The Wise Man's Fear

The Wise Man's Fear was published on 1 March 2011 and is the second volume of the Kingkiller Chronicle, following The Name of the Wind in 2007. Patrick Rothfuss's series is framed as a three-day narration: Kvothe, who now keeps a quiet inn under another name, tells the story of his life to a scribe, and each book is one day of the telling. That structure lets the older narrator interrupt, correct and refuse the younger one, which is where the series keeps most of its suspense.

The second volume widens the map. Kvothe leaves the University for a noble court, where he is given a place that depends entirely on his manners; then for the Eld, a forest where he is employed to hunt a highwayman whose band has been robbing the King's collectors; and then for Ademre, a country of warriors whose language and customs have no equivalent at home. The Chandrian, the figures who killed his family, recede to the edge of the book and remain the question the series has not answered.

Because the series is built as three days of narration, this volume has to carry the middle of a life: the years in which the hero stops being a student and starts becoming a person other people have heard about, and the questions the first book left open are deliberately left open again here. The book runs past a thousand pages in the trade paperback editions, and it was published by DAW in the United States and by Gollancz in Britain, where the cover art has changed more than once. A third volume has been expected for years without a publication date, which has become part of the series' story for its readers.