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Earwicker posted:I don't think anyone is saying Rothfuss should be except from criticism, especially considering the poster you are quoting has been very critical of Rothfuss's actual writing. If he doesn't feel like writing any more that's fine. If he doesn't feel like writing any more but just won't admit it and instead continues to act like he's writing or going to then he deserves to get poo poo on for it. If he came out and said "yeah I'm done with the books, sorry guys I have other poo poo I want to do" then he'd get hate briefly and people would move on. Earwicker posted:This is really only the business of someone's employer or someone they've entered into an actual contract with. I don't see why random fans or internet people deserve anything or should care. If you can't understand why people don't like being lied to then so be it.
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Jan 19, 2016 19:55
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Srice posted:Most authors in general don't exactly willingly lie about release dates. Not exactly a shining endorsement of someone's writing if they believed they were done with a book in 2010 but what was written needed 5+ years of work to make it worth publishing.
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Jan 19, 2016 21:20
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jivjov posted:I again would like to put forward that there's a bit difference between "I am done with this trilogy I wrote in school" and "I am done with a trilogy of professional-level novels" And Rothfuss, the guy you're defending like your life depends on it, doesn't either despite being a professional writer. Keep in mind that if you truly believe what you posted then Rothfuss, a guy you're vehemently defending, is a professional writer who had something they considered "done" yet the finished thing was in such bad shape it has take the better part of a decade to put in a printable shape.
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Jan 20, 2016 07:05
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Torrannor posted:And to think that Brandon Sanderson was thinking about an alternative title to his third Stormlight Archive book, which will be named Stones Unhallowed, if Doors of Stone comes out first. I thought the 3rd book was still going to be called Oathkeeper? Though I don't care what it's called after reading that teaser chapter of the Blackthorn in action. 
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Jan 20, 2016 18:14
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Jivjov has written more in this thread in the last 24 hours than Rothfuss has likely written for Doors of Stone.
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Jan 20, 2016 19:58
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jivjov if you'd like to know what an author who actually communicates in a rational way looks like, here's Sanderson's recent update (some spoilers) on Oathbringer, one of several books he's working on: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/41r099/oathbringer_spoilers_stormlight_three_update_2/ He even talks about how things have changes over time as he worked on the series. Granted, Sanderson is a printing press wrapped in human skin but he's also open with his fans and said openness isn't just "oh I'm working on book HEY GUYS CHECK OUT [non-book stuff] AIN"T IT COOL" like Rothfuss does. I'm not going to expect Rothfuss (or most writers) to keep people up to date like Sanderson does but when you see how other writers who aren't GRRM work, it's pretty easy to understand how Rothfuss comes across looking like a distracted goony gently caress.
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Jan 20, 2016 21:58
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Earwicker posted:the main thing I really don't get about the whole Rothfuss thing is why anyone in their right mind would want to watch him (or any other fantasy author) play videogames in the first place. Watching speedruns like AGDQ is pretty cool but random streams of people playing games are awful as hell and a lot of people don't realize they have a voice fit for Newspaper.
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Jan 21, 2016 00:06
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pentyne posted:I will say that compared to tons of other fantasy series Rothfuss' uses more vivid language but doesn't employ it as a device to enhance his storytelling because he's still bogged down by tiresome cliches and some terrible plot choices. The sex ninja part of WMF, the fighting especially, is such awful word salad that it was amazing.
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Jan 27, 2016 17:54
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Is that you, Patrick? 
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Jan 27, 2016 22:18
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Earwicker posted:Those authors can certainly be categorized as fantasy but they aren't genre fluff written purely for entertainment, which is what Rothfuss's stuff is. Of course it doesn't have literary merits. I mean it kind of goes without saying. What do you think Tolkien's stuff is written for if not entertainment? Do you think he wrote LOTR as some sort of deep philosophical experiment?  He's not considered 'genre fluff' because he's considered the father of said genre. mallamp posted:Rothfuss may not be a good writer, but his books do have that literary SOMETHING that makes you feel like you aren't reading complete manchild books (i.e. Brandon Sanderson or Steven Erikson, or let's just say all epic fantasy, you know, Lotr or edgy Lotr-stuff). He's like Rowling, not a nobelist, but wouldn't be ashamed of liking. Not sure what reality you're from where WMF wasn't a manchild escapist book but whatever floats your boat.
