The Name of the Wind

Have you ever read a book that you really, really, really liked, then read some reviews of it, that didn't like it so much, and that changed your opinion of it? Yeah, me neither. And it certainly didn't affect my feelings about this book, which has been very highly praised. However, Amazon had a few reviews from folks who thought it was too talky and had too much unimportant information. "Padding", they called it.

Well, this book doesn't waste a word. If you don't like talky books, and you don't like character development, then yeah, you might not like it as well. If thrills a minute is your game, this is not your book. However.

I loved this book. It's about a man named Kvothe, who is apparently a huge hero, but now he's just an innkeeper. He sits down one day with a scribe and starts to tell his life story. The storyline flips back and forth between his history, and the present. And it is all fascinating. The detail, the development, the writing, it soars. There's not always something thrilling going on, but that didn't change my involvement in the story at all. Some people have complained that it's "slow at times". Dude, go back to Tom Clancy. The worst part for me is that it is the first of three books, and the other two are already written, but they won't be released until next freaking year. Why must they do this to us?

I realize that's not much of a review. Mostly a "I liked it", long on opinion, short on substance. Hey, sometimes I don't have anything deep to add, you know.

I Am Legend

An auspicious beginning, to be sure. My first review on my book review blog, and it's a title with many meanings. The book by Richard Matheson is only about 150 pages long, and it goes dang quick. That may be part of why I disliked it so much. It's not just the fact that the protagonist is the rambly sort (I imagine I'd be rambly too after a few months of being the last man on earth), it's that it doesn't work to tell a story that way, in the third person, but intimately involved in the protagonist's head, which, did I mention? is subject to fits of rambly.

Also, the relationship with Ben Cortman, and the weird affection, is never explained, it's simply either taken for granted or plausible reasons for it are expressly disavowed.

Then, the end. Ah, the end. Look, it's ok when people you like die in the end. Not everything needs to be a Disney ending. But at least give me a wedding scene from Storm of Swords to explain it and make it real. I didn't buy this at all, it came out of nowhere and it was just, well, dumb.

No wonder the movie versions (including my favorite, The HΩmega Man) changed the story so much.