Eric Allerton

I really wasn't expecting to like this book as much as I did. It seemed like it would be a throw-away plot of an orphan being raised into the world of thieves, but it turned out to be so much more. I usually breeze through the world-building explanations because too many seem overly convoluted. There's a bit of that in here, but each place and each piece of history explained in the Interlude chapters actually matters and helps explain the different personas and situations Locke and his friends get into.

What really hooked me was how smart Scott Lynch's written situations came to be. There were a couple reveals in the book that just left me saying, “that's badass” out loud. It just shows some expert craftsmanship by the author and really solidified my determination to read the rest of the series. There's even a “Red Wedding”-type scene and it's refreshing to read something like the Game of Thrones series where the author isn't scared into making sure everyone has a happy ending.

I may just jump right into the next book, which I almost never do in a series, because I really enjoy Locke as a character and his thought process to enduring his life of thievery and morality. Also, whenever Jean picks up the Wicked Sisters to do battle, I'm fully engaged and imagining every move he makes as perfectly written by Lynch.

Of the “fantasy”-esque books I've read, this ranks in my top 3 for sure; if not my favorite. We'll see how the rest of the books play out!

Exactly what I needed coming off of a sprawling epic fantasy book.

This book is short but has enough twists and turns to make it enjoyable enough to even read in one sitting. It reads like a very good episode of CSI. Season Finale-quality. Nothing was particularly outstanding, including the characters, but the wham-bam of the story and the pacing make any bits of “meh” more than forgiven.

I would be interested in reading more from this author, especially if they are short and hover around this 300page mark. It's a good palette cleanser.

I never thought I'd ever finish a 1000+ page book in a little over 2 weeks. That's how good this follow-up novel is.

The continuing story of a living legend in hibernation; detailing how he became the man of legend. This book goes into more of the mysterious and fantastical legends about Kvothe's past. They're too good of pay-offs to mention here, but this book is a great example on how such a well-fleshed out character in book 1 becomes even better. It's amazing how much happens in this book, yet how little is resolved regarding our main character.

One of my biggest reservations about this series is how, since the story is being told by Kvothe later in his life, the sense of peril could be minimized because you obviously know that he makes it through whatever is thrust upon him. To battle my reservation, Rothfuss makes KVothe's journey so much one of legend that the scenarios feel important. Kvothe makes it through, but these rights of passage are so huge in the making of Kvothe that peril takes a back seat.

I, like every other reader of this series, am waiting on bated breath for book 3, and it can't come soon enough!

I will say that the journey through the woods and Kvothe's time in Ademre seem to be very drawn out and could've used some trimming. When so much other potentially interesting things were glanced over and rushed through, I didn't need a good chunk of the story being about tracking footprints through a forest.

A lot of editing mistakes, a couple continuity issues, and sometimes it bordered on being a book with Fabio on the cover. However, it was a well researched piece of historical fiction, and the touches of witchcraft, albeit them light, made the story interesting enough to think about reading the next one. I don't consider this my genre of choice, but having played Assassin's Creed IV and watching Black Sails recently, this book helped fuel my swashbuckling state of mind.

What makes this book great is really its first half. That's exclusively because while the whole book invokes happy nostalgia for me, only the first half really contained things I wasn't aware of. Nintendo of my childhood holds a lot more secrets than Nintendo of post-internet-news-site culture. However, if you don't know anything about the history of Nintendo up to 2010 (when the book was published), you'll enjoy it that much more.

Finding out how Nintendo went from a playing card company to one of the most successful companies in the Earth's history is a great page-turner. The real highlight is finding out just how large an influence Shigeru Miyamoto has had on American and Japanese people born post-1975. It's really amazing, and Jeff Ryan does a great job laying out all the facts about Miyamoto and Nintendo (and eventually Sega, Sony and Microsoft) in a way that's informative, casual and humorous.

This is a great read for anyone who enjoys cultural history and, obviously, anyone who grew up enjoying the art that are video-games.