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Sophia posted:I got the impression that when she was asking them how magic worked at the musical bar that she was up to something nefarious on behalf of her patron. My guess is that that was the direction it was going to go in, but I could be wrong. She also asked if you could make someone do something by writing something or saying something while she was making patterns in the table. Who knows, could just be purposeful misleading but I was positive it would come up before the end of the book and nothing else was said about it.
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Mar 11, 2011 20:01
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Lt. Jebus posted:I think you meant Amyr. Adem are the kung fu immaculate conception warriors. Oh yeah. whoops.
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Mar 11, 2011 20:38
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LoSesMC posted:Just finished this today. Some parts of it dragged but I want more. In the mean time, any suggestions on what to read next? The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke. Heroes Die by Matthew Stover. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. Suggestions of a highly subjective nature: The Prince of Nothing by R. Scott Bakker. The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson Perdido Street Station by China Mieville American Gods by Neil Gaiman The Black Companyby Glen Cook. Things to avoid at all costs: Terry Goodkind Terry Brooks Any books by anyone named Terry Anything with Shannara in its title Anything that has Elf in its title Anything with a dragon on the cover Anything with a girl in a platekini on the cover The Malazan Books of the Fallen Dragonlance Anything remotely related to the letters T, S, and R
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Mar 11, 2011 20:47
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BananaNutkins posted:Any books by anyone named Terry Terry Pratchett. 
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Mar 11, 2011 20:56
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BananaNutkins posted:
Hey Hey Hey! Steven Erikson is a drat sight better than Patrick Rothfuss. And good lord, how can you recommend The Black Company and disparage The MBotF?
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Mar 11, 2011 21:34
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LoSesMC posted:Just finished this today. Some parts of it dragged but I want more. In the mean time, any suggestions on what to read next? The Warded Man by Peter V Brett Donkey posted:Kvothe's helplessness: I haven't read Name of the Wind in a while, but I think I remember Kvothe claiming he had to kill an angel or somesuch to accomplish some goal. I always guessed that to mean that killed Denna (possibly related to the face that her patron may be a Chandrian - see Ash/Cinder theory) or let her die and the trauma from that ruined him mentally. I just now had a revelation about this... and I finished the book a few days ago. Just hit me now reading the quote above about the rings. When the mael or whatever the demon guy in the mercenary skin was called, attacked them in the inn, Kvothe broke a bottle on it but couldn't light it on fire. As the smith's apprentice noticed, he was obviously trying to light it on fire, but without using a flame. If Kvothe was really just a big phony and some sort of scam artist, perpetuating a scam of his own legend, he wouldn't have tried that in a very seriously dangerous situation like that, because he'd have known it wouldn't do anything. He obviously USED to be able to do those things, but just is failing at it now.
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Mar 11, 2011 22:36
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Khatib posted:The Warded Man by Peter V Brett Assuming for a moment that Kvothe can't fight anymore, I would have to believe everything he said about his time with the Adem was a lie. You can definitely fall out of practice, but we're lead to believe Kvothe is still built like a brick poo poo house and from personal experience, techniques and movements come back very, very quickly. Alternatively, Patrick Rothfuss has never thrown a punch in his life and everything he knows about martial arts comes from movies. That second thing would actually explain a lot.
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Mar 11, 2011 23:24
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Benson Cunningham posted:Assuming for a moment that Kvothe can't fight anymore, I would have to believe everything he said about his time with the Adem was a lie. You can definitely fall out of practice, but we're lead to believe Kvothe is still built like a brick poo poo house and from personal experience, techniques and movements come back very, very quickly. Alternatively, Patrick Rothfuss has never thrown a punch in his life and everything he knows about martial arts comes from movies. That second thing would actually explain a lot.  I'll take Hollywood martial arts for $500, Alex.
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Mar 11, 2011 23:29
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Benson Cunningham posted:Assuming for a moment that Kvothe can't fight anymore, I would have to believe everything he said about his time with the Adem was a lie. You can definitely fall out of practice, but we're lead to believe Kvothe is still built like a brick poo poo house and from personal experience, techniques and movements come back very, very quickly. Alternatively, Patrick Rothfuss has never thrown a punch in his life and everything he knows about martial arts comes from movies. That second thing would actually explain a lot. It will be hand-waved away that, in this world, things are controlled via their true name. Without it, your core is lost. That's my guess. xwonderboyx posted:She also asked if you could make someone do something by writing something or saying something while she was making patterns in the table. Who knows, could just be purposeful misleading but I was positive it would come up before the end of the book and nothing else was said about it. Yeah, I was also like "hey, pay attention to this, it's going to be important" but then it vanished. Since he doesn't seem the type to write something like that with no purpose, it will probably come back in Book 3.
