Review: The Name of the Wind



The Name of the Wind
By Patrick Rothfuss

Patrick Rothfuss is a genius.  Okay, maybe a mad genius (I don't actually know the man personally, but I laugh out loud at his blogs), because anyone who can create such brilliant (as in glowing beacons of personality) characters in a world so well-drawn I didn't once raise an eyebrow and go "huh?" is a truly gifted storyteller of the most unexpected variety.

Most of the high fantasy I've read was in college, usually during dead week and finals, and generally six-book series that sucked me in, wrung me out, and tossed me back to the real world to wander around on shaky legs until I remembered who I was.  But that was college where everything is surreal and in technicolor, and those were authors like Orson Scott Card, Stephen Donaldson, Frank Herbert and Piers Anthony.

And then along comes Patrick Rothfuss.  And just like those friends you make when you think you've made all the best friends you'll ever need, I was a little shocked to have found a new favorite author and a new favorite book.  Kvothe, the storyteller-within-the-story, has such a compelling voice that I sometimes forget I'm not curled up by the fire in his Inn listening to him speak.  And the tales he tells bring me so completely on his journeys with him that feeding kids, dog, and chickens are tasks that have to be written on the post-its I use to keep my place in the book.

The Name of the Wind is not just the beginning.  It is a book that I look forward to re-reading with each installment of the trilogy that emerges from the wonder that is the brain, imagination and artist that is Patrick Rothfuss.  

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