Books Like The Name of the Wind

Three characters converge on a world preparing for an ancient catastrophe: a soldier who should be dead, a scholar who steals forbidden knowledge, and an assassin who starts a war by following orders.

The closest in ambition: Sanderson and Rothfuss are the two great writers of intricate magic systems in contemporary fantasy. Where Rothfuss is literary and slow, Sanderson is propulsive and plot-first — but both take their magic seriously as a system of rules worth learning.

The Gentleman Bastards are the finest thieves in the city of Camorr — a fantasy Venice built on the ruins of an alien civilisation. Their most elaborate con goes wrong in the most dangerous possible way.

The style closest to Rothfuss's: witty, self-aware, and written with the pleasure of a great prose stylist doing exactly what they want. Locke Lamora has Kvothe's cleverness, his theatrical instinct, and his tendency to be in over his head.

England, 1806. Two magicians attempt to revive English magic. One is a scholar who hoards his knowledge; the other is a student who discovers he can do things that shouldn't be possible.

The literary cousin: Clarke writes a 782-page novel with footnotes that is also a genuine pleasure to read — dense, patient, and written with the same seriousness Rothfuss brings to his magic systems. The magic (names, fairy bargains, summoning) has the same quality of real rules imperfectly understood.

A torturer, a disgraced officer, and a barbarian who is more than he seems are used by a wizard with purposes none of them understand. The First Law is grimdark fantasy done with precise literary control.

Abercrombie and Rothfuss represent opposite ends of the contemporary fantasy spectrum — Rothfuss toward literary beauty, Abercrombie toward hard-eyed realism — but both write with the same precision. First Law is for Kvothe readers who want the genre's romantic elements stripped away.

In a world of ash and darkness, a crew of criminals plans to overthrow a tyrant who has ruled for a thousand years. The magic — swallowing metals to gain powers — is the most elaborately designed system in the genre.

The magic-first fantasy: where Rothfuss uses the University chapters to explore what a rigorous magic system feels like to learn and master, Sanderson makes the magic the plot mechanism. Both books give you the pleasure of understanding a system from the inside.

On the eve of a celestial event, three people converge on the holy city of Tova: a man who was shaped from birth for a single purpose, a sea captain navigating treacherous political waters, and a trader who sees more than she should.

The most contemporary comparison: Roanhorse builds her world from pre-Columbian American civilisations with the same attention to detail and reverence for her source material that Rothfuss brings to a medieval European fantasy. The prose has real beauty.

The province of Tigana has been conquered and its name literally erased from the world — only people born there can hear it. A small group of survivors plan to restore it.

The most literary comparison: Kay writes fantasy that is explicitly literary in aspiration, with a prose style as beautiful as Rothfuss's and a concern for history and loss that the Kingkiller Chronicle shares. Tigana is about a legend recovering itself, which is exactly what Kvothe's narrative is.