Or why are fantasy novels so effing long

Right this isn’t so much a book review as a book rant.

The Name of the Wind follows the story of an ‘arcanist’ in training named Kvothe. He’s the son of a travelling troupe but they get brutally murdered by the Chandrian (Demons? Maybe? Not even sure after 530 pages.) Then he becomes an orphan in a city for 3 years. Then he goes to a university where they teach various things like math and healing and fucking magic (sympathy, whatever). Also he loves this girl but she’s always tramping off with other dudes because she’s poor and needs a patron.

AND THAT’S ALL THAT HAPPENS FOR 530 PAGES.

The sequel is a cool 1120 pages.

I don’t have the energy to spend on that many pages of books anymore. I used to in highschool (geez, thousands of pages in the Wheel of Time series alone.) But now I have work and PhD stuff and pubs to go to.

But why do the bastards have to be so effing long? I’m pretty sure that could have been a cool 250 pages, 300 tops. A little less time spent on negotiating over fucking horses or the endless up and down of “I got some money!” and “Now something terrible happened and I have no money!” It was just so time consuming and repetitive.

When the story actually got going and something fucking happened it was okay but wading through 50 pages of pointlessness for 10 pages of reward is not my idea of a good novel.

I don’t know how I’m going to survive more of these. The main characters are always sort of dickish in the end. Always a bit too arrogant or a bit too romantic hero. Sure, some like Kvothe have their dark sides which make them a bit more down to earth. But that’s adult Kvothe retelling his story, not ‘I can do everything better and faster than everyone’ young teenage Kvothe.

ARG. 530 pages. WHY? Fuck you 1000 page fantasy books. Your editors should have reeled you in.