And here I thought The Name of the Wind was a long book.

For the most part, everything that I wrote in still holds true here. The worldbuilding is really cool (sygaldry in particular) and the writing itself just keeps pulling you along. I always wanted to know more.

On the other hand, The Wise Man’s Fear is even worse about feeling like Rothfuss basically wrote several novels and basically stuck them together. You have Kvothe at the University, Kvothe and the Maer, Kvothe Hunts Bandits, Kvothe and the Fae, and Kvothe with the Adem. Each would have been a solid book by itself, and each actually has something of a traditional plot to it (with more solid conclusions than book as a whole had). But put them together and it just starts to feel like something of a slog.

I still don’t overly care for Kvothe as a character. He’s just too good at absolutely everything to be overly believable while at the same time being remarkably stupid a good part of the time. Each time he does something like that, I have to remind myself that he’s only supposed to be a teenager and that actually makes sense… Which would be better if he acted like it the rest of the time. For a while there, I was hopeful that Dn would realize she could do so much better… Alas.

So it goes.

I still enjoyed it and I’m still glad I read it. I’ve already started The Slow Regard of Silent Things and I’ll certainly read Kingkiller #3 whenever it comes out.