The Kingkiller Chronicles

If you haven't heard of The Kingkiller Chronicles by now, you'll want to pick it up as soon as possible. Rothfuss' award-winning series took the genre by storm in 2007 with its expertly crafted take on a traditional story. On the surface, the series doesn't seem to offer anything particularly new. It's a story of an orphan boy and his bid to enter a prestigious magic school. However, Rothfuss proves that a good story is not just in the idea, but the execution. He crafts an incredible, unreliable narrator, clever, yet flawed and broken. Kvothe opens his story with a hook - how he fell from grace as a powerful wizard to a humble innkeeper. Along the way, Rothfuss introduces incredible characters, who manage to be quirky yet realistic, bringing emotion and nuance to the tale. All of this is tied together with beautiful prose. It manages to be vivid, yet precise, integrating with several plot strands that give the feeling of an epic, but incomplete story. The second book leaves you listlessly waiting for the third, which has been six years in the making. Read if you like: Unreliable narrators, clever protagonists, music in fantasy.