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anilEhilated posted:To be fair he'd probably axe the whole Mary Sue issue and made some proletarian nobody the one who actually did poo poo while whatshisface gets the credit. Kvothe, for all his faults, is much more proletarian than, say, Ambrose... ...I mean, fine, he's on the assembly line in a magic factory, but he's still working on an assembly line.
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Jan 20, 2015 20:55
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Boing posted:I don't really get the praise for Rothfuss's prose either. It's not the worst I've ever read, but it's nothing special - it reads without incident at best and makes me cringe a little too often. It's all permeated by this sense of smugness where he seems to think he's much cleverer than he actually is, and that grates. I found it pretty good by the standards of the genre. Which is damning him with more faint praise than I'd like but heck, that's how I feel about it!
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Jan 21, 2015 00:34
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I just read the The Slow Regard of Silent Things. I thought it was really, really good. I went back through the first two books again to find tidbits I had missed, and thought I had found a few. One in particular though raised my eyebrow. ]Was Auri's little "Foxen" lantern one of Kilvins every burning lamps???
Lordboots fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Jan 21, 2015 |
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Jan 21, 2015 01:26
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Lordboots posted:I just read the The Slow Regard of Silent Things. I thought it was really, really good. I went back through the first two books again to find tidbits I had missed, and thought I had found a few. One in particular though raised my eyebrow. ]Was Auri's little "Foxen" lantern one of Kilvins every burning lamps??? I don' think so. Foxen doesn't burn. It glows. Kilvin specifically says in Kvothe's first admission interview that he wanted an ever burning lamp, not an ever glowing one.
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Jan 21, 2015 08:34
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Wittgen, is that a serious post
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Feb 4, 2015 00:59
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Wendell posted:Wittgen, is that a serious post Is what a serious post? I'm not sure what you're talking about.
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Feb 4, 2015 03:20
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Wittgen posted:Is what a serious post? I'm not sure what you're talking about. Probably where you forcefully distinguish the difference between burning and glowing.
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Feb 4, 2015 16:29
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Benson Cunningham posted:Probably where you forcefully distinguish the difference between burning and glowing. The Name of the Wind posted:Kilvin growled out a couple words and pounded his fist on the table, each thump as his hand came down was accompanied by a staccato burst of reddish light that welled up from his hand. “No sympathy. I do not want an ever-glowing lamp. I want an ever-burning one.” The Slow Regard of Silent Things posted:There was just enough light to see the pale shape of her arm as her fingers found the dropper bottle on her bedshelf. She unscrewed it and let a single drip fall into Foxen’s dish. After a moment he slowly brightened into a faint gloaming blue.
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Feb 4, 2015 16:41
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ulmont posted:That's straight from the books though. You missed where I wasn't passing judgement just bringing clarity.
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Feb 4, 2015 18:33
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I think it you brought up a key detail Wittigen, for sure. I've been thinking about it and I think that Foxen was probably not a perpetually burning, or even glowing lamp(bottle?). The simple fact dawned on me that she had to "re"-light it means that at some point it had gone out, unless she created it new at that point in the story. I do have a few other questions on some details I think I missed however! The first one is, was the small figurine Aurie found an Amyr? My second question is, what exactly did Aurie call the name of near the end of the story?
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Feb 6, 2015 20:57
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 This is how I will choose to imagine Kvothe from now on.
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Feb 7, 2015 05:56
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Tuna_Fish_Odyssey posted:
I'm sticking with this one. 
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Feb 7, 2015 06:30
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That guy is the real deal because he has the lute. The other one is just a poser.
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Feb 7, 2015 11:40
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calandryll posted:That guy is the real deal because he has the lute. The other one is just a poser. Maybe it's a spoiler from the next book. There's gonna be 700 pages describing how Kvothe taught himself how to play the guitar to impress Denna, thus solidifying him as the most realistic portrayal of a teenaged boy in literary history.
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Feb 7, 2015 18:54
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Solice Kirsk posted:Maybe it's a spoiler from the next book. There's gonna be 700 pages describing how Kvothe taught himself how to play the guitar to impress Denna, thus solidifying him as the most realistic portrayal of a teenaged boy in literary history. And then it will turn out the narrator was unreliable and he only taught himself one song, and it will be even more realistic.
