REVIEW: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

I just finished The Name of the Wind about three minutes ago, just three hours shy of the end of my twelve-hour shift at work ... and now I am wondering how I will make it to 7:30 without dying of boredom and without starting The Wise Man's Fear.

The Name of the Wind tells the story of Kvothe, who we learn has become one of the most infamous arcanists the world has seen in recent times. Set in a world rich with history, most of which has been lost to legend, myth and hearsay, Kvothe, now in hiding, retells his story from his childhood as a traveling performer to his teenage years as one of the brightest at the University.

While this book is a monster to carry around, it was deceptively short, especially in comparison to the Earth's Children novels. I'm not sure whether this was because of the faster pace and higher level of conflict, or whether I just had more time and read it faster. Nevertheless, The Name of the Wind was incredibly engaging and one I couldn't put down. I have in fact been reading it without break since 7am this morning - simultaneously neglecting my duties at work.

From the onset, the archetype of the bright yet disadvantaged boy that is the protagonist Kvothe really appealed to me. While I also appreciated his many flaws which balance out his incredible talents, at times his decisions were a little hard to reconcile. There are time in any story where as the reader we think, "No, don't do that!" but there were several times during TNotW where I could not see the reasoning behind Kvothe's decisions, such as suddenly leaving to investigate the slaughter in Trebon, pawning all his possessions to do so. A very minor criticism I guess, but one that also highlights how well I thought of the novel.

The history and magic system were quite interesting and introduced in an organic way which I really appreciated, and bore some resemblance to that of The Way of Kings, although described much less in depth. I was still a little confused about the principles of bindings by the end of the book as I felt the concise explanation given at the very beginning didn't stick with me.

TNotW was one of those stories that are set in a fantasy world but that concern themselves essentially with humanity and the very relate-able, human problems they face. I have to say I am a fan of these ... much like Llian and Karan from Ian Irvine's The View from the Mirror series, the protagonist is constantly down-trodden and struggling under the weight of responsibility, poverty, bad hygiene and a supernatural beast that wants to kill them. They are obviously extraordinarily gifted, but this comes at a high price.

I appreciated how the story remained mysterious about certain plot elements without becoming frustrating - the nature and history of Bast and his relationship to Kvothe for instance, I felt content to wait to discover. Foreshadowing was handled with subtlety and care and was predominantly dealt by the structure of the narrative, essentially a story within a story; the circumstances of the present day Kvothe retelling his life's story hint at what is yet to be told.

All in all a very satisfying read and one of the best books I've read this year. The one thing holding is back from making my favourites list is that is was not quite as gripping/exciting as some other series,  although I think this may be remedied in the sequels as the story heats up!

REVIEW: The Shelters of Stone by Jean M. Auel

This novel, the fifth in the Earth's Children series, was a definite step-up from its two predecessors in my opinion. Auel spent the majority of the last novel, The Plains of Passage, describing foliage at length and throwing gratuitous sex scenes at the reader faster than a death eater throwing jinxes. I found The Shelters of Stone was more similar to The Clan of the Cave Bear in that through Ayla, the reader is able to discover and explore a entirely different race of people and their way of life. Although not as interesting at the Clan, the Zelandonii had to be an improvement on the grass and sex.

One part that made this book more enjoyable was the coming together of events that had been set-up and foreshadowed since book two. We have been hearing about Jondalar's family and people, his planned mating to Ayla and their potential negative response to her Clan heritage for some time and it all comes to fruition in this book. It was these elements that saved The Shelters of Stone from the lack of any kind of antagonist or conflict as with most of her books. Of course there were some members of the Zelandonii community that created problems for Ayla and Jondalar, but these were quite superficial and were set up in such a way that they seemed forced and obvious.

The first two thirds were a slow read for me, simply due to being busy, but I read the last third in two days, mostly because of my anally retentive nature. I went home to Tasmania this morning and didn't want to lug the book over just to read the last 50 pages, especially because I also took The Name of the Wind AKA the biggest book I own.

