4/28/2011

  1. prelude: group conversation. wise man's fear. patrick rothfuss.

    group discussion on wise man's fear. your humble editor didn't read
    it, for reasons which are complex and contingent and will not here be
    recounted. however, the rest did, and i guess they want to go around
    doing favorites.

  2. josh

    1. verdict: +
    2. review:

      least favorite part: kvothe comes upon some false ruh. i dunno, i may
      be getting some jargon wrong tonight, my deepest apologies. anyway,
      this was his second time reading this section as it had been
      anthologized. he didn't think it was that great anyway.
      favorite part: kvothe encounters someone on the roof? this was a new
      addition, i guess, which makes us collectively optimistic.

  3. marko

    1. verdict: +
    2. review:

      auri on the roof is his favorite as well. must have been a good
      encounter. a lot of the book is pretty formulaic, as is the first
      book. he preferred the first book, but enjoyed both. but auri is "sort
      of anti-d&d, and that's what i liked about it." he also felt like this
      was the only lyrical moment in the second book. there seems to be
      general agreement here.
      least favorite part: the whole ninja thing and the whole trip to the
      ninja place. less general agreement here. jen and josh liked it.
      he also liked the felurian. i dunno. seems to be a guilty pleasure of
      everyone's, i guess? we also heard a little about the tree.

  4. chad

    1. verdict: +
    2. review:

      "i liked it when they moved the *real* plot a little bit, here and
      there?" he also liked the stuff in the outer story, which had a little
      bit more emotion, which the rest of it lacked, in his view. the
      writing just wasn't as good. his favorite part is the sword tree and
      kvothe's test. "it's not even that he's bad-ass, it's that it's just a
      little better written."
      his least favorite part: the woodcraft was a fucking total waste of
      time. also the kidnapping (the fake ruh). he also didn't like the fact
      that there was no real end: the end was like "i have money now," and
      that's freaking pathetic.

  5. jeff

    1. verdict: +
    2. review:

      he generally agrees about the whole collecting skills and leveling up
      thing being pretty annoying. the school and this one class, those were
      cool. he feels that this was really the point of the book, and it was
      ok. the development of the name of the wind skill was important and
      well done.
      the one part that bothered him: when he went off with tempi, wouldn't
      the maer be pissed off that he just ran off with these people for
      like three, four months or whatever?

  6. chris

    1. verdict: +
    2. review:

      he read both volumes immediately back-to-back, like literally on the
      same day. "not to say that i don't like the second one, but the first
      one is a *much* better book." he favorite stuff is definitely the "big
      man on campus" stuff, before kvothe went off and started his summer
      internships. the book really went downhill from there, it just felt
      really long and kind of pointless. "it's clear to me that rothfuss is
      an eternal college dude, and he's just completely out of his element
      writing about anything outside of college."
      the things he's still interested in: what's going on with his evident
      loss of powers, what's behind the four-paneled door and what's in the
      box in his room?

  7. jen

    1. verdict: +
    2. review:

      she enjoyed the sword tree and gallavanting around the university. she
      enjoyed setting fire to ambrose's place and the gang getting
      together. that aside, someone that hasn't been mentioned: bredon, the
      tak partner. i guess they play go, a beautiful game (chad: "it's
      fucking ridiculous.") they don't just bredon though, they think "he's
      gonna fuck him bad."
      least favorites. man, they've all been brought up, but wow. all the
      side trips and little adventures. walk, walk, walk, encounter! walk,
      walk, walk, encounter! ad nauseam. they fey. she hated the fey. you
      leveled up your sex, you got your magic cloak, she was so goddamn
      happy he got out of the fey (not universal agreement on this
      point). anyway this was clearly not her favorite aspect of this
      novel.

  8. adam

    1. verdict: +
    2. review:

      in addition to things already mentioned, he also liked the battle of
      alar scene between devi and kvothe. chad doesn't think they really
      worked at how *bad* he should've felt about that. he also liked when,
      in the outer story, bast found out that he visited the tree. (ed: don't
      blame me, it sounded just as silly when adam said it.) chad doesn't
      agree with this at all, in fact he's incredulous.
      as for less favorite parts... well, basically the university, the
      maer, and everything else until he gets back to the maer. the first
      60% of each part was good, but they all got way too long. long, long,
      long, it was just too long.

  9. jason

    1. verdict: +
    2. review:

      favorite: definitely when he blew the shit out of the brigands and the
      chandrian dude, and stabbed the shit out of the corpse. (chad thinks
      it "wasn't intense enough," but he's pretty well laughed down.)
      least favorite: the whole part with the maer. it was contrived, the
      way he just showed up and did all this heroic shit. but actually, the
      thing he had the most problem with was when he came back to the
      university and he really hadn't changed at all. so what was the point?

  10. editor's sense of the meeting

    lots of like, but no love.
    chad: "i just wish he was good at *something!*"
    editor: "i thought he was good at everything?!"
    chad: "no, i mean rothfuss."
    still, who's gonna read the third book? every hand goes up.

  11. that's all, folks.