I recently finished The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, and I'm most of the way through the second book in the series, A Wise Man's Fear. These are part of the Kingkiller Chronicles, a fantasy trilogy you've probably heard of if you're interested in the genre. Rothfuss has been referred to as a young George R.R. Martin. I'm not sure that comparison is apt, in that Rothfuss's writing has a very different tone than Martin's, but it makes sense in that Rothfuss's stories, like Martin's, stand apart from the cookie-cutter similarity of so much epic fantasy.
These follow the story of the multi-talented Kvothe, who would seem capable of succeeding at anything he attempted, except that his own ego and stubbornness often cause him trouble, from childhood to the university and into the world. At the beginning of the story, Kvothe has been discovered living in hiding under a different name by a scribe who wishes to write down his true story. Kvothe tells the tale in his own voice, and this comprises most of the novels, with brief interludes back in the tavern where Kvothe is posing as proprietor. It's interesting to keep revisiting the present, getting perspective on what Kvothe has been through and how it ended up for him in the present.
I'd recommend these books for anyone interested in sensitive and well-written fantasy with more emphasis on academia, books and storytelling than combat and war. Five years passed between the first book and the second, so we're not likely to see the third book until 2015 or 2016.