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Feb 7, 2015 19:25
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Last time I checked this thread, someone mentioned Robin Hobbs so I read 14 of her books and Fitz is way shittier than Kvothe, tbqh 
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Feb 11, 2015 08:01
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Yes but are the books better? I just started Assassin's Apprentice and while I can see how GURM would copy some of the writing style it's a better book than NOTW so far.
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Feb 11, 2015 20:25
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Evil Fluffy posted:Yes but are the books better? I just started Assassin's Apprentice and while I can see how GURM would copy some of the writing style it's a better book than NOTW so far. Like, I read 14 of them in the last 2 months but it often felt like I was hanging out with a friend who had persistent low-grade depression and made bad and dumb choices. But I am cliffhanging for the next one in August or whatever, so
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Feb 12, 2015 05:33
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Evil Fluffy posted:Yes but are the books better? It's really no contest.
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Feb 12, 2015 06:03
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Habibi posted:And then it will turn out the narrator was unreliable and he only taught himself one song, and it will be even more realistic. "I have glimpsed the Chandrian and lived to tell the tale. I have spoken with the Cthaeh and did not go mad. I have brought down kings and empires and I am the greatest magician this world has ever seen. welp, here's wonderwall"
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Feb 13, 2015 05:55
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Reene posted:"I have glimpsed the Chandrian and lived to tell the tale. I have spoken with the Cthaeh and did not go mad. I have brought down kings and empires and I am the greatest magician this world has ever seen. welp, here's wonderwall" If he wrote 3 books and 2,500 pages to make a wonderwall joke, I would choke down my malice, swallow my hate, and shake that son of a bitch's hand.
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Feb 13, 2015 07:02
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Ornamented Death posted:It's really no contest. Yeah I'm getting through the first book and it's very clear that this is far better than Rothfuss. Like I'm only past the part where Fitz is taught the Skill by Galen, but 'fails' and just had Verity lift the cloud that had him think he was terrible and had no knack for the Skill and while Fitz is mopey at times it's not even close to Kvothe or even Kaladin levels of  though I know I would be if I had his luck with pets. 
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Feb 13, 2015 07:17
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King of Gulps posted:Like, I read 14 of them in the last 2 months but it often felt like I was hanging out with a friend who had persistent low-grade depression and made bad and dumb choices. But I am cliffhanging for the next one in August or whatever, so What did you think of the last one? I read it and thought it was just alright but it had been so long since I read the previous trilogies that I really didn't remember anything about a couple of the characters that got a lot of play in this one.
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Feb 14, 2015 17:21
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savinhill posted:What did you think of the last one? I read it and thought it was just alright but it had been so long since I read the previous trilogies that I really didn't remember anything about a couple of the characters that got a lot of play in this one. She has a habit, especially in the first book of a trilogy, of just hitting a page count and saying "There, I made a book". Everything is setup (Here's the totally rude and unbelievably entitled princess, wonder if she'll redeem herself by book 3?), except for the parts that aren't (Lant being either the next coming of Fitz, or wait, a weak-willed friend-zoned classist noble, or wait now he's dead after not really doing anything). Fitz (and everyone else, really - refusing to talk when she probably should is Bee's main character trait) plods through the world in a haze of Dunning-Krueger misinterpretations, where stopping for two minutes to think or talk before acting would save everyone a ton of trouble (Hey it's someone who looks exactly like the long lost friend I can't shut up about, on the brink of death, with an important message that I've waited for for a decade and urgent warnings about right this second. If only I didn't have to go eat dinner now, bye mysterious stranger. The fundamental conceit is a first-person narrator who doesn't know that he is functionally omniscient and is too dumb to make use of it. This is either maddening, or intriguing depending on who you are.
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Feb 16, 2015 17:15
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I preferred the first Liveship trilogy to the first Fitz trilogy, possibly making me the only one. It felt more like ASOIAF than Rothfuss, though, unlike the Assassin books.
