Honestly i am wondering if this book truly deserves 4 stars. True i read its one thousand plus pages pretty fast, but it was more pure entertainment than anything else. And i am slightly suspicious of books that simply give you a roller-coaster ride but fail to provide anything serious for your intellect to munch on. 
 A lot of people are calling Rothfuss the harbinger of a new age in high fantasy. They're calling him the guy who will make sure the world takes new fantasy writers seriously. While i admit this is pretty stupendous for a first attempt, Rothfuss is no J.K. Rowling. The Kingkiller Chronicle series, of which The Wise Man's Fear is the second book, still shows no sign of outlining the broader plot line of the books. So if this is really going to be a trilogy as the author claims, i would seriously consider eating my smelly left gym sock. Except of course, my new gym allows me to work out in rubber slippers and thus do away with socks altogether, which is awesome. 
 In The Wise Man's Fear, our protagonist Kvothe (with a silent 'e'), is taken up with a fine sense of wanderlust and goes about exploring the rest of the world he is based in. Once again, Rothfuss's world building is top notch and he is very good at conveying the sense of a pretty complex universe without going into too much detail. The plot is fast moving except there is no real plot here. Kvothe in The Wise Man's Fear is simply a man driven by curiosity; his search for adventure and novelty, coupled with the still burning and rather vague goal of revenge against the mythic beings that killed his parents, and the need to flee hostility at the University drives him to the edge of the world. And in his travels he runs into a mystic pixie seductress and a fierce, cultish warrior clan. 
 He is set upon with challenges and meets them with gusto. His reputation precedes him and he is easily famous by the end of the novel. I would say almost too easily. Some of Kvothe's heroics are vaguely reminiscent of lead actors in Hindi films. My other gripe was that Rothfuss seems to have fitted a little too much into the novel here. Not by much, mind, but enough to leave you feeling a tad disoriented and stretched in some places. 
 Other places he needlessly dawdles. And there is a fair bit of sex and even a bit of cussing. But otherwise Rothfuss sticks to the standard high fantasy mold. Safe is sure. In conclusion, there is none of the exploration of the complexity usually found in a Wheel of Time novel, Rothfuss doesn't dwell too much on things better left alone. He takes his story along the same lines of the characteristics of his unlikely young hero; rough, charming, hind-leg-off-the donkey-talking, at times wise, reckless, immature, a bit of a boor and a vigilante. Maybe a tight 3.8 out of five. So if it is escapism you're looking for, this is your ticket. I'm only unhappy that the next book may take at least a year to be released.