‘The Wise Man’ ought to fear the pitfalls of the sequel

Recently, I finished the second novel in Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles, The Wise Man’s Fear. It was… a journey.

I mean that in both the positive and negative senses. Having written a review of the first book in the series, The Name of the Wind, (which you can read here) I decided to have a crack at the second book, mostly out of curiosity but also motivated by a desire to know if it was really worth waiting around for the long-prophesied third novel in the series. Details on that can be found at the bottom of this article.

My fundamental impression of The Wise Man’s Fear is that it is basically The Name of the Wind but more so. I like Rothfuss’s approach to magic, to worldbuilding and to story structure. These are all elements that get fleshed out a good deal more in the second novel. I also enjoy the characters, and I think Rothfuss does a great job, in the second novel, of bringing to the fore and really enlivening some of my favorite characters from the first book: Simmon, Wilam, and Master Elodin. All in all, I would say this is the strong suit of the second novel over the first. Some of the characters, in my opinion, are very flat (Fela comes to mind), but others very believable and human. It isn’t just the older characters that Rothfuss invests more description and attention into, he also provides a small cast of new characters that I found similarly intriguing: the Maer of Severin and Stapes, his manservant, come to mind. Add to them Tempi, the Adem mercenary. That’s not to say the character work is uniformly good. After two books, I can’t make up my mind whether Denna is well-written or far too flighty and confusing.

I also thought that the second book shined light on Rothfuss’s ability to build fictional cultures with believably complex rules and behaviors. Most notably, the first few chapters set in Vintas and in Ademre were notable for their very detailed examinations of courtly behavior in the former and general life in the latter.

At this point, however, I start to express negative sentiments. I found many of the plot threads in The Wise Man’s Fear unnecessarily long and discursive. (Obviously, spoilers). The episode in the Fae and most of the long sections of dialogue with Felurian were, in my opinion, mostly unnecessary. The entire episode could have been cut drastically shorter, leaving enough room for the important plot-advancing elements (like the encounter with the you-know-who and receiving the Shade). Similarly, the diversion into Ademre lasts far too long. I think that Rothfuss takes as part of his writing philosophy that if you want to communicate the fact that a character is spending a long time in a place, the prose should reflect that in word count. I disagree. I’m not saying that any of these episodes should have been cut entirely, but paired down.

I think the abundance of discursive episodes that drag on far too long is part of the reason why this 900-some-odd page monster of a book should have been carved into a few smaller works. Obviously, that doesn’t work with the framing device of Kvothe telling the story to Chronicler. But let’s be honest, there is no physical way Kvothe could have told Chronicler everything in this book in a single day.

Additionally, I found that The Name of the Wind struck a good balance in how it approached, shall we say, mature topics. I don’t like my books bogged down in smut, but winks, nods and innuendo are basically expected. That being said, The Wise Man’s Fear seems, for a good stretch at least, a little too preoccupied with sex. To be sure, I’m not accusing Rothfuss of being a pornographer, none of the descriptions are very lurid. However, there is a solid stretch of the latter half of the book that is almost entirely devoted to sexual adventurism in the Fae, followed closely by Kvothe’s experiences in Ademre which, apparently, is some sort of medieval free love colony. I found it a bit off-putting, frankly, but obviously, your mileage may vary.

This isn’t an exhaustive review, mainly because I wanted to stay mostly spoiler-free, but I think it highlights some of the biggest strengths and weaknesses of the novel. On the one hand, the prose is descriptive and clever as per usual, there are plenty of engaging characters to get attached to, the protagonist is witty and sympathetic, and the worldbuilding is good. That being said, Rothfuss has a problem with writing novels that are cumbersome and, in some sense, not all that cohesive. Additionally, his approach to certain topics is a bit overdone.

Is it worth reading The Wise Man’s Fear, given that the last book, Doors of Stone, has no definite release date yet? My honest opinion is that, if you liked The Name of the Wind, you will like The Wise Man’s Fear. It is mostly similar, caveats made, of course. If you didn’t care for the first book, or if you haven’t started on the series yet, I would hold off on reading it. It’s an extreme time-sink, and if the third book doesn’t deliver a satisfying ending, you are out over a thousand pages of reading time. For fantasy nerds like myself who love plowing through 1000-page epics, it’s hard to complain too much about what Rothfuss has on offer.

As a footnote, I would add that if you prefer the audiobook to the print, Audible has an excellent version of both novels performed by Nick Podehl and produced by Brilliance. Podehl has a great reading voice and does an excellent job with accents, inflection and dialect. I can’t recommend it enough.