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Feb 1, 2016 19:28
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mallamp posted:It absolutely is but in same way Dickens at its most commercial is - you don't FEEL like you're reading bs If you didn't feel that way when you got to the Felurian "OMG UR TOTES NOT A VIRGIN*" or most of the Adem stuff IDK what to tell you. That were some of the worst garbage I've read in the last decade. * Or the barmaid who had sexdar, apparently, and could tell Kvothe was telling the truth because ~sexy reasons~ or whatever that absurd poo poo was.
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Feb 1, 2016 22:58
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CerealCrunch posted:Don't like it? It's not for you! -Patrick Rothfuss, defending Slow Regard against its (numerous) critics. HIJK posted:This is true. Anita Blake novels, badly written as they are, are literally about a werevampire heroine who has a harem of male sex slaves at her beck and call. These novels sell like gangbusters to a female audience. I bet there are hundreds like them out there. Skimming through the various fantasy lists on iBooks or Kindle is always pages upon pages of sex fantasy poo poo. I'm sure it was bad before 50 Shades of Grey but that Twilight-fanfic-turned-blockbuster definitely made it worse.
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Feb 3, 2016 22:51
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Solice Kirsk posted:Can we get a thread title change from all this new attention? Maybe something like Patrick Rothfuss: From Talents to Trash or, you know, something actually funny? Patrick Rothfuss: A Bad Author in Three Parts
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Feb 5, 2016 05:23
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Warbreaker is free on Sanderson's site and probably better written than Mistborn (and shorter), so I'd suggest starting with that. Afterwards either hit the Mistborn or Stormlight books. After you read the Mistborn trilogy if you're interested in more then there's Alloy of Law and its subsequent books, as well as the Secret History (do not read this before you finish Mistborn and maybe the Wax and Wayne books). Stormlight is good but it's a bit of a slow start. It's also his long, long term project so if you're expecting closure you're going to be waiting a good 15+ years even at Sanderson's inhumanly fast writing speed. I haven't read Elantris yet but it did, or is supposed to, get a rewrite to fix up some of its issues so that may make it better.
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Feb 5, 2016 20:50
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Bravest you're doing God's work.
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Feb 17, 2016 00:40
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HELLO LADIES posted:Well, it's Rothfuss, so he means a katana. It'sbad since the idea of "you can tell it's a sword but the locals wouldn't know" is awful writing. Either it's implying the locals are borderline retarded, or the sword is so alien looking that we somehow know it's a sword yet the average villager wouldn't unless it's shaped like a different weapon, like an axe, but is still technically a sword. If it's something like a katana anyone who knows what a sword is would know the katana's a sword. Even if you dropped a katana in 12th century England the peasants would still know it's a sword. Someone might think it's a weird rapier or something but they'd know what type of weapon it is. Nobody would think "ah this is clearly a scythe for harvesting wheat!" This let's read is just reminding me how loving bad this story is and reinforcing that yes, it was definitely written by a college-aged weeaboo. With any luck Rothfuss eventually realized this and that's why Doors of Stone is still nowhere in sight. BananaNutkins posted:Side note: Kote mentions his "granda" in this chapter, but we never actually see his grandparents in the novel, do we? Just his aunt. Ague Proof posted:"The bird let out a slow chicken cackle. It sounded like a chicken, but in her heart she knew it wasn't. In that instant, she completely understood the concept of a chicken that was not a chicken. This looked like a chicken, like most of the Mud People's chickens. But this was no chicken. I'm really glad I never read those books and only watched the amusingly campy at times TV show on Netflix.
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Feb 18, 2016 18:50
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Aquarium Gravel posted:Nope. There would be a significant lead time between finished book and actual delivery to store shelves, even if he were done today, and he's not. I'm sure he's writing something, but it's not book 3. If he's doing any Kingkiller work right now it's going to be related to the TV/Movie stuff as that can make him a hell of a lot more money than the next book ever will. Oxxidation posted:Does aggrandizing a character to this extent ever end well? I haven't seen a case this severe since the Drizzt Forgotten Realms books (I was eleven and I got them out of my dad's attic, don't judge). Feist does a similar thing in the Riftwar books. Though reminders of how powerful Pug et al are is fine at times, he kinda goes off the deep end in the Chaoswar books. Especially once he gets in to the whole space-time/cosmic perspective stuff which is just terrible and makes you want to skip ahead to the Kingdom-related stuff since that ends up being better than, or at least not as  as, the stuff involving the main character of the series.Though at the same time, Feist writes more in 300 pages than Rothfuss does in 1000.