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Mar 11, 2011 23:32
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neongrey posted:Terry Pratchett. You have me there. But Thief of Time was and always will be utter crap. Daico posted:Malazan is a good series! The books on my questionable list are subjectively good. They either have issues with the prose, the pacing, or the content that can be overlooked because the sum is greater than the parts. Malazan, however, is objectively bad. It is badly written, badly paced, and lacking in originality. I would not recommend it to anyone, just as I would not recommend R.A. Salvatore, though certain people might find some amount of enjoyment in reading it as a guilty pleasure. I forgot to recommend the Earthsea books by Ursula K. Leguin. Rothfuss takes a lot of his magic system from her, but so have many other fantasy writers, and his books are more accessible.
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Mar 12, 2011 02:03
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BananaNutkins posted:You have me there. But Thief of Time was and always will be utter crap. Pfft. Troll. Edit: Let me clarify: While it does have pacing issues at times, there's a thread of people in here who'll leap to its defense as being clever, original, stunning, etc etc. Saying it's objectively bad is silly. Daico fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Mar 12, 2011 |
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Mar 12, 2011 02:39
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Daico posted:Pfft. Troll. Yea, I was thinking I was a little harsh. Maybe not objectively bad. Just terrifically bad for the popularity its received. Not as bad as Twilight or Dan Brown, but close. It's based on a role playing game campaign and it really shows. I'm pretty well read in a variety of genres and I won't say something is bad just because it doesn't fit my taste. For instance, Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner is a dreadful book, but it has value because of the brilliant prose. I didn't mean for this to break out into a discussion of the merits of the many fantasy book series, but for the guy who wanted something to read--Malazan is the last place you should start.
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Mar 12, 2011 02:56
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Sophia posted:It will be hand-waved away that, in this world, things are controlled via their true name. Without it, your core is lost. That's my guess. But it's such a tease! Rothfuss does this poo poo all the time, too. I almost want the series to go beyond a third book because I know the next one will end up being filled with silly poo poo punctuated by awesomeness which justifies the existence of the book. I was praising the poo poo out of NotW and trying to get friends to read it despite the mary-sue/gooniness of Kvothe but now I'm afraid they will take me up on it and get to the Felurian part 
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Mar 12, 2011 03:13
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BananaNutkins posted:
Wrong thread to ask this, but what's the deal with this book? I read the first 150 pages (which is 100 pages more than my normal "get me interested or get the gently caress out" threshold) and thought it was boring and going nowhere. Seconding the "Way of Kings" recommendation, though.
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Mar 12, 2011 06:21
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I think I'm in agreement with most of the other people here in that my favorite parts of the books are the brief glimpses of the pre-historical myths. Has someone collected them somewhere? I want to sift through them all again but I don't want to have to skim through the books to find them. Hopefully people will start adding to the wiki and make it easier to keep track of all the characters.
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Mar 12, 2011 09:04
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Ithaqua posted:Wrong thread to ask this, but what's the deal with this book? I read the first 150 pages (which is 100 pages more than my normal "get me interested or get the gently caress out" threshold) and thought it was boring and going nowhere. I enjoyed it because it was really fun trying to figure out which mythological figure Shadow(protagonist) is bumping into now. There are hundreds of cameos, and if you know your myths, that's exciting. The other reason is that the milieu is very original. Fantasy writers have been setting their stories in London for decades, including Gaiman, but American Gods does the same thing for little podunk America towns. All of the small towns Shadow visits are real, and I've been to several of them. The plot is pretty lose, but there are enough things hanging over Shadows head that it stays interesting, and some of the disparate threads come together near the end. Some. There is still a disconcerting amount of random cat girl sex (which is also in his other book Stardust), gay genie sex, and the famous vagina anaconda scene. If you want to pick up one of Gaiman's books, I'd suggest Neverwhere. If you've read Neverwhere, you've read everything he has to offer. He's a talented writer, but he's a little like Stephen King in that he rehashes the same stuff over and over again. That's just my opinion though. Some people might say Anansi Boys was "different", but I say it was Neverwhere mixed with American Gods with all the good parts removed.
