How do you feel about Patrick Rothfuss?

[LeeAnna]

I love reading my groups topics, but rarely take part in them, which I should change! Since this is one of the smaller groups and we're all into fantasy here, I thought I would bring up the topic of Patrick Rothfuss. I noticed today there is a publication date for the last book in his kingkiller trilogy, August of 2017!!! 2017!!?? That's 6 years after the second, and 3 years passed the May 2014 original date. And 10 years passed the release of book 1. Now I did start book one under the impression that he had completed the trilogy. I'm not a published author, but I write and understand editing takes time, and obviously one would want their final book to be perfect. I also noticed that fans are to the extreme of which side they are on, either they worship him and won't allow any criticism about the time frame, or they are angry and swearing him off as a fame-hoe, refusing to read the book. I might be a rare "inbetweener", I enjoyed the first 2, obv I would love a conclusion, but the wait IS annoying, I barely remember the plot at this point. If the trilogy was indeed already complete, then a 10 year wait for 3 books to be released is crazy to me. But say he fibbed a little, say he never wrote the last book, then it's a little more understandable. I noticed it's a pretty big debate in the goodreads world, so how do you guys feel about it?

[Heather]

It is annoying when authors take forever to finish books. You give the best point for this - people forget what the books are about or what is going on! I did enjoy book one and two quite a lot but just recently read them, so I'm probably less annoyed than other people. I so WANT to give him my love because he's from my state. I definitely plan to read book three!

That said, when I read The Slow Regard of Silent Things I stopped following him on Goodreads. The story was hubris crap from where I sit. But what really burned me was that before and after the story, he made sure you thought you aren't special and don't get it if you don't like the story. That's a real jerky thing to do. It's like your boyfriend saying you suck because he hates himself. I hope it was just a bad blip for him and he recovers from whatever went wrong there.

So, now I look forward to the anger of the masses.

[Yoly]

I haven't read Patrick Rothfuss yet basically because of this. I read about people going crazy waiting for the next book to come out and I personally don't like to wait too long to finish a story so I will wait until he finishes his series.

It would be interesting to hear the points of view of other authors, and we have a few in this group :) Is it really necessary to spend that much time writing/editing a book?

I think publishers also risk losing their audience if they wait too long, or is this the complete opposite given the popularity of the first books?

[LeeAnna]

Haha!! "It's like your boyfriend saying you suck bc he hates himself" I love it! Best way to describe it! And I actually skipped the novella bc I couldn't justify 150 pages for $10! But yes, I'll be reading the third as well....

[Gary]

I've only read one of his books: The Name of the Wind.

I generally liked it. It borders on the derivative in a lot of ways, but his facility with the language is what saves it. Lots of non- or strangely motivated plot elements kind of mashed together into an almost paint-by-numbers series of events. There's very little "new" about that book. That and the lead is, for all intents and purposes, a Marty Stu.

However, he writes in a breezy, almost conversational way that is an interesting tweak on the formalism of fantasy fiction. The narrative is very approachable and surprisingly pleasant. Even when he occasionally waxes poetic, he does so in a way that--usually--doesn't jar the sensibilities.

[Leonie]

I actually really like his books, however it is a long wait between them. Both our kids love them too - they began reading them in their early teens.

I also loved The Slow Regard of Silent Things.

I also write, so I'm not sure why he takes so long to write a new book, assuming it's his full time job. I suppose he may not have huge financial pressures, given the success of the first two of the trilogy (although I could be wrong) but when you compare his (or GRRM's) output to someone like Brandon Sanderson, you do wonder.

When the third one finally appears, I'll happily re-read the other two.

[Bryn]

Yoly wrote: "It would be interesting to hear the points of view of other authors, and we have a few in this group :)"

I took five years of obsessive work on each of my first two. Ten years is quite common. Yes, necessary if you are that kind of writer. Even with an urgent wish to finish, lest you be hit by a bus.

To withhold from publication for any reason, let alone a strategic one -- to 'make people wait', to space them, or whatever -- is stupid and inexcusable. I hate that publication is scheduled a year in advance even though the book's written... the industry is slow...

I know nothing about Patrick Rothfuss, though, or his case.

[Owen]

Yoly wrote: "It would be interesting to hear the points of view of other authors, and we have a few in this group :) Is it really necessary to spend that much time writing/editing a book?"

That all depends on the book. Some writers are slow, some books take a long time to write. Ours take maybe 2 years or so (it's kind of hard to say). But we don't expect people to wait two years between books, because the market doesn't like that much these days (especially if you are small-time authors like us).

That said, stringing along your readers is disrespectful in the extreme. But I also had never heard of Patrick Rothfuss prior to this thread, and I know nothing about him or his work.

[Sparrowlicious]

I have some mixed feelings about Patrick Rothfuss. I mean, I've seen him at a Q&A when he was here in Vienna but probably only because my girlfriend suggested I should go there. It was okay. Also, whenever someone showed up with a gift for him, he would give the person something in return. That was very nice. He didn't have to do that.

But, you know, the second book was kind of ... ah, well, you know, Rothfuss has this writing style that makes his things easy and fast to read and that's good but when you really think about it, book 2 was Kvothe's summer vacation.
And that makes you wonder how long book 3 will be because book 2 didn't advance the story very much. Also, since the entire 'Kvothe's past' story is told from the viewpoint of the character himself, you have to remind yourself constantly that first person narrators are not reliable. It's easy to tell that Kvothe is the author's absolute favourite. As you know, it's quite common that an author makes their character suffer a lot because that's what makes the story interesting (the character overcoming the hardships) but in Kvothe's case everything turns out far too well whenever something bad happens to him and I think that's an eternal flaw in the series. This might obviously be because he tells the story himself. Just saying.

Anyway, I'm a bit conflicted about Rothfuss. My girlfriend loves all of his stuff and I'm just here like ... he's okay, I guess. *shrugs*

[LeeAnna]

I noticed his blog posts aren't receiving as many comments as they once were. I myself stopped following him.

[Heather]

I listened to the author narrating The Slow Regard of Silent Things and I truly believe it was a giant negative. There are many repeated phrases that are pronounced when narrated. It's odd because in my university writing classes it was expected you read your manuscript aloud before turning it in. Rothfuss is a writing professor!

I love his narrative prose in his other books and really do look forward to hearing more of the story. Unlike most people, I liked the second book better, actually.

[Marina]

He seems very busy with his charity work, which is wonderful as a human being, of course, but maybe not so great as an author who needs his writing time.

His books are long and detailed. Maybe he's a slow writer. Maybe he's a perfectionist. I only take a few months to write a book (though mine aren't as long), but every author has a different process.

Having said that, though, it's a point of pride with me that the third book in my trilogy will be out less than a year after the first one was published. I don't like to keep people waiting too long, since I find that frustrating as a reader.