Signor Finzione

Then you must read them right now.

Yeah, I first heard that mentioned years ago and am still waiting for it. Should be really good, especially if it has the same sort of artwork as that shown on the website. Initial reaction: Nooooo, not SF! On closer inspection: Actually, I may enjoy reading this . . .

Meanie! That's generally what I do. If I have money I'll buy one or two from Waterstones, and the rest from Amazon. I probably use Ebay in the same way you use BD.

I'm glad you enjoyed it, even if you didn't find it as enjoyable as the others. I remember it had a 'bigger' feel to it when the events turn out to be more 'epic' than they first seem, and I also seem to remember a couple of revelations at the end caught me pleasantly off-guard. I've said this before, but for me Glokta and Ninefingers are two of the best literary creations I've ever read. Best Served Cold is my favourite Abercrombie ever, though.

I suppose . . . *sigh* Do you know how many others they've got planned, aside from Kharkanas and Toblakai? I'd love it if they (well, mainly Erikson) just carried on writing Malazan forever and ever.

Well I suppose that makes the price more reasonable, then . I'll have to decide if the price is worth it judging on how much I enjoy my re-reads! Or, I could just save myself a lot of money in the future and move house near to where you live. I only found out about it relatively recently - from a friend who actually referred to it as 'Book Suppository', which isn't good - and I haven't used it yet. A lot of the books I've looked at on there seem to be a similar price to Amazon, though. Do you use it a lot?

Knowing Athena it's probably more a matter of minutes/hours.

It's interesting as well that they're re-making the original Fable. It's like game people are realising that things were better 'back in our day'.

I've never heard of it. Do tell! Devi, after our games discussion the other week I dug out my PS1 and had a go on the old Baldur's Gate. I'd forgotten just how brilliantly cheesy it is.

Nice book haul, Gaia! Glad you had a productive birthday.

Hi Wayne, welcome to the forum! I've just finished Brent Weeks' Night Angel trilogy and am looking forward to starting the Lightbringer series next year.

I'm really looking forward to re-reading the Black Company books I've already read (the first three, I think) - I remember liking One-Eye and Goblin too. I'd like to read more in the series, but they always seem really over-priced on Amazon. Where do you buy yours from?

As far as I know it's definitely a trilogy. Book #3 - The Doors of Stone, I think - should be out next year. I think a good idea for the books would have been for him to leave out the non-essential bits - such as his time with the Adem and the lonnnnng weeks spent with Felurian - and maybe published them separately as a series of novellas entitled Kvothe: The Lost Pages, or some such.

I'd still definitely recommend The Name of the Wind. I thought it was brilliant - even though not much actually happens, there's just something very readable and entertaining about the prose. Obviously you'd then make up your own mind about The Wise Man's Fear based on whether you enjoyed the first one or not.

Not at all, Tim, you're a closed book. I think I was kind of expecting the story to be almost up to date by the end of the second book, and that the third book would be mostly about events catching up with him in the present day. Hopefully that will actually happen by the end of the next book . . . Did you hear that Fox bought the rights to a TV series? There's an article here about fantasy casting for The Name of the Wind - I actually agree with a lot of them except Kvothe himself. I know, right?

What a coincidence! Same for me really, although Blood Promise by Brian McClellan also had some detective-type elements to it and I really enjoyed it. The title was part of what pulled me in. I must say I was a bit disappointed. The Name of the Wind is the best book I've read this year, and even though it had some slow bits I thought it was just setting up the story for the exciting stuff to happen. The fact that we're STILL waiting for most of the exciting stuff to happen at the end of the second book isn't very encouraging . . . Still, I did like it, but mainly for the other characters (Elodin, Denna and Bast, mainly). Kvothe had started to do my head in by the end. Strangely enough, from what I've seen most people seem to think the first book is boring but the second one is brilliant, so I guess each to their own . . .

The reading plan is going on hold for a week or two. I've been sent a review copy of She Who Waits (Low Town #3) by Daniel Polansky, which means that I'm now going to try and charge through the first two in the series (The Straight Razor Cure and Tomorrow the Killing) before getting around to this one. Thankfully, each book is less than half the length of the Rothfuss novel I've just ploughed through, so I'm hoping that they'll be a breath of fresh air that won't take me too long to read!

