Booklog 29/2025: Patrick Rothfuss: The Name of the Wind – Kingkiller Chroncicles #1 – Audiobook

Narrated by Rupert Degas

I avoided this book for years, knowing that it was the first in a trilogy which the author is struggling to finish, however I really enjoyed this. The reading by Rupert Degas was terrific (excellent vocalisations) and the whole thing kept me hooked. This is a story within a story with the occasional smaller story inset. Kote is an inkeeper, or is he? When the Chronicler arrives in search of a hero's story, he gets Kote to open up, for Kote is really Kvothe, something of a legend. Kvothe himself says: 'I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the university at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.'  But this story is about Kvothe's early life. We don't even get as far as his expulsion from the university. We see Kvothe's early life with his parents in a group of travelling players. That part of his life ends suddenly, in a massacre and young Kvothe ends up living hand to mouth on the streets of a pitiless city, eventually gaining entrance to the university where his troubles continue, but so does his absorption of knowledge and of magic. It's a good story, full of ups and downs, and barely takes us to Kvothe aged about 16 or 17. It doesn't really come to an ending, but it stops in a reasonable place and there is a second book, which, again, I'm reluctant to read because the third seems stuck in its author's head and isn't appearing on the page any time soon, if ever, which is a great pity because this is a magnificent beginning.  There's an epilogue which teases that the story Chronicler has heard so far is barely the beginning and is set to hook the reader into the next book.

Booklog 30/2025: Zen Cho: Blackwater Sister

Narrated by Catherine Ho
Jessamyn Teoh, raised in the USA by Malaysian parents, goes back to the land she left when she was a toddler. Her father has been ill, but he goes to work for a relative while Jess and her mother are closeted with family. Jess future plans have been scuppered, she daren't tell her parents she's gay, and keeps ker girlfriend secret. So when she starts hearing voices, she puts it down to stress, but it's just one voice. Jess is being haunted by the ghost of her dead maternal grandmother Ah Ma, who was a spirit mediun and avatar for Black Water Sister, a mysterious and fearsome deity. Ah Ma needs to settle a score with a rich and powerful gang boss and she intends that Jess help her to do it. This is a story about spirits, gods, ghosts and family secrets and Jess needs to sort it all out before she can get her life back on track. The reading is good, the story interesting, and the contemporary Malaysian setting is fascinating.