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Feb 24, 2016 08:40
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HIJK posted:It's been said before but man, Rothfuss just should have left this behind as his practice novel from his college days and moved on to something totally new. Half of these problems are probably because he tried to salvage years-old prose and couldn't or wouldn't cut the worst of it because he didn't want to rewrite that much. This is probably why Book 3 is still nowhere in sight. Maybe someone at the publisher realized that the rough spots in NotW weren't a fluke and were getting worse, so after WMF they told him to fix everything from the ground up out of fear that Doors of Stone would continue to to get worse than sex ninjas and barmaid sexdar. Somehow. Or maybe it's because he sent them Slow Regard with his snobby-as-gently caress preface and realized he's a giant tool. 
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Feb 28, 2016 00:23
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Flattened Spoon posted:His legend represents stories being twisted into something else either by himself or by other people vs. what actually happened, which is what Kvothe is narrating. Except so far there's been very few things twisted. Him learning a language in a day is probably the only major one, since he clarified he only learned a sentence and not the entire language. He still managed to wow a sex goddess and not only be allowed to live even after meeting an all-knowing fae creature who is so evil that an order of fae creatures make a point to kill anyone who talks to it but receives a gift from Felurian as well. If anything his telling of that part of the story is probably more over the top than any legend spread by other people. Maybe his Naming her is why she thinks he was amazing at sex and all, but if she was so strongly under his power then she wouldn't threaten him when he brings up the whatever-the-gently caress that tree creature's name is called. Any sort of Man vs Legend that NotW builds up is gutted by WMF. Except, ironically, for the sex parts (maybe). Rothfuss is as goony as he looks. BravestOfTheLamps posted:So the story is about nothing. Thousands of pages of narrative represent no greater truth. It worked for Seinfeld.
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Mar 2, 2016 17:13
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Ornamented Death posted:The current trilogy? Yeah, if Pat ever actually publishes it, it'll likely be before GRRM finishes. The larger story that he (Pat) has been setting up, and will likely take at least another trilogy to wrap up? No loving way. IIRC the larger story includes at least a trilogy for Bast and someone else (or a 2nd Kvothe trilogy after Bast maybe). GRRM will be done, or dead, with ASOIAF long before Rothfuss finishes the greater story arc of Kingkiller. Hell I'd be surprised if Rothfuss finishes those books before Sanderson finishes the Stormlight Archives books, which gives Rothfuss until the early 2030s or so.
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Mar 17, 2016 05:45
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mallamp posted:Even that's very hopeful thinking. You are assuming that Rothfuss wants to write, but it doesn't look like it anymore. Why wouldn't Rothfuss just quit after finishing his contract. He and his family are set for life already, he can keep doing worldbuilderswhich is what he enjoys, and it doesn't really look like Rothfuss gives a poo poo about kingkillers resolution at this point. He's going full George Lucas Considering his dumb novels have been picked up for TV/Movie rights I wouldn't be surprised if this happens. GRRM probably makes more off HBO's show than his books at this point and it's likely a lot less work to give a team of writers the frame of your story while having some oversight(maybe) to ensure it doesn't stray too much.
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Mar 18, 2016 07:01
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Flattened Spoon posted:I'm looking forward to a Legend-of-the-Seeker kind of redux myself. This seems more likely than an HBO GoT-level show. SpacePig posted:There has to be a better example of this than Ender's Game, because that wasn't a good movie. They aged up everyone in GoT because I think even HBO might've had issues with a bunch of sex scenes involving minors, like a 14yr old Dany.
