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Book Club - The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

edited October 2012 in GeekNights

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This is the riveting first-person narrative of Kvothe, a young man who grows to be one of the most notorious magicians his world has ever seen. From his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, to years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-riddled city, to his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, The Name of the Wind is a masterpiece that transports readers into the body and mind of a wizard.

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  • Incredible book. The only decent fantasy I've read other than Wheel of Time in the last ten years.
  • Awesome book of you love to girth you some Gandalf
    Incredible book. The only decent fantasy I've read other than Wheel of Time in the last ten years.
    This won't take long.
  • Oh I'm sure there will be butthurt. :-)

    I'm picky as fuck. DragonLance is pulp garbage and most stuff doesn't really rise above it in my opinion.

    OK I forgot about Elantris. Elantris was good. Don't care for Sanderson's other stuff, though, except the Gathering Storm, where he basically saved Jordan's endless meandering and made it back into a compelling narrative (except he writes Mat all wrong.)
  • Ah, I am very excited to hear this episode. Read both this and Wise Man's Fear around the start of the year, and now I'm stuck waiting for book three... may have to read it again for the sake of this! Rothfuss spun an excellent tale, and is pretty entertaining outside of his fiction as well - it's good to see authors of his caliber still popping up.
  • Kvothe is awesome. The Felurian arc annoys me a little because I think it's too heavy on the cheese, but everything else is fantastic. The 3rd book can't come fast enough.

    Kvothe is a classic, egotistical loudmouth charlatan... who can back it all up. He's an amazingly written and fleshed out character. In fact I don't think I can name a better written character anywhere in Fantasy (maybe not in any fiction genre).
  • The only decent fantasy I've read other than Wheel of Time in the last ten years.
    Prince. Of. Nothing.
  • 44 minutes. I am disappoint.
  • Good choice. Can't wait to *listen* to this book ;-)

    F U !!!
  • Loved the book but the main character is totally unreliable as he transcends the word wonderkinder to a level that is almost absurd. That said the world and supporting characters, save for his bullshit love intrest, are really well fleshed out and make me want to read more.
  • That's kind of the whole point of Kvothe, he's supposed to be ridiculous.

    I agree that Dena is boring and feels like baggage.
  • He just gets to ridicules and it makes it hard to have sympathy with him. I would rather he was just really smart and that was all but he masters everything in five minuets. That an being a musician, I am sick of being told that I would not understand something because I'm not a musician.
  • I think that's code for "the author is not a musician so he's bullshitting right now, just go with it" but I don't actually know whether Rothfuss is a musician or not.
  • He seems to know a lot about his craft and his blog is fascinating. Yet it just smacks of "Woh Im so smart, so strong, so skiled fuck me I'm basically a walking god!".
  • Well, one more excuse to finally read this book.
  • Prince of Nothing continues to be the best recent fantasy series I've read. I have to reach pretty far back into classics to name anything I found more engaging.
  • Prince of Nothing continues to be the best recent fantasy series I've read. I have to reach pretty far back into classics to name anything I found more engaging.
    I'm seriously thinking about buying the e-book today after the recommendations from here last night, but I read the synopsis and it sounds heavy on the politics and that usually turns me off in fantasy. I'll probably still give it a shot.
  • It's heavy on existential philosophy. More than one person has described it as proto "philosophy-punk"
  • Well, that could potentially be good... or it could cause flashbacks to having philosophy majors lecture me endlessly on how smart and objective they are... ::shudder::
  • Philosophy... majors... lecturing you on how... "objective"... they are?

    Does not compute...

    (Gots me a philosophy minor to go with it.)
  • Well maybe that's the wrong word, but the few philosophy majors I've had the misfortune to run afoul of seemed very full of how meta-and-therefore-correct they were. :-P
  • edited October 2012
    Philosophically it focuses more on epistemology. There's also lots of sci-fi and commentary on and analogies of the history of the real world.
    Post edited by Apreche on
  • And a relatively interesting story to carry it all, once you get past the wall of words you won't totally understand for... quite a while... even with the dictionary in the back.
  • Philosophically it focuses more on epistemology. There's also lots of sci-fi and commentary on and analogies of the history of the real world.
    Everything but the real world analogies sounds really interesting. :-P

    Definitely picking this up today. Possibly in the next 5 minutes.

  • edited October 2012
    Well maybe that's the wrong word, but the few philosophy majors I've had the misfortune to run afoul of seemed very full of how meta-and-therefore-correct they were. :-P
    Oh. This.



    Genuinely happened to me to a degree after Freshman year. Genuinely got beat the fuck out of me by senior year.
    Post edited by Anthony Heman on
  • Philosophically it focuses more on epistemology. There's also lots of sci-fi and commentary on and analogies of the history of the real world.
    Everything but the real world analogies sounds really interesting. :-P

    Definitely picking this up today. Possibly in the next 5 minutes.

    Most of the parallels with the crusades come in book 2.
  • How long did it take for a discussion on books to turn to prince of nothing.

    Also parallels? Its basically the 1st crusade in terms of how the army is made up. Hell a lot of the politics come from the the events leading up to the crusade, such as the emperor wanting the land they capture, the various battles. Still makes for good reading though.
  • OUCH. $13 for an e-book edition. I guess not.
  • OUCH. $13 for an e-book edition. I guess not.
    Yar!

    http://thepiratebay.se/search/prince of nothing/0/99/0
  • OUCH. $13 for an e-book edition. I guess not.
    Yar!

    http://thepiratebay.se/search/prince of nothing/0/99/0
    As a (granted, not yet successful) writer myself, I have serious moral reservations with that... :P

    I did download The Gathering Storm from TPB, but only because Harriet deliberately delayed the e-book release until a year after the hardcover. I still ended up guiltily buying the hardcover and sticking it on a shelf, never opened.
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