The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicle Day One and The Wise Man’s Fear: The Kingkiller Chronicle Day Two, both by Patrick Rothfuss

Normally I wouldn’t have chosen to read this book, but a good friend, whose reading taste overlaps with my own to a large enough degree, highly recommended it and, in fact, urged me to read it. She’d never urged me to read anything. Plus I only get to see her a couple times a year since she moved to the other side of the country several years ago. So all that combined, I thought why the heck not and downloaded it onto my Kindle. That was over a year ago, but since I had a backlog of reading, I never got around to it until my last vacation. I finished Arthur a couple days into the vacation, so I thought, why not.

So, my niece is the cutest toddler. Ever. Relevance? you ask? I’ll get to that, but back to my niece. I mean, she’s CUTE. And I have 2 daughters of my own. She lives on the opposite coast from me, so I don’t get to see her much. Thank goodness for iPhone4Ses that can magically send me videos of her singing the alphabet while spinning until she falls from dizziness. Ok, ok, relevance. We were on vacation with my sister and her family, including said adorable niece. And once I started reading Day One, I ignored her. I was absorbed. Sucked in. My niece was confused. Hurt. Not really. Her attention span is really really short. I finished Day One in 2 days. At some point I realized this was the first in a series (yes, “Day One” in the title should have tipped me off). I went online to amazon, downloaded Day Two, and I was off!

Day Two was…not as good. Parts of it dragged. The worst draggy part had to do with the main character’s extended stay with a faery, which in this world is a siren crossed with a nympho, and it made me think that Patrick Rothfuss is perhaps a slightly sad (albeit talented) geek who fantasizes about having sex with fantasy characters. It reminded me of this guy I knew in law school who had a SERIOUS crush on Ariel, as in The Little Mermaid, the Disney cartoon. But it was still mostly a page-turner, and I finished it in a couple days as well. So I went back to amazon, and…I’m going to kill my ex-friend. It turns out Day Three isn’t out yet. One was published in 2007. Two, in 2011. Three might not be out until 20-fucking-15. The momentum will be lost.

Should I actually say something about the books (other than the faery-sexcapade)? The characters are compelling. Kote is an innkeeper, a hardworking, tired, small business owner. He’s a newcomer in a small community of hardwoking, tired farmers who come to his inn at the end of the day to drink and tell stories. The world is becoming dangerous. There are tales of demons attacking travelers. Kote knows more than he tells. Kote is more than he tells. But he wants to be an innkeeper and nothing more. Fortunately Chronicler stops by, having heard a rumor that the great hero Kvothe may be laying low, as an innkeeper.

Most of Days One and Two is flashback of Kote/Kvothe’s story from his carefree days with his parents’ troubadour band to his days at the University where he mastered the science of magic faster than any other student and Imre where he earned his pipes. He’s definitely a Renaissance man – educated and well-read, a musical genius, an impressive fighter, a lover (at least with faeries), and even a poet (but only when strictly necessary). The mystery is why he is now an innkeeper trying to blend in to the background. Luckily he still has enough of an ego to want to set the record straight for Chronicler. Meanwhile, the roads are getting more dangerous….

Someone tell me when Day Three comes out.