Review: 'The Wise Man's Fear' by Patrick Rothfuss My name is Kvothe. You may have heard of me. The man was lost. The myth remained. Kvothe – the dragon-slayer, the renowned swordsman, the most feared, famed and notorious wizard the world has ever seen – vanished without warning and without trace. And even now, when he has been found, when darkness is rising in the corner of the world, he will not return. But his story lives on and, for the first time, Kvothe is going to tell it . . . The Wise Man’s Fear is the second instalment of The Kingkiller Chronicles, a fantasy trilogy centred on the ‘autobiographical’ tale of the protagonist, Kvothe. It picks up where The Name of the Wind left off, continuing Kvothe’s tale without much preamble, and cleverly reminds us of key events and important information as it goes along, rather than simply dumping it all at the start. The format of the story follows the same pattern as the previous novel: Kvothe narrates the chronological events of his younger years, and the tale is occasionally interrupted by interludes focusing on the present day. Kvothe is one of the Edema Ruh, renowned travelling performers and famed for their storytelling skills; however, the narrative is somewhat stale and rambling when compared with the previous novel, perhaps because it covers a much shorter period of his life and strings it out over a thousand pages. Roughly half the novel is an account of Kvothe’s continued shenanigans at the university: most of these are highly amusing, though others seemed tediously similar to those in the previous book. It’s clear that the author is playing with the concept of the unreliable narrator, and Kvothe is doubly unreliable: he’s narrating his story for an audience, and it is also being set down for posterity. As such it becomes something of a fun game for the reader to question some of his assertions: for example, he claims to have learned an entire language in a day in order to successfully be acquitted at a public trial; however, he deliberately skips over this part of his story, refusing to supply details of the trial because his readers will find it boring. He later proceeds to give a long and detailed account of his time in the Fae with Felurian, during which he spends several dull chapters doing a whole lot of nothing. Kvothe’s egotistic determination to focus on the parts that he finds most interesting is no doubt a deliberate part of the author’s message about the misleading nature of stories, and the dangers of becoming a legend in your own lifetime; unfortunately, this also makes the novel significantly less compelling than its predecessor. The Wise Man’s Fear isn’t without its strong points, though. One of Rothfuss’ biggest strengths is the ease with which he creates characters that are not only likeable, but also complex and memorable. The Name of the Wind was almost solely focused on Kvothe; it was introspective and very much self-indulgent. In The Wise Man’s Fear, there is still plenty of this trademark self-indulgence to be found (Kvothe’s ego is not something to be easily pushed aside) but there is also a much wider awareness of the world and its inhabitants. The reader is given a distinct impression of each character no matter how infrequently that character appears in the story. We have Kilvin, the gruff yet somehow fatherly Master Artificer; Tempi, the quiet but deadly Adem mercenary; Denna, the flirtatious yet insecure con-artist-turned-musician; Bast, Kvothe’s loveable apprentice with a dark secret; Auri, the frail and flighty girl who lives beneath the university; and lots more. Kvothe’s mentor, the enigmatic Master Elodin, has a relatively small amount of page space devoted to him, yet he is undoubtedly many readers’ favourite character, myself included. He is one of the nine Masters of the university and is more powerful in the magic of naming than most men alive; he is mischievous, brilliant, and ever-so-slightly insane; he walks on roofs, engages in petty crimes against other Masters who have offended him, and encourages his students to stand naked in thunderstorms. My point is, it’s characters such as Elodin that make this story dance off the page, and I think this, along with the beautifully poetic narrative voice, is definitely one of the stronger aspects of The Wise Man’s Fear. Though some of the setting and events feel a little stale, and despite the fact that the plot is occasionally lacking, well, plot, The Wise Man’s Fear is an entertaining and passionate novel, and I would recommend it to those who thoroughly enjoyed The Name of the Wind. My rating: 4/5

Of course.

This one should (hopefully) be interesting, since the Assail (both the race and the continent) are still somewhat of a mystery. Still, I doubt I'll have read ICE's other books by this release date, so will likely be waiting for the paperback. Same goes for the Erikson - I don't intend to read Forge of Darkness until my big Malazan re-read, so there'd be little point in me buying this one until then. That doesn't mean I'm not excited, though. Side note: do you think ICE should have been allowed to write the other books, or do you think they should all have been handled by Erikson?

Hi Selina, nice to meet you! I went to Wiltshire on an archaeology week once - it seemed a very nice place indeed.

Lovely to meet you Andi. Welcome to the forum! My favourite Dickens novels are Our Mutual Friend and Bleak House - how about yours?

Hi Kelly - welcome! I'm 25 too. If it's hard to say what type of books you like reading generally . . . how about the best books you've read this year?

I just had a little look at Desolation Island. I love that it has a diagram of a ship at the beginning - that must help a lot.

Nice review. Would I really not like these books if I didn't like the film?