4/28/2011
- 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.
- josh
- verdict: +
- 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.
- marko
- verdict: +
- 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.
- chad
- verdict: +
- 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.
- jeff
- verdict: +
- 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?
- chris
- verdict: +
- 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?
- jen
- verdict: +
- 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.
- adam
- verdict: +
- 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.
- jason
- verdict: +
- 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?
- 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.
- that's all, folks.