Patrick Rothfuss is an astoundingly talented writer and his Kingkiller Chronicle books are excellent for many reasons. When I read the first book in the series, The Name of the Wind, I was taken by the characters. Most of his characters seem archetypal and two-dimensional at first, but once you get to know them they start to show some depth. Now that I've finished the second book, The Wise Man's Fear, I am utterly entranced by the world he has built and the cultures who inhabit it.