The Name of the Wind

I'm a bit mixed on this one. I see it get a lot of criticism and a chosen one/Gary Stu book, and I don't think that criticism is terribly valid. Kvothe may be given a lot of advantages, but he is still fundamentally flawed in his inability to wait five minutes for anything, and he faces consequences for his regular acts of recklessness including physical, financial, and emotional damage. I look at how the guy treats his money and see all the bad habits poverty will do to a person. It's crazy accurate in money-psychology.

Rothfuss' world is interesting if a bit borrowed from Earthsea, and I like his diversity of characters even if they are a bit flat. Characters like Sovoy and Devi are more interesting to me in their breaking of stereotypes than the Auri's and Ambrose's, but nobody really disrupted my reading of the story. The description of Denna's lot in life and how much different it is than Kvothe's is a really memorable part too. The action is good and the writing is solid.

The real pain for me is that there is no central conflict in this novel. It is PART ONE in a way that drives me nuts. Even if you are going to use a book as a kickoff for a trilogy, there needs to be a central story to that first book, and there isn't one here. A lot of little stories that are resolved in fits and starts and then the book is over with a kind of “huh...” feeling. Not one plot thread is resolved at all. I think of Locke Lamora and I think of Fitz and the Fool and I just remember how good a first in the series can be on its own while still leading into further adventures. Obviously, the story continues, but I feel cheated out of 500 pages of right now.

Still, I will probably continue this series for one reason: Bast. This is the character I want to know the most about and am told the least about. That last chapter is enough to keep the series on my to read shelf even if this first one grated in a few places. We'll see how it goes from here.