About 2 years ago, one of my co-workers, actually recommended that I read The Kingkiller Chronicles. Now, I work in the tech industry and my co-worker is your stereotypical nerd. Think StarWars loving, Dungeons and Dragons playing, take a week of vacation when a new video game comes out, type nerd. So when he recommend a fantasy series for me to read, I was skeptical to say the least. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good series that involves magic, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are some of my absolute favorite series. But he had recommended a few other books to me, that I could just not get into.

In need of good series read though and since it had 4.6 out of 5 stars on Goodreads, I decided to give it chance. And let me just tell you, I do not regret it at all! The Kingkiller Chronicles is by far one of my favorite series!

Now the series is actually a trilogy and the books comprised in the series are (in order):

1. The Name of the Wind
2. The Wise Man’s Fear
3. Doors of Stone

Heads up, while The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear were published in 2007 and 2011 respectively; Doors of Stone has yet to be published and no official release date has been announced. So, if you are like me and despise starting a book series where not all the books are out yet, I’d recommend you hold off on starting this series until the third book is out.

Now a little about this trilogy.

The trilogy takes place in the world of Temerant, over three days and is centered and narrated by our main protagonist Kvothe (pronounced quothe). Kvothe, a skilled lute player which earns him his tuition for university, is the owner of the Wayward Inn which is where our story begins. It is here at the Inn, that a renowned bibliographer known as Chronicler, convinces Kvothe to let him write his memoir. As Kvothe tells his story we quickly learn that he is no simple Innkeeper. The books take us through his childhood as a member of a traveling troupe of performers. Through his education at the University where he learns not only history, algebra, and geometry, but also sympathetic magic, medicine, alchemy, naming and sygaldry (a form of magic based on runes and engineering). And finally through his life as a fugitive.

To be quite honesty, at first I didn’t like Kvothe to much. I found him to be a typical teenage boy, who is basically to big for his own britches. But as I continued to read, the amount of character building Rothfuss puts into Kvothe is incredible. We see him rise through hardships over and over again. We meet some extremely interesting people, who help Kvothe become the legend he is in the present day. We are exposed to the ancient lore of the malevolent Chandarin, who are never to be named, and numerous other Temerant folklore. We see the worlds of science, music, and magic combine in the most intriguing ways. Also, the world building Rothfuss has done in this series is brilliant and makes me think that even if Kvothe’s story ends in the third book, we might still see some new stories pop up in the same universe. *Fingers Crossed*

For me, Rothfuss, has added the perfect amount of magic, music, mystery, and fantasy to these books. I adore, that Rothfuss adds music into the series, as I find it to make the whole series even more relatable. I was so thoroughly captivated by the world of Temerant that, even though each of the first two books are 350,000+ words, I finished them in less than a week. Which is when I found out the third wasn’t out yet. *womp womp*

If you’re still not convinced to read this series there is a rumor out that there is a film, TV series, and a video game slated to be coming out in the future. And if you still need more convincing, that same rumor states that Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of Hamilton, is set to be an executive producer and will also compose the music for the television series.

So what are you waiting for? Get to reading!