Fearfully and Wonderfully Wrought

Reprint: 9 May 2013 at 2:41 am

The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Rothfuss is incredible. He is a rare good author in a period dedicated to shlock, yet seemingly genuinely self deprecating and humble about his work. "A Wise Man's Fear" is a sophomore novel and you might expect certain predictably disappointing shortfalls in such. From the terse yet poignantly humorous dedications to the bookend afterward, you should be pleasingly surprised. The secondary story, told in intercallary vignettes is easily as compelling as the greater epic told in Kwothe's colorful narratives.
Rothfuss apologizes for the time taken to write this second volume in what promises to be as rich and grand as Jordan and as literary as Steinbeck. But he needn't have. The time taken shows in the quality of the writing and the obvious measures taken to overcome the Sophomore Slump. One can only hope that Rothfuss has produced a "schema" such that others may follow his example. In writing he has proven to be as painstakingly efficient and creative as any Artificer in the "Fishery". "The Wise Man's Fear is a solid continuation of "The Name of the
Wind."
My only real complaint was, where the name of the wind was very nearly a character in the book of that name, a wise man's fear is part of a thread that is nearly tangential, and only mentioned once. Though I suspect a good deal of the unresolved bits in this book relate to it and are really foreshadowing, he doesn't connect them to the fear in any direct way. That doesn't detract from the substance of the book in any way, but it stood out as an oversight because of the precision with which "A Wise Man's Fear" is constructed.
It's a good read, go ye forth and act accordingly.