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Mar 12, 2011 13:37
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I went to the book signing in St. Louis and I thought you guys may be interested in some of the things he said. Someone asked about the editing process and how much was left on the floor (actually this was asked a couple times). Rothfuss mentioned that one thing he ended up trimming out was some Elodin scenes. Elodin is one of his favorite characters to write, and apparently early versions had so many Elodin scenes it really started to drag. Secondly, he mentioned that his editor pretty much didn't make him take anything out. He would call her up and say "Wow this book is long" and she would say "Don't worry about it!". Finally, she told him that his hard limit was 420,000 words because that's the longest book ever published and the most that can be bound in a paperback novel. So yeah, his editor basically didn't do anything but make sure his book wasn't longer than the longest book ever written. He very very adamantly stated that this series will be 3 books and only 3 books. He loves the world and there's a lot in it that he hasn't told us, but he has no desire to make it more than three books. He said he might make a game out of it and he might release an annotated version with more information. If the books were turned into a movie, he said he'd cast Morena Baccarin as Fela and while he wasn't really sure who he'd do for Kvothe or Denna, he threw out Natalie Portman as a possibility for Denna. He made clear that he has absolutely no intention of trying to turn this into a movie, however. Overall, Rothfuss was pretty much an awesome guy. He was really funny and well-spoken and the event was a lot of fun. The comments he made about the editing process made it very apparent why some of the weird things that happen in Book 2 end up lasting such a huge period of time since it seems like no one was there to tell Rothfuss he was getting lost in his own fantasies. I wish he had a stronger editor because Rothfuss is a great writer that makes a very compelling book but man could huge swathes of this book have been pruned out.
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Mar 13, 2011 19:08
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syrup posted:I went to the book signing in St. Louis and I thought you guys may be interested in some of the things he said. I find it hilarious that his only limit was to not be longer than physically possible. I still love the poo poo out of his books despite their flaws. They're fun to read so, like, whatever man.
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Mar 13, 2011 19:43
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Why in God's name would they cut out Elodin scenes of all things? That's some of the best stuff he writes!
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Mar 13, 2011 20:20
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Just around page 330 now. Honestly maybe this will change when the (more) embarrassing sex/relationship stuff starts but I just cannot stop reading what he writes. I mean, I'm being given boring descriptions about how magic works and stuff about numbers and geometry when throwing a stone and I just have to keep reading the drat book. I was up to 3am yesterday and most of today I find my mind wandering off to think about what I've read and try to find excuses to wander past my Kindle and sit down "for five minutes". The "joke for musicians" was probably the most grating thing so far though. drat that was smug.
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Mar 13, 2011 20:41
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I don't think anyone in this thread denies that he is a fantastic writer. His story-telling is first rate. It's the story that he tells that people are objecting to.  It would be nice if the reason that the story is like this is because he's making Kvothe out to be a complete weirdo / loser in some respects, but I don't think that's where he's going.
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Mar 13, 2011 23:13
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Sophia posted:It would be nice if the reason that the story is like this is because he's making Kvothe out to be a complete weirdo / loser in some respects, but I don't think that's where he's going. I don't know about Kvothe being a weirdo or loser, but Rothfuss has said several times that Kvothe is a 'tragic hero.'
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Mar 14, 2011 00:32
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I feel like the last book is going to make or break the trilogy. There is a fair amount of action that has to happen to fulfill all the legends and foreshadowing.
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Mar 14, 2011 02:17
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Chachikoala posted:I feel like the last book is going to make or break the trilogy. There is a fair amount of action that has to happen to fulfill all the legends and foreshadowing. Maybe he will get kicked out of the university immediately and go on awesome adventures leading up to the present for about 400 pages and the remaining 600 pages will be [/spoiler]him remember who he is and kicking rear end.[/spoiler] So I want Kvothe to be the real deal and have an awesome final book with a happy ending. Sue me.
