I finally, finally got my hands on a copy of The Wise Man's Fear! I didn't want to buy it because it's always at least twice as expensive in hardcover than in paperback and since my friend had bought it anyway and agreed to lend it to me once he was finished, I didn't see the point in buying my own hardcover edition. However, I didn't factor in that I apparently read faster than most people, so it took a few months to trickle down the line.
That said, in my previous post on The Name of the Wind, I wrote that I was very impressed by Rothfuss' narration and execution of the story, but less so his treatment of secondary characters and his 2x4 foreshadowing. The Wise Man's Fear is definitely an improvement on both of these points; I actually remember secondary characters now instead of them all blurring together in my head. There are actual identifying features of all the minor characters, to some extent, and now they stick out in my mind more. The foreshadowing in some areas is still very 2x4 though - especially the parts prior to him going to Ademre when Tempi is teaching him the basics of the Lethani and the Ketan. Kvothe references almost all the time lines such as "I didn't know this at the time, but Tempi wasn't supposed to do this." Way to tell us, about a gazillion times, that the next arc of the book is to go to Ademre.
However, unlike The Name of the Wind, I really started to have an actual emotional response to Kvothe, particularly when Rothfuss poignantly shows the difference between the Kvothe in his memoir and present-day Kvothe. We actually begin to feel sorry for present-day Kvothe.
A friend who had read this book before I did told me "It's a good book. But it suffers from middle-book syndrome; nothing happens." In a way, that's true - while Kvothe leaves the University for the first time and strikes it out to have adventures in the Vint and in Ademre, in terms of actual plot (learning about the Chandrian and the Amyr), not that much happens. However, when reading the book, you don't notice that - Rothfuss is an amazing world-builder and there are enough subplots that we don't really notice that the actual plot hasn't made that much progress throughout the book. I especially liked the touch about how the Edema Ruh are seen by others; it adds a remark about how we treat others such as the Roma in our own world.
Overall, The Wise Man's Fear is a strong sequel to The Name of the Wind, and I would really recommend it. However, I think Rothfuss will have a ridiculously difficult time wrapping up the full plot (from Kvothe's story to present-day, and the present-day plot against the return of evil things in the outside world) in the next book - at the end of The Wise Man's Fear, Kvothe is still only about 17 or 18 years old.
That said, in my previous post on The Name of the Wind, I wrote that I was very impressed by Rothfuss' narration and execution of the story, but less so his treatment of secondary characters and his 2x4 foreshadowing. The Wise Man's Fear is definitely an improvement on both of these points; I actually remember secondary characters now instead of them all blurring together in my head. There are actual identifying features of all the minor characters, to some extent, and now they stick out in my mind more. The foreshadowing in some areas is still very 2x4 though - especially the parts prior to him going to Ademre when Tempi is teaching him the basics of the Lethani and the Ketan. Kvothe references almost all the time lines such as "I didn't know this at the time, but Tempi wasn't supposed to do this." Way to tell us, about a gazillion times, that the next arc of the book is to go to Ademre.
However, unlike The Name of the Wind, I really started to have an actual emotional response to Kvothe, particularly when Rothfuss poignantly shows the difference between the Kvothe in his memoir and present-day Kvothe. We actually begin to feel sorry for present-day Kvothe.
A friend who had read this book before I did told me "It's a good book. But it suffers from middle-book syndrome; nothing happens." In a way, that's true - while Kvothe leaves the University for the first time and strikes it out to have adventures in the Vint and in Ademre, in terms of actual plot (learning about the Chandrian and the Amyr), not that much happens. However, when reading the book, you don't notice that - Rothfuss is an amazing world-builder and there are enough subplots that we don't really notice that the actual plot hasn't made that much progress throughout the book. I especially liked the touch about how the Edema Ruh are seen by others; it adds a remark about how we treat others such as the Roma in our own world.
Overall, The Wise Man's Fear is a strong sequel to The Name of the Wind, and I would really recommend it. However, I think Rothfuss will have a ridiculously difficult time wrapping up the full plot (from Kvothe's story to present-day, and the present-day plot against the return of evil things in the outside world) in the next book - at the end of The Wise Man's Fear, Kvothe is still only about 17 or 18 years old.
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