After spending the better part of this year reading the Earth's Children series, I am now anticipating the end. It's not that I didn't enjoy them, but they didn't have the same intensity as other fantasy novels I've read, such as those by Ian Irvine, Brandon Sanderson and Brent Weeks. I'll probably read a few others before The Land of Painted Caves because I have to wait until the paperback comes out before I'll buy it. Curse you hardbacks!

I've managed to cut down on the book buying in the last two weeks, but it took some effort. My partner even refused to stop at a Dirt Cheap Books we drove past, even though I was screaming at him to pull over. I tried to complain to my friends but they sided with him.

NEW BOOKS: New Purchases

So I ended up back at AllBooks4Less (where everything is $5) and after scouring the entire store I found some goodies!

• The Thief-Taker's Apprentice by Stephen Deas (did not even know this was out)
• The Terminator Gene by Ian Irvine (didn't really enjoy The Last Albatross but I thought I would complete the series)
• Lost and Mirror Mirror by Gregory McGuire
• House of Chains by Steven Erikson (slowly starting to buy this series in dribs and drabs)

I also forgot to mention that a couple of weeks ago I won a competition on Ian Irvine's facebook page and he sent me the Well of Echoes quartet, all personally signed. The series that I own has two trade paperbacks and two mass-market paperbacks which has always annoyed me, and now the set I won is all mass-market. But I also feel attached to my old set and am not sure what to do with them ...

I officially need to get a new bookshelf as there are now books piled on the floor in front of the shelf ...

REVIEW: The Order of the Scales by Stephen Deas

Firstly, I don't think I am a fan of books that continue to flippantly kill off the protagonists. It seems that by the end of every novel by Deas, all the characters who told part of the story end up being killed. But not in any kind of satisfying way ... in The Order of the Scales, one of the protagonists from the beginning of the series managed to die without even having the honour of it actually being communicated to the reader. We pretty much find out when some other character happens across his body. In one way it's kind of interesting, because it's genuine and realistic, but then again it also sends everything that has been invested in that character straight down the gurgler.

tOotS (Toots, haha!) really is a fast and ruthless read. I decided that I wanted the series to be much longer and fleshed out. There is so much potential for parts of the story that were left untold to be written and I don't think it would be to the detriment of the novel. For instance, all of Jehal's past including the demise of his family, Jaslyn's relationship with Silence, the PoV from Zafir and Valmeyan ... all were kind of missing from this book. On the other hand, I did appreciated the maturity of this approach, not spelling everything out for the reader.

The ending was a little dissatisfying, especially since I was under the impression that this was a trilogy. The Black Mausoleum which is the next novel was kind of branded as a sequel rather than a continuance of the same set. Nothing was really resolved, a few key characters were killed and then it just ended, with some serious foreshadowing.

Keeping track of the names of the Kings and Queens was a little hard as it has been a while since I read the previous two books, especially in the absence of the lineage chart from this book ... and I'm the kind of person who likes to know all the names, how they're related and what kingdom they're from!

All in all, very happy with the story ... quite rich and complex but still fast moving at the same time and a good balance of action and character development.

In a moment of weakness I bought The Wise Man's Fear which I have to say is one of the more beautiful books I have purchased. Next read ... The Shelters of Stone, mostly because I feel obligated to finish it. Really want to get onto The Name of the Wind but I am aware of the upcoming releases by Christopher Paolini and Isobelle Carmody for which I will need to reread both series ... and I will be hard pressed to resist reading them immediately as they are both the long awaited conclusions of the series!

The Wishlist

[Updated 17.03.2012]

With me buying books willy nilly, I decided it was time to construct the ultimate wishlist and only buy things on this list ... titles in blue are those not currently released here.