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Feb 16, 2015 19:18
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I finished The Slow Regard of Silent Things a few days ago, and honestly was not very impressed. I enjoy Auri and all, don't get me wrong, but it felt to me that most of the book was just him repeating the same lines about her quirks repeatedly, over and over again, until they're not really novel or flavourful anymore, they're just irritating. I liked following her train of thought and scurrying around the Underthing, but I felt like the writing was very lackluster. Is his short story about Bast worth reading, in whatever short-story compendium?
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Feb 25, 2015 17:03
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Johnny Truant posted:I finished The Slow Regard of Silent Things a few days ago, and honestly was not very impressed. I enjoy Auri and all, don't get me wrong, but it felt to me that most of the book was just him repeating the same lines about her quirks repeatedly, over and over again, until they're not really novel or flavourful anymore, they're just irritating. I liked following her train of thought and scurrying around the Underthing, but I felt like the writing was very lackluster. Ah, but you see, Auri thinks with that kind of repetition, so its artsy! Somehow. I really enjoyed the Bast story, much better than Slow Regard.
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Feb 25, 2015 17:11
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I agree. Bast's story is pretty great, and really fleshed out his character for me. His thought processes and schemes are fun to follow.
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Feb 25, 2015 18:32
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After not reading regularly for quite awhile, I picked up Rothfuss' books to help pad out an Amazon order, and drat I'm glad I did. They're the best books I can recall reading (though I don't doubt classics like Tolkien would be better, were I to refresh my memory with a re-read of them), and I find myself re-reading selections from them almost every week. I won't disagree with people who enjoy other books more or find faults in his writing, as that comes down to personal opinion in most cases, but holy crap when Book 3 comes out I expect to fully lose it. In other words, if anyone reading this hasn't read some Rothfuss, I strongly encourage you to give at least book 1 a try. Now that I know there's a thread I'll be sure to pop in to discuss book 3!
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Feb 26, 2015 16:40
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Yeah book one is pretty good.
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Feb 26, 2015 18:34
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Habibi posted:Yeah book one is pretty good. TBB > Patrick Rothfuss: Book One was OK.
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Feb 26, 2015 23:06
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NowonSA posted:Now that I know there's a thread I'll be sure to pop in to discuss book 3! See you in five years then.
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Feb 27, 2015 01:03
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Junk Science posted:See you in five years then. Sigh, sadly that's probably not far from the truth.
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Feb 27, 2015 06:59
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We can cut right to the chase and just discuss how much money Kvothe has at any given time since that's what 70% of the book will inevitably be about.
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Mar 2, 2015 04:56
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Solice Kirsk posted:We can cut right to the chase and just discuss how much money Kvothe has at any given time since that's what 70% of the book will inevitably be about. I think we are going to be freed of that disaster since he has achieved some measure of income by the end of book two.
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Mar 2, 2015 07:35
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If you write your book while keeping an excel doc of the protagonist's funds at any given time, you probably need to to play a little less D&D.
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Mar 2, 2015 12:12
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Karnegal posted:If you write your book while keeping an excel doc of the protagonist's funds at any given time, you probably need to to play a little less D&D. Rothfuss was the kind of DM who kept trac of players' rations and spell components just so he could let them know when they suddenly died of starvation/dehydration, or that they can't cast that fireball spell at those trolls because he's half a pinch of sulfur short.
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Mar 3, 2015 02:21
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I remember once in the Tvtropes mock thread that there was an aspiring writer asking for advice on the TvT forums, because they'd gotten stuck on a bit of the story. Their problem was that the hero had run out of health potions, and wouldn't be able to defeat the bad guy without dying. Even tropers had some trouble wrapping their head around that one. It was an absurd conclusion of "if I just write a setting with strict rules, then a story will naturally emerge!".
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Mar 3, 2015 03:05
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Benson Cunningham posted:I think we are going to be freed of that disaster since he has achieved some measure of income by the end of book two. Well, until he gets thrown out of the school. Then fun with funds can start again. Hopefully peppered with musings about Denna. Maybe if there's time left we can get to that whole king killing or Chandrian hunting stuff.....if there's time.
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Mar 3, 2015 04:52
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Wouldn't want to rush it. It sometimes reads like Patrick Rothfuss set out NOT to write the story of young orphaned boy saves world, and then as his last keystroke crept from his white knighting fingers, a gentle "ah gently caress" left his lips.
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Mar 3, 2015 16:18
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