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Mar 18, 2016 22:18
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Solice Kirsk posted:The Cthaeh is one of my favorite parts of the entire series and probably one of the coolest somewhat original things Rothfuss put in there, but it's only like 4 paragraphs or so of thousands and thousands of pages of story. The "info dump" that it drops is literally the only information since that one story in the first book about the Chandrian that we get. And even then its just about him having lightning bolted one of them and more stuff about how Denna needs him in some way. Its telling that in order to gently caress up the world as much as it can it fills his head with tales of her suffering. Seeing as though no one mentions Denna in passing like they do Kvothe in the present tense of the story, I'm assuming either no one knows about her or she becomes known as someone/something else (maybe the angel he kills?). We also know that Bast needs to meet her at some point since he talks about her giant loving nose. There's just so many dangling threads to this story and I don't see how one book, even if it is 1200 pages long, can tie them all up in a satisfying way, especially with how long winded Rothfuss' writing is. I wouldn't say the Cthaeh is new and original though. It's comes across as an especially malevolent trickster god of the fae realm. Also it's supposedly guarded by an order who will hunt down anyone it speaks to and yet they somehow have no idea about Kvothe.  I'm all but positive that if/when Rothfuss finishes the 3rd book it's going to end on a "wait that's not the end" from Chronicler with a "tough poo poo, gently caress off" from Kvothe. Then Bast will grab Chronicler and tell his story to try and keep pushing Kvothe to return to his old self, and we'd maybe get Bast meeting Denna and whatever then. Rothfuss wastes a full novel-length of pages padding out the Harry Potter fanfic and poverty stuff. Like, I don't know how with his first book an editor didn't say "hey why is there a goddamn Harry Potter novella worth of padding here?" With his second one they wouldn't care because it'd sell well regardless, but even if I were to forgive his many fuckups in WMF (even the dumb sexcapades) it's still baffling just how much school bullshit he wrote. Hell even Sanderson didn't spend as many pages on Kaladin's depressing Bridge Four period and that part of TWoK still had more development to it than 90% of the university poo poo in Kingkiller.
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Mar 26, 2016 06:24
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Idea for a story: a child uses magic to survive on the streets, in a bleak yet fantastical adventure. Kvothe couldn't make the connection to realize he was face to face with his aunt either, though I suspect if he had and he'd tried to explain things to her that he'd not only gently caress up but she'd hate him even more since her sister's confirmed as dead.
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Mar 27, 2016 05:59
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Benson Cunningham posted:I fully expect that if Doors of Stone comes out, which is an if, not a when, it will be ghost written by another author. A ghost writing in three parts, more like.
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Mar 29, 2016 02:58
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Uranium Phoenix posted:In case it isn't obvious, it would be the sentient writing robot swarm known as Brandon Sanderson who would write it, while also writing a mistborn book, a stormlight book, and three "novellas" (60k words minimum). The fact he decided "hey this is a long flight I guess I'll write a book" is both hilarious and terrifying. The Wax and Wayne series is pretty good. That final scene in Bands of Mourning... 
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Mar 30, 2016 02:56
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jivjov posted:Upon concluding my re-reads I was left with one thing that I hadn't really picked up on before...what the hell is up with the Lethani? Why is it so hard for anyone, Adem or otherwise, to just say "Ah yes, internal moral compass" and be done with it? You're beginning to understand.
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Mar 30, 2016 17:40
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ChickenWing posted:I too find fault with characters talking in semi-modern tones in a make belief fantasy universe where there is a university where magic science is studied. Isn't Malazon the series that's entirely based off of the D&D campaigns the author took part in? I tried to get in to those books and they were all over the place and sword-armed space raptors don't save it.
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Apr 11, 2016 17:59
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If jivjov likes magic and world building he must be in love with Sanderson considering pretty much every setting in the Cosmere has a more interesting magic system than Naming and that True Names are in no way new to fantasy. Naming in Kingkiller is about as by-the-books as you can get with it.jivjov posted:I don't currently have my copies of the book in front of me; but I'll be as specific as I can. There's nothing about a subversion of tropes in having a trope happen but not writing about it so you can focus on writing a few hundred more pages of Harry Potter fanfic and other monotonous nonsense. "Ah ha, you thought I'd write about an actual adventure Kvothe had but nope, gently caress you have some more boring poo poo instead" is not subverting a trope. Writing about what happened and having it turn out Kvothe was the one pirating? Sure.
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Apr 11, 2016 18:09
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jivjov posted:I do need to read some Sanderson. Recommendations on a starting point? Warbreaker. You can even download it from his website for free as a pdf. Elantris got an updated version (which is what I waited for before reading it) and it's not bad but other books of his are better. Mistborn's decent but it's an older work of his and shows, while the Wax and Wayne stuff that takes place after it are solid with Shadows of Self and Bands of Mourning both having pretty endings. Stormlight Archives is good but it's also his major arc with something like a dozen planned books so it probably won't be done until the early 2030s and that's only because Sanderson is a printing press wrapped in human skin. I haven't read his non-Cosmere stuff yet.