Isobelle Carmody
-The Red Queen

Ian Irvine
-Rebellion
-Justice

Cinda Williams Chima
-The Crimson Crown

Stephen Deas
-The Black Mausoleum

Kristin Cashore
-Bitterblue

Tom Lloyd
-The Stormcaller
-The Grave Thief
-The Dusk Watchman


Jennifer Fallon
-Dark Divide
-Reunion

Steven Erikson
-Memories of Ice
-House of Chains
-Midnight Tides
-The Bonehunters
-Reaper's Gale
-Toll of the Hounds
-The Crippled God

J.R.R. Tolkien
-The Book of Lost Tales 1
-The Lays of Beleriand
-The Shaping of Middle-earth
-The Lost Road and Other Writings
-The Return of the Shadow
-The Treason of Isengard
-The War of the Ring
-Sauron Defeated
-Morgoth's Ring
-The War of the Jewels
-The Peoples of Middle-earth
-Roverandom
-The Children of Hurin
-Tales from the Perilous Realm

Terry Pratchett
-Guards! Guards!
-Eric
-Moving Pictures
-Reaper Man
-Witches Abroad
-Small Gods
-Lords and Ladies
-Men at Arms
-Soul Music
-Interesting Times
-Maskerade
-Feet of Clay
-Hogfather
-Jingo
-The Last Continent
-Carpe Jugulum
-The Fifth Elephant
-The Truth
-Thief of Time
-The Last Hero
-The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
-Night Watch
-The Wee Free Men
-Monstrous Regiment
-A Hat Full of Sky
-Going Postal
-Thud!
-Wintersmith
-Making Money
-Unseen Academicals
-I Shall Wear Midnight
-Snuff

Robert Jordan
-The Eye of the World
-The Great Hunt
-The Dragon Reborn
-The Shadow Rising
-The Fires of Heaven
-Lord of Chaos
-A Crown of Swords
-The Path of Daggers
-Winter's Heart
-Crossroads of Twilight
-Knife of Dreams
-The Gathering Storm
-Towers of Midnight
-A Memory of Light

Wow ... that's a lot! In other news, I discovered a book story in the DFO today where EVERY book is $5!! Turns out they have a website where this is also the case ... www.allbooks4less.com.au. I'm assuming it's all the run off from book store closures. I bought Naamah's Curse and Treason Keep. In order to keep the all the same size, I also bought the trade print of Namaah's Kiss from somewhere in the UK.

Order of the Scales is going very well ... I don't want it to end!

REVIEW: The Plains of Passage by Jean M. Auel

This book was a long time in the reading because of my development and special study at Uni, so it ended up being a 15 minutes before bed affair. The last quarter was a hard-to-put-down read and so I read most of it this week.

As predicated, it featured exorbitant amounts of environmental description and sexual encounters which rarely strayed from the same repetitive formula. For the first two thirds of the book I think it's safe to say that NOTHING happens except maybe Ayla fell over once or something ... I really enjoyed the encounter with Attaroa, if only the rest of the book was like that! This was the first ever book that I skimmed (several pages at a time mind you). At least Auel structured it so it was east to skip pasted the 15 paragraphs on the 74 types of grass growing in the area.

In spite of this I am looking forward to the next book, although I worry that it was be very similar to The Mammoth Hunters and the meeting of every other tribe from The Plains of Passage. You could pretty much just change the names and you're reading the same scenario.

I bought the new release The Order of the Scales, the last in the trilogy by Stephen Deas, so I think I will read that before The Shelters of Stone. I also preordered Inheritance (WEEE!!!) and got the coolest hard cover book about the world of Algaesia for free. It has things you can scratch and rub and little things that pop out. Speaking of, I am going to have to reread all of that series (for the third time) before the last book comes out because I don't remember anything. AND IN EVEN MORE IMPORTANT NEWS!!! The last books from the Obernewtyn series are FINALLY being released. It seems there are two which are coming out at the same time which is strange ... The Sending and The Red Queen. It is safe to say that they day these come out I will be holing myself up in seclusion until they are done. Actually, I will have to reread all of those too ...