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Mar 14, 2011 02:25
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Forgive me if this has been mentioned already. Kvothe mentions several times that his Alar is like Ramston Steel. He mentions it so often I feel like Rothfuss could be trying to say something. When Kvothe buys the Ramston steel knife from the tinker there is a small discussion about how brittle the metal is. I think the tinker says something along the lines of "It's the best knife you will ever own. Until it breaks." Maybe Kvothe 'broke' his Alar/mind in some way. He may be able to still reach Heart of Stone to some degree but when it comes to the real heavy-duty mental acrobatics he simply can't accomplish what he used to. I doubt I'm right, but goddamn does he use that comparison often.
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Mar 14, 2011 02:37
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It really feels like Kvothe is paralleling the life of Taborlin the Great. He knows the names of things. He called down the lightning. And apparently, he has a cloak of no particular color. I'm waiting to see if this plays out into something important plot-wise in the next book.
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Mar 14, 2011 03:25
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syrup posted:He very very adamantly stated that this series will be 3 books and only 3 books. Am I the only one who's more than a little worried about this? We find out in WMF that in present daysome, if not all the Chandrian are still around. In addition to the Spider demons,skin dancer things and the war (all things he's supposedly responsible for), there seems that there's quite a bit of ground for the last book to cover. I have no doubt that Pat has everything planned out, but as things with the present-day Kvothe stand, I can't help but feel the final book will be rushing to reach a satisfying resolution, what with him having to finish his story as well as taking care of the things mentioned above.
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Mar 14, 2011 03:32
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I feel like he may well be just referring to Kvothe's story to Chronicler. There's obviously no way he's going to fit a satisfying conclusion to Kvothe's past and further the present-day story significantly, so the trilogy'll probably wrap up the past and then he may or may not write present-day Kvothe.
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Mar 14, 2011 03:42
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CaptainScraps posted:It really feels like Kvothe is paralleling the life of Taborlin the Great. He knows the names of things. He called down the lightning. And apparently, he has a cloak of no particular color. I'm waiting to see if this plays out into something important plot-wise in the next book. I totally agree. Check out my post above about Taborlin's three tools and Auri. New plot twist? Possibly, I think this is original detectiving but someone more clever than me probably already came up with it. Or it's so simple it's assumed. The Chancellor was poisoned either by the Amyr or a Chandrian ally. Denna happens to know/be learning Yllish, Denna's patron is very mysterious and is most likely Cinder but could be an Amyr. The reason I say it could be an Amyr is because Kvothe will probably end up killing her patron, turns out he's an Amyr, etc etc. So I think both the Amyr and the Chandrian would know Yllish, they both clearly don't mind killing (the crazy doctor), and they both want to keep their secrets. Thus, I state the Chancellor was not an Amyr, but that the Amyr and/or the Chandrian have infiltrated the university to a large degree. Lyon fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Mar 14, 2011 |
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Mar 14, 2011 03:57
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I don't think the third book will wrap up the story in a traditional way. From the beginning of the first book, Kvothe is always like, "this isn't a happy story." I imagine we get all of his back story, maybe a 100 page wrap up in present day, and things don't turn out well for anyone. Definitely going to be a tragedy.
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Mar 14, 2011 04:02
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Maybe this has been thought of already, but could the king that Kvothe kills be Ambrose? One of his friends mentions that Ambrose is now 13th in line for the throne and given their hatred of them it makes sense in a way.
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Mar 14, 2011 11:39
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If this doesn't end one way or another at the end of book three, may as well just call him proto-grrm and start following his blog for football facts.
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Mar 14, 2011 19:21
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Evfedu posted:If this doesn't end one way or another at the end of book three, may as well just call him proto-grrm and start following his blog for football facts. Supposedly the novel was "complete" before he got the book deal. It was a single rough draft of a novel that was broken down into three parts. It's probably got an ending, but maybe not the ending we'd all like. I've been trying to track down his short story that one the Writers of the Future contest for awhile now. Has anyone read it? It's an adapted portion of one section in the Kingkiller chronicles, and I'd like to see how he pulled that off.
