and it would be longer, except that it is already written. Still...grrr.

Read these books!

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