The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss was a refreshing read. I found the style to be interesting. Most books in this genre tend to be 3rd person narrative lets go off and kill things with magic and swords. 

Don’t get me wrong. I love that too. In this book however, Rothfuss takes a different approach. All the action has already happened. You meet the main character after he has already retired, living in a small town, hiding his identity, playing the role of a tavern owner.

The story unfolds slowly as he (Kvothe) tells his full history to a chronicler for the first time ever. It has very interesting characters, and while sounding like it is slow is actually very intense, and attention grabbing.

After reading this book I get the feeling that Kvothe’s adventures might not quite be over as we hear slowly about whats going on in the world currently.

This isn’t just a book about a hero mind you. This is a book about THE hero. This is the Hercules of their world. The King Arthur and Merlin rolled into one. No one doesn’t know his name, thus the hiding out in an attempt to find peace.

If you are looking for a new author, I strongly recommend Patrick Rothfuss. The Name of the Wind is the first book of a trilogy  in which the second book is already out and the third in process. A very good distraction while waiting for the next George R. R. Martin book to come out, without having to dip back down into the atrocious writing of some of the less known Forgotten Realm and Dragon Lance writers.

All in All I give it a 9/10 for Creativity, inventing a new kind of magic, and not relying on the standard story telling methodologies. 

Also as you can see I got mine signed. You can send your own books to be signed, or buy them from the authors foundation outright here:

http://www.patrickrothfuss.com/content/index.asp Official Author Page

http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2007/08/faq-if-i-mail-you-my-book-will-you-sign-it/ His interesting thoughts on sending him books, and how to do it.

And for those of you interested, the author also hosts a writing workshop 1 Tuesday a month called Storyboard, which you can find on Geek and Sundry!

geekandsundry.com

Edit: Apparently the show is currently on Hiatus, but you can check out the first 7 episodes here!

http://storyboard.geekandsundry.com/

• “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss (read)
• “The Wise Man’s Fear” by Patrick Rothfuss (read)
• “World War Z” by Max Brooks (in progress_
• “Physics for Future Presidents” by Richard A. Muller (In progress)

I am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells

This is the Story of 15-year-old John Wayne Cleaver. John is well aware that he shows all the markers of a Serial Killer, and so has created rules that he lives his life by to keep him from going down a path he won’t be able to return from. Things like if he pays attention to one person too much he will then avoid them for a week in an effort to keep from becoming too interested.

While things are hard they are acceptable, and things are being kept mostly under control. These rules are put to the test however when a real Serial Killer shows up and starts killing in his town. He is left with a choice of keeping to his rules, or breaking them in an effort to track down this serial killer because the Police aren’t able to.

The more he finds out however, the more he realizes he may be dealing with something far worse then a Serial Killer.

This book is a fantastic thriller. Another page turner that I could not put down. The way that it is written with this 15 year old Sociopath as the star is intriguing and gives a glimpse into the mind of potential serial killers.

It is scary to see in stark detail how methodical and logical this kid can be without the moral and ethical guidelines enforced by emotions and empathy.

I will say however that this book takes a drastic turn into Sci-Fi, that really irritated me at first. However if you stick with it, it is handled in a great way and the story is amazing.

All in all I think I will give this  3 and a half dews out of 5 

Having seen the movie Stardust I was very interested in reading the book, as books are pretty much always better then the movies.  This of course was no different.

Stardust takes place in a little town called Wall in England in the early 1900’s maybe late 1800’s. It is truly a fantasy story but not in the traditional sense. All that we consider to be imaginary, unreal, or made up in the sense of creatures, people and places exist in Faerie, just across the wall. There is a market every 9 years which is the only interaction the people in the “real” world have with the inhabitants of Faerie.

Tristran is the son of a man from wall and a woman from Faerie, though he is not yet aware of this. In his efforts to win the hand of the girl of his dreams, he offers to travel beyond the wall to retrieve a fallen star for her in exchange for her hand in marriage.

Setting off on his adventure he meats some interesting people, and to his surprise finds that the fallen star is a living, thinking being. The Adventure truly begins as he attempts to bring her back to wall, forcefully chained at first. They meet all sorts of people intent on slowing them, killing them, or taking the star from him.

As they continue you also follow the stories of the sons of the Lord of Stormhold, as well as a couple witches which end up playing roles in the sotryline.

I wouldn’t say there is a surprise ending, but it is certainly not the ending that Tristran had foreseen when he started his quest, but as most fairy tales, it ends happily .

The book is beautifully written, simple and yet elegant, and I would rate as a true masterpiece of it’s age.

I did find that there were quite a bit of things added to the movie however that were not in the book. The biggest one that upset me was that Captain Shakespeare, played by Robert De Nero  in the movie was a completely different person in the book. In the movie He was a cross dressing Skyship Captain, who hid his pleasures from his crew, putting on a fierce face for them. 

That is a dramatic change from the tone of the book, and is a very huge character addition to add in. I feel like it is almost too big of a difference to make. The biggest reason the addition of this to the movie upsets me is because in all honesty is was one of my favorite parts of the film, and I was looking forward to reading about it, which left me disappointed.

This is of course no fault of the book and I of course will not fault the book for it .

All in all I rate this book a 4/5 and suggest that if your into fantasy style books you give it a try! 

So Book reviews will be coming a little slower as the school semester gets heavier. Like right now. When I have two tests coming up. Anyways, upcoming review of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust. I saw the movie, a long time ago so was very excited to read the book, halfway through now, so this should be soon. 

Following that in no particular order are the following:

• “I am Not a Serial Killer” by Dan Wells
• “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss
• “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline
• “Physics for Future Presidents” by Richard A. Muller

If you have any suggestions to add to this list, please let me know!