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Mar 14, 2011 19:37
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“The Road to Levenshir” by Patrick Rothfuss. Oh God. The second worst story in the book. Maybe the worst. At least “Windseekers” is original. Set in vaguely medieval times (in an SCA-ish sort of way) we follow our troubadour hero as he encounters some bad guys pretending to be his people, the Edema Ruh (read “gypsies”); he rescues two girls and teaches some townsfolk the error of their ways. And this is also an excerpt from a LONGER novel. Aaaarrrggghhh! Ripped that from here. Spoiler is from The Wise Man's Fear, so if you've read the book there's nothing to fear with the spoiler. Lyon fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Mar 14, 2011 |
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Mar 14, 2011 20:22
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I think I figured out why the Felurian/other sexual parts suck, in a way. It seriously seems like he hired Piers Anthony to write any scene having to do with sex. As I read those scenes, it was intense deja vu back to when I was reading Xanth and especially Apprentice Adept in high school. Hell, Felurian could be the loving unicorn chick Stile gets busy with in AA.
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Mar 15, 2011 00:31
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Edit: ^^ Yeah, that too. I have to admit, about 50% into Wise Man's Fear, and having really loved Name of the WInd, I'm sort of getting a bit sick of how dumb Kvothe is for someone who is unusually intelligent. I'm hoping it trends upwards - and don't get me wrong, it's still a mostly compelling read - but I feel like the book could just as easily have been called 'The Misadventures of an Exceedingly Brilliant Teenager Who Makes Exceedingly Stupid Decisions.' Edit #2 (sorry guys, I just found this thread): Sophia posted:The most annoying thing is that when he does get money he spends it all and then atthe end of the next chapter he's like "gently caress! I need more money again???" Why does he always seem so surprised by it? Habibi fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Mar 15, 2011 |
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Mar 15, 2011 00:47
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Habibi posted:Edit: ^^ Yeah, that too. Well the lute was a fair purchase. It gave him a lot of emotional comfort and he was skilled enough that, worst case, he could use it to get enough to eat and get by.
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Mar 15, 2011 04:50
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finished the book and loved it. I really felt that by the end Kvothe does not actually lend himself to being a very trustworthy narrator. There were several instances where I found myself doubting the character (and not the author) Also I was at a signing this evening and Patrick is a really honestly funny guy. He wouldn't let anyone ask any questions regarding the second book so as not to spoil anyone and for readings he read some of his humor columns from college and some poetry he'd written. Also I asked him how to pronounce Cthaeh (and I was right for once in my own head!) Kuh - thay - uh treeboy fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Mar 15, 2011 |
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Mar 15, 2011 05:23
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All y'all need to read some urban fantasy if the Felurian/Adem stuff triggered your gag reflex. It certainly wasn't great and if it randomly cropped up in David Foster Wallace or something I'd certainly be wondering what happened, but by the standards of the genre there was a distinct lack of turgidity and pulsating. The 'I'm god's gift to women' thing has pretty much been telegraphed from page 1 of NotW. Roguish wandering minstrel with a tortured soul, unique physical characteristics, and uniquely talented hands? Of course he's going to bang anything that moves in a fantasy novel. :/ Anyways, with regards to the descriptions of Kvothe in 'real-time' in NotW/tWMF, I think he's lost his ability to focus mentally. Rothfuss seems to really be driving home the whole point of, essentially, stances for doing magic (Heart of Stone), melee combat/naming (Turning Leaf), and music (unnamed, but if you look at how he's described as being taken up by the notes etc it's basically yet another view of the world or whatever). The ability to actually do those mental shifts consistently and well seems to be what makes him our turbo-super-duper protagonist, so taking away that flexibility should account for the weird behaviors, as well as the occasional flashes of brilliance. Unrelated curiousity: how is his ring collection doing? By my accounting, we have Air from Auri, Iron/Bone/Wood from his adventures in the Maer's palace (Iron negotiable since he was technically made to give it back). The whole "rawr special tribal exception to the rules #12b" bit felt much too forced for those to be a coincidence or something that Rothfuss was just throwing away.
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Mar 15, 2011 07:09
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syrup posted:Finally, she told him that his hard limit was 420,000 words because that's the longest book ever published and the most that can be bound in a paperback novel. Out of idle curiosity, how long IS this book in words? EDIT: Found the answer to my own question. Rothfuss: Wise Man's Fear ended up being 395,000 words. This book is really that close to being the longest book ever published? Man, not much really happened. Comrade Flynn fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Mar 15, 2011 |
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Mar 15, 2011 07:44
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