The Supreme Court posted:

I really liked the first Mistborn book, but it's pretty similar to Rothfuss' stuff in that I found the 2nd and 3rd books so mediocre/ bad respectively that they almost retrospectively ruined the 1st novel, particularly the solutions to the plot problems/ magic system expansions.

Arbite posted:

It's far from fantasy but I quite enjoyed Sanderson's short SF story Firstborn.

Groovelord Neato posted:

I can't quite grasp the "i like the magic system" as a reason to read a book.

HIJK posted:

I tried to read the first Mistborn book and my eyes glazed over. Check it out from the library before purchasing,

Groovelord Neato posted:

I can't quite grasp the "i like the magic system" as a reason to read a book.

Avshalom posted:

Oh hello I didn't see you there. I'm Pendrick Rufus. A handsome modern man. I write a book. The sexy hero who can just gently caress gently caress gently caress for weeks at a time and all his partners squirt like a supersoaker, all his life he's just been a sinewy implication in the shadows of the bedchamber but now he's a white-hot reality who kindles a mighty inferno in the heart of her womanhood. He has a sword with a name. He's drop-dead gorgeous and he sings like a nightingale. The sexy hero is me. Sometimes I squeeze my lamb-shank appendage in a book until it turns blue. I keep all my beard shavings in case I ever need them. I tried twenty-six times to learn to pick locks but never succeeded. What I call a woman's secret passage, she calls her navel. I have never been loved. I've always been loved. I am a brain. I am love.

Avshalom posted:

Oh hello I didn't see you there. I'm Pendrick Rufus. A handsome modern man. I write a book. The sexy hero who can just gently caress gently caress gently caress for weeks at a time and all his partners squirt like a supersoaker, all his life he's just been a sinewy implication in the shadows of the bedchamber but now he's a white-hot reality who kindles a mighty inferno in the heart of her womanhood. He has a sword with a name. He's drop-dead gorgeous and he sings like a nightingale. The sexy hero is me. Sometimes I squeeze my lamb-shank appendage in a book until it turns blue. I keep all my beard shavings in case I ever need them. I tried twenty-six times to learn to pick locks but never succeeded. What I call a woman's secret passage, she calls her navel. I have never been loved. I've always been loved. I am a brain. I am love.

"NPR BOOK REVIEWS posted:

Slow Regard isn't the first novella set in the Kingkiller world that's appeared this year. A long story featuring the character Bast was published this summer in the anthology Rogues, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. Slow Regard is the better of the two, and it wholly warrants the full-book treatment, despite the fact that Rothfuss openly doubts this in his self-effacing foreword. If his doubt is a preemptive defense against readers who might be thrown off by the book's distinct, low-key voice, it's not necessary. Slow Regard is its own defense, a charming, lyrical meditation on the meaning of home: how we define it, how we carry it with us, and how we deal with the lure and fear of what lies beyond.

BananaNutkins posted:

I quit.

quote:

The prologue, “A Silence of Three Parts” is in an omniscient and distant “fantasy style” narration.

quote:

The innkeeper—still nameless—brings stew and bread. I can’t imagine why John Scalzi has a problem with this, but then stew is one of the staple foods of my culture. What Diana Wynne Jones complained about in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland wasn’t the existence of stew in fantasy but the way people eat it around the campfire, when in fact it takes hours to cook. But they’re in an inn, they’ve had hours, and goodness knows it’s a cheap and filling way of feeding people. Scalzi might think it’s a terrible cliche when I eat it as well. (Last summer when I was in Britain the weather was awful, and I ate stew twice, in an inn and in a castle—if you’re ever in Castell Coch, near Cardiff, order the stew. It may be a cliche, but it tastes great. You can have apple pie for dessert, unless that’s a cliche, too.)

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

If you don't like the quality of the books or their criticism being discussed, there's plenty of nerd forums where you can sing paeans to a fascinatingly bad series.

Also, theorycrafting is the dumbest possible method of artistic analysis.

Like that whole blog post series seems to miss such important questions like "is any of this well written"? Does it actually have anything substantial to say about the writing or --




e:


This person can only communicate literary criticism in the form of cliches and tropes.

