I'm a working musician, bars and weddings and the odd funeral, twenty years of it, so I came braced for the music writing to be embarrassing, as it usually is. He doesn't embarrass himself. In my experience, no author I've ever read can hold a candle to the way Rothfuss conveys the heart of, and experience of being a musician. Love of music cannot be faked.

The night that sold me is the Eolian, where you earn silver pipes by proving you belong. Kvothe, with his second-hand, slightly shabby lute, stepping up for his piping performance at the Eloian. Partway through, a string snaps and he finishes on what's left. The night he played at the Eolian to earn his pipes was stunning and beautifully written, and had me holding my breath when things went wrong - and then again when he somehow recovered. I've lived a shabbier version, a broken string in front of forty drunks, and Rothfuss nails the cold focus. I was literally holding my breath that he'd make good.

What surprised me was how much else stuck. Another 5% of the story is when Skarpi tells the stories in Tarbean, doling out old legends, and I wanted three hundred more pages of him. Then there's Auri, who lives in the catacombs beneath the university, a fascinating character I'd like to know more about. And a naming class run by a mad professor: I need to see more Elodin-Kvothe action, calling the name of the wind and all. A student steps off a roof trusting the wind will catch him, the time in which Kote jumped off a roof, and as I lay there, counting my blessings and broken ribs, Elodin stepped into my field of vision. The dumbest or truest thing about learning a craft.

Some of it made me squint. And the dragon is high on this resin thing? Denna spends a tense monster hunt quietly stoned on drug-resin while a scaled thing stalks them. Some things she said while under the influence of the denner led me to believe that she's spying on Kvothe for someone. Denna just completely out of it. I could not make it land. Kvothe is too perfect, and I found the frame story a bit slow. But music runs through it as the one holy thing this kid would trade anything to keep. You can hear his passion for music in the way that he speaks, written by somebody who plainly knows what it costs. I've handed it to three other players, and all three came straight back about that broken string.