At the moment, my to read list is ordered as such:

The Order of the Scales - Stephen Deas
The Shelters of Stone - Jean M. Auel
The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss (possibly followed by Wise Man's Fear)
The Black Prism - Brent Weeks
The Novice and The High Lord - Trudi Canavan

This of course doesn't take into consideration the release of Inheritance and required pre-re-readings or the release of The Gray Wolf Throne and its ambiguous publishing date ... or the release of a paperback of The Land of the Painted Caves.

REVIEW: The Last Four Things by Paul Hoffman

Wow ... what a strange book. So I really loved The Left Hand of God ... it was one of those fantasy books that was a little more real, a little more brutal ... dark, and not in the warlock way. By the end it started smacking of sci-fi rather than fantasy. It was unpredictable in both the usual way, and in the way that I felt I had no familiarity with this kind of writing. The characters were well defined but also unpredictable (some reviewers claimed this was a weakness in the writing - that characters did not act as they should). The book ended with an unexpected twist too.


But The Last Four Things is totally different. It is as if Left Hand was about Cale and co.'s escape from The Sanctuary and trying to find a new life. It was very real, grounded and had a very specific course. It seems Four Things disregards all this and is now solely about the twist at the end of Left Hand.

The tone is now incredibly religious, with Cale, the supposed Angel of Death, fulfilling his destiny imposed by Bosco. All the relationships have changed and reversed and it is now very clear, where there wasn't even an inkling in Left Hand, that the story is set in a post apocalyptic Earth ... large plot points now focus around places like Switzerland and Spain.

I don't know how I feel about it. I enjoyed it and read it quickly, but I think I was questioning where it was going. Unlike other books, it hasn't provided an end goal, something the story or characters are working towards. This gives it it's unpredictability, but is also frustrating. I also found it weird how some key points, like the death of a character, was somehow tacked onto the end of a paragraph.

Next ... I'm returning to Earth's Children. I've started reading The Plains of Passage which is a deceptively looooonnnnggg mother. Already at page 50 there have been lengthy descriptions of foliage, which while interesting in previous books, is now getting old. I've found myself skimming and skipping which is usually a crime for me. But I have to finish the series .... hopefully it picks up soon!

Haven't bought any new books lately except The Infinity Gate, out of fear of missing out on the trade size paperback ... which I also need to get Wise Man's Fear because of. Other than that, trying to limit spending until I read a few more.

REVIEW: The Exiled Queen by Cinda Williams Chima

Well that was quick! I think I never realised how deceptively long the Earth's Children books are, with their small size. The Exiled Queen is just as big but with text size and all, is actually much, much shorter. I feel a little robbed it was so short.

I read a lot of crappy reviews on this book, which mentioned the use of overused archetypes and annoying protagonists ... I never really seem to notice things like that ... some people are just too picky - enjoy the god damn story! I enjoyed reading the book and it was one that was easy to keep reading at length (Earth's Children tires you out after a while). I find it's actually not very predictable - I have no idea what is actually going to happen in terms of the plot and character development which is great. The building tension over the future of Raisa is a highlight. I think there is only one more book to come out and I don't think it will be anytime soon. Damn.

Next ... well I'm kind of having withdrawals from Earth's Children so I am tempted to start that again ... but it's a large investment of time, when I could probably churn out another few shorter books. Probably The Last Four Things or The Novice.

No purchases since the last post (OMG) due to being sick, poor and busy with uni performance.

REVIEW: The Mammoth Hunters by Jean M. Auel

So I just finished reading The Mammoth Hunters which took a little longer than usual due to Uni and other commitments. I did like the book, but then again ... I think I found it frustrating. There are so many similarities between the first two that everything just feels like it's being repeated ... and then there is the feeling of repetition within the book itself. While I really appreciated hearing about how the Clan worked flint in CotCB, I'm totally over it by the third time it's describe in TMH. Also, if I have to endure another sex scene between Ayla and Jondalar, described identically every time ... I may kill myself.