Uranium Phoenix posted:

gently caress, sorry, I forgot that having fun with books is not okay, and we can only look at them as Art and compare them to classics like A Tale of Two Cities so that we can maximally belittle them.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

I actually have lots of fun with Kingkiller Chronicle. It's an almost inexhaustible source of fun for me. I could probably make whole essays about a single paragraph or even sentence Rothfuss has written.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

If some snide dismissal of theorycrafting is enough to ruin your day, aren't you the one unable to have fun?

Uranium Phoenix posted:

...because, "snide dismissal" got old 500 posts ago. Everything that isn't people calling Rothfuss history's greatest monster is met with snide dismissal. People are free to dismiss the book or criticize it, as they have, but the same criticisms repeated ad naseum get boring.

quote:

The thing that The Wise Man’s Fear proves beyond all doubt is that Rothfuss is in control of his material. He really knows what he’s doing and he’s prepared to take the time to do it right. This is all one story, and it’s a story in which storytelling is very important. We can trust him.
(...)
In any case, we now know for sure that the story is connected—that Denna and the Chandrian are central to the whole narrative.

anilEhilated posted:

Sorry the thread doesn't fit your standards for high entertainment, then?

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

ESTRAGON: I can't go on like this.
VLADIMIR: That's what you think.
ESTRAGON: If we parted? That might be better for us.
VLADIMIR: We'll hang ourselves tomorrow. (Pause.) Unless Godot comes.
ESTRAGON: And if he comes?
VLADIMIR: We'll be saved.

- Samuel Becket, Waiting for Godot


LET’S READ THE KINGKILLER CHRONICLE CRITICALLY

Preface (aka A Shitpost of Three Farts)

This is a critical reading of Patrick Rothfuss’s The Kingkiller Chronicle series of fantasy novels. It will critically examine The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear. This will not involve theorycrafting or whatever. We’re looking at what matters: the writing.

Attentive readers of this thread are aware that I loathe Rothfuss’s books and how they are written, and no doubt expect this reading to be biased and unfair.

My defense: I am also an attentive reader.

In this critical series, I hope to move beyond simplistic readings of The Kingkiller Chronicle. I will show, by discussing each chapter of the books, the principles behind effects of their writing. Hopefully by the end we will have exorcised the ghost that haunts us all.

The Name of the Wind posted:

It was night again. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

Titus Groan posted:

Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls.

The Name of the Wind posted:

His eyes were dark and distant, and he moved with the subtle certainty that comes with knowing many things.

quote:

It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

If you don't like the quality of the books or their criticism being discussed, there's plenty of nerd forums where you can sing paeans to a fascinatingly bad series.

Also, theorycrafting is the dumbest possible method of artistic analysis.

Like that whole blog post series seems to miss such important questions like "is any of this well written"? Does it actually have anything substantial to say about the writing or --




e:


This person can only communicate literary criticism in the form of cliches and tropes.

quote:

It was felling night, and the usual crowd had gathered at the Waystone Inn. Five wasn’t much of a crowd, but five was as many as the Waystone ever saw these days, times being what they were.

quote:

A moment of serious silence followed the news. The smith’s prentice laid a sympathetic hand on Carter’s shoulder. “drat. That’s hard. She was gentle as a lamb, too. Never tried to bite or kick when you brought her in for shoes. Best horse in town. drat. I’m…” He trailed off. “drat. I don’t know what to say.” He looked around helplessly.

quote:

Everyone startled, then relaxed when the black thing remained motionless. Cob and the others exchanged shaky smiles, like boys spooked by a ghost story. Their smiles went sour as the room filled with the sweet, acrid smell of rotting flowers and burning hair.

The innkeeper pressed the shim onto the table with a sharp click. “Well,” he said, brushing his hands against his apron. “I guess that settles that. What do we do now?”

***

Hours later, the innkeeper stood in the doorway of the Waystone and let his eyes relax to the darkness. Footprints of lamplight from the inn’s windows fell across the dirt road and the doors of the smithy across the way. It was not a large road, or well traveled. It didn’t seem to lead anywhere, as some roads do. The innkeeper drew a deep breath of autumn air and looked around restlessly, as if waiting for something to happen.