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Apr 11, 2016 21:38
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I'd be interested in seeing BotL do a breakdown on Words of Radiance but the only thing worse than Shallan's early chapters would be reading a detailed breakdown of why they're such a slog. OTOH, Hoid is basically the kind of person Kvothe thinks himself to be.
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Apr 23, 2016 21:38
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PJOmega posted:Hey, Bridge 4 (5?) had plenty of character development. The people who ran it? Less so. I want Shen to be a PoV character.
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Apr 24, 2016 06:03
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If Rothfuss has ever played an instrument beyond beginner level I'd be stunned. He writes like a person who daydreams about how awesome it'd be if they could pull out a guitar and play his favorite songs on it at a whim. The only serious musicians who freak out when they hear music and can't be a part of it are... well none, unless they have some sort of mental issue because pretty much any talented musician is able to sit and enjoy listening to others perform. Unless it's awful, but you don't have to be a musician to be put off by badly performed music. It's just one of the (many) things Rothfuss writes about Kvothe that makes no sense unless his goal is to paint Kvothe as a completely hosed up and/or severely elitist rear end in a top hat.
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Apr 30, 2016 02:23
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jivjov posted:Remember that Kvothe grew up around musicians, and then when they were all brutally murdered he used music as a coping mechanism for depression and insanity. He quite clearly has an unhealthy level of attachment to the ability to make music. Even if he used it as a coping mechanism he didn't keep up with it and he sure as hell doesn't regularly have that sort of reaction to music he can't be a part of. I played an instrument as a little kid and continued up through college. I haven't played for years and I still do things such as tap out music like HIJK mentioned. His reaction about not being able to be a part of music is impossible for someone of his supposed skill level. Rothfuss's writing in regards to music is terrible and almost as bad as his poetry.
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Apr 30, 2016 03:21
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Grenrow posted:The salt bit in that last quote is kind of weird. I think you'd be more worried about having food to begin with rather than flavoring. Salt's not even a particularly expensive commodity. I think Rothfuss heard somewhere that back in Ye Olden Days, salt was "valuable," but he never bothered to read any proper history, so he doesn't understand why. Salt was valuable because it was a great trade good: you could gather it in bulk relatively easily, you can move it around fairly easily, and you can sell it practically anywhere. But it wasn't usually something expensive or considered a luxury. If you can afford meals at all, you can probably afford salt, barring environmental constraints (I think some parts of west/central Africa had really high prices for salt in the 18th century?). Besides, Kvothe is presumably not buying salt in massive quantities so he can use it for preparing food for winter or salting his daily catch of fish. He's just cooking with it and maybe adding some to his regular meals. This is a really pedantic point to be going on about, but it's just such a dumb, bullshit detail. Much like music, I don't think Rothfuss actually has any experience with living in poverty. If Kvothe hadn't spent years living as a loving beggar the Harry Poverty poo poo might be slightly less awful.
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May 5, 2016 21:55
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Trammel posted:I'm hoping that Doors of Stone will take a totally unexpected turn. Chronicler pulls off his elaborate mask, revealing he's actually Ambrose.
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May 11, 2016 02:50
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:What part tipped you off? Perhaps he was tipped off in three parts?
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May 11, 2016 18:28
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Turdis McWordis posted:I do need a particularly goony looking Rothfuss-inspired avatar, however. I'm leaning towards this: Rothfuss manages to look more insane than the guy who shot up a PP clinic.
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May 12, 2016 22:32
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Nakar posted:His dad didn't like poetry, they probably had it coming. Kvothe also thinks music and poetry are two unconnected things, though this could be Rothfuss's total lack of knowledge about music (or poetry) shining through as well.
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May 14, 2016 18:06
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SpacePig posted:I'm gonna have to read WMF again, I guess, because I don't remember that at all. I don't remember most of that much at all, honestly. I have a better idea. You could read literally anything else. If you want to read page after page of a story with no stable story arc and a bunch of weird and random poo poo happening just read one of the Dwarf Fortress LPs.
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May 15, 2016 06:00
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