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Wise Man's Fear--Your Take?

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fireflyz:
Hey all,

  My friends haven't finished the book yet, but I finished it on wednesday so I'm dying to hear what others think.  I won't post any spoilers, but I'll briefly give my impression. 

  First off, his prose was beautiful, as always.  He really has a gift for that.  It was well written and intriguing.  Having said that, I expected there to be more progress made plot wise.  I like books that have strong characters and intriguing plots.  His first book set up a very intriguing and historical plot that had me hooked.  This one I'm conflicted about.  I enjoyed reading it, thought it was a very good book.  But there were so few sections that I felt advanced the actual plot and that lessened my enthusiasm somewhat.  I enjoyed the section where he does something (and Kvothe says this in the story) that puts him on the level of a true hero, rather than something was still amazing, but then the stories make it more than it was.  HIs romantic life is killing me as well, haha.  I don't have any complaints with that, Mr. Rothfuss is doing the appropriate amount of tugging on the heart strings.

  I feel like this book packed all the dynamite up and set the fuses.  I'm really hoping the third book actuallys lights the fuse and the plot picks up.  There's so much left to cover (IMO) that I'm wondering how it's going to be sewn up in one more volume.  I certainly wouldn't mind him taking the series to a fourth or fifth book.

  Anyway, that's my take.  Well written, beautiful prose with a story that moved slower than I was hoping for.  What do you all think?

Peter Ahlstrom:
I liked it. There were a lot of parts I really liked. I'm not sure I would agree with Brandon about the pacing—you know, it didn't build to any sort of climax or the like. But that's not really what Rothfuss's books are about, though the first book at least had a tacked-on climax in the draccus incident.

I continue to be very impressed at the subtlety of the storytelling. I read a thread on Westeros where they were talking about how Meluan Lackless's sister who ran away with the Ruh is probably Kvothe's mother, and I didn't catch that while reading. But I think it's probably the correct interpretation.

I'm not that impressed with the portrayal of casual sex, but I'm not surprised with it, coming from a writer who is very much a product of today's society. The Adem view of pregnancy is a nice touch (it's a view of several primitive societies in our own world). But the whole argument ignores several important facets. Which it's possible Pat intends to bring up later (judging by Denna's reaction to Kvothe's reputation at the end of the book), but I'm doubting it.

Overall I felt it advanced the plot and Kvothe's character enough for what this story is, comparing it to the first book. I've heard that Pat plans a second trilogy covering what happens after the Waystone Inn, and I'm wondering if that will be in third person or if Pat will find some other way to keep it in first person. I personally like the first person parts better, since the third person parts have a loose POV and I'm not fond of that.

fireflyz:
I agree that Meluan Lackless's sister is most likely Kvothe's mother.  I hadn't heard about the potential second trilogy.  I think that would make a lot of sense and you're right.  The first person POV is much tighter than the third POV parts.  I'm not sure how he would make that work, but he's got a few years to figure that out.

hubay:
What struck me when they were talking about Ms. Lackless was the secret door. The Cthaeh had a comment about how the secret to finding the amyr was close to Maen (or something along those lines, since it was being all delphic). and of course there's the box. I was amazed at how many loose threads are floating around, and I'm curious if Mr Rothfuss plans to tie them up or leave them ambiguous.

I would love to read a second trilogy, but I wonder what it would do to the tone. We understand that terrible things are going to happen in the third book; and the "silence of a man waiting to die" is pretty powerful. I'd be excited to see some sort of redemption for Kvothe at the Waystone, but at the same I fear a second set of books will damage the experience of the first.

As an aside, I only got the book yesterday. None of the local chain bookstores had it, which ticked me off, so I ended up going to an indie seller called Boswell (I live in milwaukee). For whatever reason all their books were autographed, so without even trying to, I got a signed book. Pretty excited about that.

chandran:
I thought the book was pretty amazing. Although, I really hadn't caught on to the thing about Kvothe's mother. Makes me wonder how much else I missed going through it the first time. Oh well, guess I'll just have to read over it again.
Possible spoiler here, you've been warned:
Although, I'm curious: What are peoples opinions about Cinder being where he was in the book? I didn't think the Chandrian mingled with humans. But then, we have so little information on them.

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