Books I Like #5

DAW Books, New York, 2014

Patrick Rothfuss has been working on the Kingkiller Chronicles for long enough that it’s almost reasonable to call it his life’s work. The first two books in the series, The Name of the Wind (2008) and The Wise Man’s Fear(2011) are as good as epic fantasy gets: character-driven (and what characters!), in a vividly realized world. It’s the story of a brilliant, romantic boy who has lost everything and then found purpose in life again, framed with an older version of the character, who is in hiding, having caused a slow-rolling, ongoing disaster from which he cannot entirely escape. We have no idea what that disaster is, because Rothfuss saved that reveal for the third and final book, which he’s still working on.

Rothfuss is a hugely talented writer, and apparently meticulous in his process. I feel quite confident that when we do finally get that ending, those of us who are eagerly awaiting it 8 years later are going to be blown away, because everything he’s written has done this already.

So, in the midst of our wait for that third book, to be called The Doors of Stone, Rothfuss has written a couple of interim pieces set in his world, which is called “The Four Corners”. There’s a short story about a supporting character in the later time frame, and TSROST, which focuses on Auri, a character known to Kvothe, his first-person narrator in the two previous books, from his time at The University.

Auri’s a former student at the University, who studied alchemy, and whom magic has broken in some way that we still don’t (and probably will never) know. She’s the only character in the book, though it’s the nature of Auri that she would disagree with that statement, and that’s at the heart of this story.

I’ll go no farther in describing it than to say that some hate TSROST because they think it has no plot. I disagree, though the throughline here is extremely subtle. It’s my favorite of his books. I think the writing is luminous.