Book 29 and 30 - The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rossfuss

An old innkeeper recants his youthful tales of daring do to a chronicler.

I'm not a fantasy guy. Except for all those pictures of half naked elves I collect for completely innocent purposes, I do not really enjoy the fantasy genre, I don't really know why either! But my friend, lets call him Simon (because that's his name) does. Friggin loves fantasy he does. All them books about magic elves saving the city of Bla'dork from dastards. Can't get enough of them. So a month or two ago I think, hey, maybe I just havn't read anything good. I'll ask him. Simon suggests this beast of a series to me, and trusty kindle in hand, I began reading.

I love and hate this series with every fiber of my being in equal amounts.On one hand, we have ultimate badass Kvothe doing all kinds of cool shit, the magic system is awesome, the world is super cool (kinda) and every now an then we have a cool wizards duel or some shit. Its killer stuff. However on the other hand I'd say at least 40% of the book is entirely dedicated to ATM recipts of Kvothe's increasingly bipolar purse. The second book has a million pages dedicated to Kvothe having a sexventure with a being of pure lust, during which the only impact so far has been "Kvothe met a scary tree" and "Kvothe got a new cloak". Maybe the third book will make that 100 pages of awkward sexual metaphors worth it. It fucking better Rossfuss, It fucking better.

The main problem with the book, is that it feels like, for all it's fantastically exciting set pieces, when you look at it, nothing happens. I don't mean that literally obviously. But take an example from a scene near the end of the first book, Kvothe visits a nearby town, uncovers a massive drug production facility and finds a Dragon. With these two items he could make a lot of money. Also he's in the town looking for hints as to the evil men that killed his father. After a massive, very exciting and griping adventure, Kvothe comes away from the town with nothing. He doesn't find out anything (other than the badmen who killed his father and mother also kill other people!) and he doesn't get any of the drugs or dragon skeleton or anything. And we get to hear about his empty wallet again and again and again.


I do love the series and I'll be buying the next book when its released sometime in Space Year 2121, and I'd hate for this to be entirely negative so I will say that this is the first book in a while that grabbed me so much I would read hundreds of pages in one sitting. I very thoroughly enjoyed it but I guess I just wish something MORE would happen. I've read 1500 pages of the story so far and Kvothe is still in magic school.

This turned into more of a rant than a review and to Patrick Rossfuss, I'm sorry, the books are really good man, I enjoyed them, but when you really like something, it makes those little problems stand out a lot more.

I still recommend it highly, pick up a copy of the first book and give it a whirl, it's really fun reading. On the back of it I'm actually picking up some other fantasy novels so, thanks for that Patrick.

Read it

P.S.
I have a theory that the series takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where civilization has just recovered. C/D Patrick, C/D?

PPS finish the last book soon please please please