The Last Unicorn posted:

“Unicorns are long gone,” the second man said. “If, indeed, they ever were. This is a forest like any other.”

“Then why do the leaves never fall here, or the snow? I tell you, there is one unicorn left in the world—good luck to the lonely old thing, I say—and as long as it lives in this forest, there won’t be a hunter takes so much as a titmouse home at his saddle. Ride on, ride on, you’ll see. I know their ways, unicorns.”

“From books,” answered the other. “Only from books and tales and songs. Not in the reign of three kings has there been even a whisper of a unicorn seen in this country or any other. You know no more about unicorns than I do, for I’ve read the same books and heard the same stories, and I’ve never seen one either.”

The first hunter was silent for a time, and the second whistled sourly to himself. Then the first said, “My great-grandmother saw a unicorn once. She used to tell me about it when I was little.”

“Oh, indeed? And did she capture it with a golden bridle?”

“No. She didn’t have one. You don’t have to have a golden bridle to catch a unicorn; that part’s the fairy tale. You need only to be pure of heart.”

“Yes, yes.” The younger man chuckled. “Did she ride her unicorn, then? Bareback, under the trees, like a nymph in the early days of the world?”

quote:

“Today, master, I learned why great lovers have better eyesight than great scholars.”

“And why is that, Bast?” Kote asked, amusement touching the edges of his voice.

Bast closed the door and returned to sit in the second chair, turning it to face his teacher and the fire. He moved with a strange delicacy and grace, as if he were close to dancing. “Well Reshi, all the rich books are found inside where the light is bad. But lovely girls tend to be out in the sunshine and therefore much easier to study without risk of injuring one’s eyes.”

Kote nodded. “But an exceptionally clever student could take a book out-side, thus bettering himself without fear of lessening his much-loved faculty of sight.”

quote:

Bast opened his mouth, but Kote continued before he could say anything. “Yes, I made sure the pit was deep enough. Yes, I made sure there was rowan wood in the fire. Yes, I made sure it burned long and hot before they buried it. And yes, I made sure that no one kept a piece of it as a souvenir.” He scowled, his eyebrows drawing together. “I’m not an idiot, you know.”

Bast visibly relaxed, settling back into his chair. “I know you’re not, Reshi. But I wouldn’t trust half these people to piss leeward without help.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I can’t imagine why there was only one.”

quote:

“Begone demon!” Kote said, switching to a thickly accented Temic through half a mouthful of stew. “Tehus antausa eha!”

Bast burst into startled laughter and made an obscene gesture with one hand.

Kote swallowed and changed languages. “Aroi te denna-leyan!”

“Oh come now,” Bast reproached, his smile falling away. “That’s just insulting.”

“By earth and stone, I abjure you!” Kote dipped his fingers into the cup by his side and flicked droplets casually in Bast’s direction. “Glamour be banished!”

“With cider?” Bast managed to look amused and annoyed at the same time as he daubed a bead of liquid from the front of his shirt. “This better not stain.”

Kote took another bite of his dinner. “Go soak it. If the situation becomes desperate, I recommend you avail yourself of the numerous solvent formulae extant in Celum Tinture. Chapter thirteen, I believe.”

quote:

Still, each of them bought a piece of cold-wrought iron from the smith, heavy as they could swing, and none of them said what they were thinking. Instead they complained that the roads were bad and getting worse. They talked about merchants, and deserters, and levies, and not enough salt to last the winter. They reminisced that three years ago no one would have even thought of locking their doors at night, let alone barring them.

The conversation took a downward turn from there, and even though none of them said what they were thinking, the evening ended on a grim note. Most evenings did these days, times being what they were.

quote:

He pulled more beer for Jake, Shep, and Old Cob, moving with an air of bustling efficiency.

quote:

Old Cob tucked away his bowl of stew with the predatory efficiency of a lifetime bachelor.

quote:

He washed the tables and the bar, moving with a patient efficiency.