A decent writer? Try amazing . . .

A.E. Sacco, an avid reader, 04/16/2007

Over-rated

O.M.G.!!!! I believed the hype and picked this book up and it was the worst piece of crap I have read in a long time. 'Boring' does not do justice to how slow and uneventful this novel is. I sped-read most of it to see if the character would get the hell out of the 'university' and fight some monsters 'yeh, he eventually fights a dragon...yawn....'. Instead, the poor reader is subjected to the most minute happennings. I will admit the author is a decent writer, and has a great story on his hands....but PLEASE! Over 600 pages of mostly 'nothing'....I'm sorry...if this is 'the best fantasy novel of the past ten years', then I'll read other genres.

I found the above review of Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind on Barnes and Noble. I must admit that my first response was a scathing rebuttal of the blather spouted above, but then I stopped to think . . . while I completely disagree with the reviewer's assessment of the novel, as should be obvious if you read my previous post, I can remember a time when all I wanted out of a fantasy novel was for the main character to "fight some monsters." That was what drew me to R.A. Salvatore's novels, which I mentioned in an earlier post. But my tastes have evolved since junior high. The Name of the Wind is a character driven story, not a plot driven story. That's not to say that the plot is in any way lacking because it's not, but meeting Kvothe and coming to know him is what propels the story forward--it is first person narrative after all.

So instead of the scathing response I was planning I'll simply acknowledge that this book will not appeal to everyone. For people who want monsters and action filling every other page, you'd better grab a different book. But for those who want to truly know the characters who fill the pages of the books they read, you're not going to find a better novel than this one.