Apparently, I Don't Do Well With Series
I've been reading some books lately. I read The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. It's an absolutely fabulous book. Amazing, in fact! The main character is just... I don't know. He tells the story in a wonderful way, and I like the fact that he isn't perfect (since he's a cheater and a liar and all, plus he's poor as hell...). But I always cringe when he does something I know he'll regret later only to find out it resolves itself smoothly. I'm still waiting with baited breath on whether Denna betrays him or something like that. And I can see him getting expelled for sneaking into the archives... The next book, hopefully, will be as interesting as this one. Plus, I like that there seems to be some conflict going on in current-time. To be honest, in most books, my favorite parts are the ones in the "magic school"... However, from the summary and what little we know of the rest of his life, it looks like even after he's expelled it'll be interesting.
The assassin part reminds me of the series by Robin Hobb. Also the part when he settles down to become some schmoe who does nothing but nurse his scars and memories all day. Hopefully, though, due to the current-time conflicts in Rothfuss's series, Kvothe will be rescued from his awful depression. However, the same cannot be said of Robin Hobb's stories, all of which was a sorely disappointed to find that the wonderful main character ended up terribly crippled or flawed or scarred.
Hell, I couldn't get through the "Second Son trilogy" or whatever it was called; because the main character's biggest flaw was sudden being fat as a blimp. No offense to fat people, I could stand to lose about ten pounds myself, but he was a perfectly likable character and now he only bemoans his fatness and not to mention how much it limits his previously promising military career! And in the Assassin series, I was terribly upset over how crippled and ugly he'd gotten. Sure, I'm pretty shallow, but they were wonderful characters and Robin Hobb had to go and tear them to pieces! Their personalities became bitter and nasty so emo, all the freaking time! In the Assassin series, he could have become some sort of awesome king or ruler or hell, even just spy master, but no he had to go fuck everything up by just being a freaking idiot for one second! It makes me want to scream with frustration!
-cough- I read Robin Hobb a while ago, and I could only truly enjoy the first book in each of her trilogies. The others made me want to tear my hair out and wish I'd never read them. More recently though, like today, I was reading Mercedes Lackey. I'd polished off the first book of the Halfblood series before losing interest at the start of the second book due to the fact that it became clear that her foster-dragon-brother wasn't going to be her love interest, and also due to the fact she inexplicably came into the possession of a mansion and servants and whatnot. I mean, when did that happen? Didn't the last book end with a battle?
Anyway, I ended the Halfblood series there. Then I tried my hand at the Hearlds of Valdemar (or whatever it's called) and decided to start with the original, first trilogy in the massive universe. The first book I rather liked, though I felt that Talia's personality was terribly inconsistient. On the second book, my interest began to wane and when it was painfully clear that she'd been caught in some sort of silly soulmate thing, I dropped it altogether. I rather liked Kris, too bad she didn't keep him.
Anyway, my third go at Mercedes Lackey was the Dragon Jousting series. I have to say, I loved the first book! It was wonderful! I particularly like Kashet and Ari and I started to get a bit disappointed when Vetch/Kiron got his own dragon. I'd rather have him keep tending Kashet and then maybe have Ari die in some tragedy, so then Vetch gets to ride Kashet or something like that. And I get the feeling that Mercedes Lackey doesn't write particularly good romance. Nor do I actually like her choice of love-interests for the main character, either. Plus it seems as if she must pair everyone off into neat little love-pairs. Yuck. (On the other hand, I think I'd have liked reading a prequel about Ari and how he got to be so good at what he does. Ari seems infinitely more interesting than Vetch/Kiron, though I like Vetch/Kiron before he got a dragon).
So, apparently I can only stomach the first book in a series and the rest make me angry or bored or frustrated. Then again, there are other series I've managed to finish and feel satisfied. I guess I'm just not having much luck with Mercedes Lackey.