I was quite a beautiful story, but just took a little long to get there. I felt I wanted them to hurry up and go find the Zeladonii ... which is why I am kind of dreading The Plains of Passage which is longer, and is another sidetrack before the final destination. Hmmm, I kind of feel like these two books are just fillers (even though they are full and detailed stories in their own right) - I'm just under the impression that they're not going anywhere.

That being said, I've decided to take a break and read one of the other 28 books I have yet to read. This decision was also made to delay finishing the series until The Painted Caves (the last book) comes out in Paperback, because I refuse to boy the hardback which does not match the rest of the series.

I had a moment of weakness when I went into Dymocks 'just to look' and saw The Exiled Queen by Cinda Williams Chima and The Last Four Things by Paul Hoffman ... both sequels to books I recently read and loved. So of course I literally ran to the counter to buy them as if they somehow wouldn't be there when I actually had time to read them and went to buy them. I also bought the trade size version of The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss second hand from London (after buying one that was not the same version AT ALL and sending it back for a refund) so it will match the recently released trade back version of Wise Man's Fear.

So I've just started The Exiled Queen ... I must admit I cannot remember any of the plot advances from the end of the last book, or some of the characters. And I couldn't find a plot summary anywhere online which I REALLY NEEDED. So I hope this book will subtly remind me as we go along.

In other news, they're now closing ALL the Borders stores in Australia. It was bad enough that now I can't buy books in my lunch break from work (Borders being the only store near by). Hopefully I can pick up some good sales at Melbourne Central when it closes.

REVIEW: The Valley of Horses by Jean M. Auel

For my birthday my mum took me to K-Mart to buy the new Pokemon and I discovered a plethora of extremely cheap books (as well as other things such as socks and deodorant). I am now addicted to K-Mart. With my birthday money (how cute) I bought two of the Earth's Children books for $10 each, Torment ($8) and Darkness at Sethanon (FIVE DOLLARS!!!). Following on from this discovery I decided to check out Target back home in Melbourne and found The Valley of Horses, which was next on my list to read having just finished Clan of the Cave Bear. $15 ... bargain! Other purchases this week include The Shelters of Stone and The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun from the Borders closing down sale. It's funny ... I will now only buy things if they are cheaper than bookdepository.co.uk.

Anyway ... I really enjoyed The Valley of Horses, although not as much as book one I think. CotCB was so rich with facts and customs of the Clan and all of that came to an end at the end of the book, with Ayla's departure. The introduction of Jondalar and the humans provided for an almost equally interesting setting, but I suddenly felt it lacked the uniqueness from the first book. It was one of the only books I've read where humans were not the protagonists and it was so well researched and written that I was really drawn into the ways of the Clan. Then in VoH I felt suddenly dumped back into the monotony of human land.

Nevertheless, both Ayla's and Jondalar's story arcs were equally interesting. It was one of those books that you finish and think ... how did that take up this whole book? It felt like it should have been half as thick - in a good way. Really, it was only about Ayla walking to a valley and living by herself in a cave, any only meeting Jondalar near the end.

An interesting addition to this book was the exorbitant amount of descriptive sex scenes. While I thought two or three were appropriate, fit well and were well written, the no less than three occasions in the last twenty pages was a bit much. I felt like I was suddenly reading a Mills and Boon.

I've started reading The Mammoth Hunters which has already introduced an unfollowable amount of new characters and potential for a fresh plot. Although like VOH, Im questioning how MH will take up this large book. That said, I think the blurb doesn't give away anything, so I'm sure I'll be surprised.

If I finish this series before Land of the Painted Caves comes out in paperback I will be very annoyed. I also don't like that the cover is scarlet while the others are a white/pastel colour. Is that weird?