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The Kingkiller Chronicles

The Kingkiller Chronicles

by Patrick Rothfuss



         Welcome back to my book blog! I'll be giving my review over the book pictured above, Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear, the first two installments of Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles. I read these books in 2015, so it has been a few years, but I think that is the best way to tell what was unique and memorable about these two books. This story was a stepping stone for me, they were my first dive into fantasy novels that involved the fey, world-building and a completely different magic system than I've ever come across before. 

A few words I would use to describe this story are: fantasy, science-fiction, thought provoking and thorough. The way Rothfuss set up this story was each 1000 page book contains a single day of the main characters life. It's told through the first person perspective of Kvothe, our hero of sorts, and Rothfuss expertly builds the world around his experiences, creating many different subcultures within Kvothe's society and time. Kvothe's story is one of a self-made hero born of tragedy. He is smart and has a natural curiosity towards the magic that exists in this world.

This story has one of the most interesting magic systems I've ever come across. Magic can be taught to anyone and involves splitting your thoughts either between two or three ways. Rothfuss keeps us close inside of Kvothe's thoughts and it was one of the closest and most thrilling second-hand use of magic I have ever experienced. Another big fantasy theme in this story was the importance of names (hence the title The Name of the Wind). A character could not command an element unless they knew its name, and Rothfuss never gave an example of one of these names, which I thought was very interesting and added to the mystery of the magic and the story itself. 

Another element of this story I want to mention is the romance and music in this story. Kvothe came from musically inclined culture, and Rothfuss describe the way Kvothe played and sang like music itself. The description was heard with the eyes and sounded beautiful in the way only old wooden instruments can. I cannot describe how much I loved that side of the main character. Music is how Kvothe meets the love interest of this story, who is a women that adds so much to the story by being strong and mysterious.

Another of my favorite elements came from one of the subcultures in this world. These people were great warriors and fighters, but were also very spiritual and honest. They used spoken word and sign language to communicate so their meaning was perfectly clear. How Rothfuss created this culture and way of communicating speaks to his creativity as a writer and it's another element of this story that has stuck with me throughout the years.   

One part of this story that I found unsatisfying and slightly pointless was Kvothe's interaction with the Fey creatures. Kvothe interacts briefly with two Fey characters throughout the two books, but for me it felt forced and did not add much to the plot, but it could all come together in the last book. 

There is one last book to come to bring this story to a close. However, it has been a long time coming and I worry it might never be finished. The Name of the Wind was first released in 2007, The Wise Man's Fear was released in 2011, and the finale, The Door of Stone, has yet to be released. It was supposed to be finished in 2017, but Rothfuss has made several comments on social media that he will released it when it is done. I worry the author might have backed himself into a corner of sorts, leaving so many questions unanswered in the first two books, as in why it's called The Kingkiller Chronicles, we did not meet any kings in the first two books. I am excited to see how Kvothe's story ends. 

I obviously truly enjoy reading the first two installments of this series and am waiting not-so-patiently for the big finale to this series! 

:)

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