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Just got to Denna and Kvothe's argument and holy poo poo I am so mad at how loving goony Rothfuss is. Stop writing about "Relationships" Jesus Christ.
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Mar 17, 2011 22:04
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Evfedu posted:Just got to Denna and Kvothe's argument and holy poo poo I am so mad at how loving goony Rothfuss is. Stop writing about "Relationships" Jesus Christ. I'm pretty sure that if you head into the strip-joint nearest to the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, all of the strippers would know him by name.
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Mar 17, 2011 22:10
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Somehow the guy is married with a kid. Who knows.
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Mar 17, 2011 23:11
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Not to completely derail the making-fun-of-Rothuss train, but there's a really cool speculation post up at Tor.com from Jo Walton, rounding up analysis and deductions from several sources. Lots of spoilers, obviously. http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/03/sleeping-under-the-wagon-more-spoilers-for-patrick-rothfusss-the-wise-mans-fear
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Mar 17, 2011 23:16
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onefish posted:Not to completely derail the making-fun-of-Rothuss train, but there's a really cool speculation post up at Tor.com from Jo Walton, rounding up analysis and deductions from several sources. Lots of spoilers, obviously. Holy poo poo, there is alot of very interesting stuff in there. Particularly the very simple interpretation of the lovely song Kvothe's dad wrote. So simple.
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Mar 17, 2011 23:40
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onefish posted:Not to completely derail the making-fun-of-Rothuss train, but there's a really cool speculation post up at Tor.com from Jo Walton, rounding up analysis and deductions from several sources. Lots of spoilers, obviously. I feel like he's interpreting what Felurian says about 'no human Amyr' wrong. He's assuming there's only humans and Fae. And she says several times when talking about the early times that those people were not Fae. And I think the Amyr were described as Angels, or something similar? As for Denna's version of the Lanre story, I think there's more to this than 'Denna is just wrong'. Our one glimpse of the Chandrian shows Haliax with a plan, but it seems like he's far less cruel than the others. Lacking any origin story of the other 6 Chandrian, I'm not convinced Haliax is pure evil. He's not a nice guy, but there's still more going on here, and I have a feeling it has to do with the Amyr.
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Mar 18, 2011 03:01
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Completely unrelatedly to almost everything, I finally got my hands on this book, and, drat, it's made from some really nice paper. I just kind of want to feel the stuff.
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Mar 18, 2011 06:53
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Bizob posted:Holy poo poo, there is alot of very interesting stuff in there. Particularly the very simple interpretation of the lovely song Kvothe's dad wrote. So simple. Yeah, if Rothfuss did that on purpose I'm ready to forgive quite a bit of the creepy sex scenes.
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Mar 18, 2011 19:35
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Finished it. I should probably go back and read all the discussion but my thoughts: Almost the entire first third of the book is cyclical, there's a sub-plot, Kvothe slaps on the smug-face, overcomes, then goes back to where he was at the start of the sub-plot. Nothing really gets moving until he does, and even then there's a lot of fat a less frightened editor would have kicked out of the book without a second thought. While I didn't mind Felurian as much as other people in this thread, Losi and the end of chapter 107 is probably the gooniest, most offensive thing I had have read willingly that isn't in PYF Goonquotes. Also: The "evolved" views of the Adem and the whole BAKA GAIJIN *wears pokemon backpack*-ness of that section really grated on me. The Ctaeh is a really cool idea until you think about it logically. So there'll have to be a twist or two there for it not to seem dumb. Also now I know Devi and Auri weren't in the original script, it's really easy to spot the seams where he's stitched them into the story. Lastly, and most importantly, I don't think Pat knows how people interact irl, more than that, I don't think he understands people at all. Everyone is rightly saying that his views on sex and women are weird and creepy at best, but what of his views on friends? People in general? Go through this entire novel and find me a person who's character has more than two dimensions, most characters just get the one. Really think about it. Even Kvothe's best bros: Willem: I am a jew/german/russian with a beard and stoic nature. Simmon: I am a likable dandy who is bad with women Kvothe: Jaded-  And the way they interact is really... off. Everyone in the book apart from Sim/Will/Chronicler comes across either as vast dickheads or annoying and spineless. And even when Will/Kvothe/Sim talk they're usually bickering or getting RELLY ANGRY ABOUT THEIR PASTS at one another. It's bizarre. If one of my mates was telling me a story then suddenly started shouting about racial oppression I'd most likely find a new mate. Oh my God and when he broke that guy's arm for something he said and then the lady says "we make hard decisions" so sociopathic violence is sometimes for the best I guess! And chiming in with "The bursar can't do maths and that whole thing was so backwards it made me hurt" at the end. Can't wait for the third book!
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Mar 20, 2011 14:50
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I was really weirded out when it turned out Simmon wasn't gay.
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Mar 20, 2011 18:06
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Liesmith posted:I was really weirded out when it turned out Simmon wasn't gay. What's important, though, is that we need more Elodin. Replace every Denna scene with an Elodin scene. Replace the Felurian chapters with Elodin chapters. Replace Kvothe with Elodin. Keep Auri and Devi as Elodin's backup singers.
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Mar 20, 2011 21:49
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One of the things that just kinda bugs me is the name Edema Ruh. I keep flashing back to this commercial that aired CONSTANTLY when I was a kid, where some dude was selling mattresses that helped with EDEMA OR SWELLING OF THE LEGS. Every time I see that in the book I hear that bastard in my head again  Not trying to be all , but did anyone not catch the song? When he had it a few times in the book and mentioned his mom's name, it kinda became obvious (to me at least).It was an interesting way to handle the name though.
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Mar 20, 2011 22:12
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I thought Sim was an attempt for Rothfuss to write himself into the story (shy, awkward, bookish person who people think is stupid at first but who is actually really smart and who women would really like if they would just give him a chance).
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Mar 20, 2011 22:13
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I totally missed the song and that his mother was the runaway Lackless. So I feel like less of an idiot I'd like to qualify that with the fact that I read NotW in my college's bookstore back in first came out whenever I went there between my classes and haven't reread it since. I also tend to not read songs/poems/insertions critically. I think that started in LotR or something like that, I just skim them now for the most part. I think I figured out most of the other "hidden" stuff on my own or through reading other people's posts about the book and having an "ah-hah!" moment based on their interpretation fusing with mine. I just want more world building, true names, Amyr/Chandrian, etc. I don't really care that much about Kvothe's situation, I more view him as a vehicle into the world.
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Mar 20, 2011 22:49
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Mt first thought about Meluan Lackless wasn't Kvothe's mother but Denna: Meluan was described at the banquet as "maddingly familiar" and that "[h]er mouth was full and red without the benefit of any paint." The same description had just been used for Denna: “Her lips, as always, were red without the aid of any paint.” (The Kindle edition lacks page numbers, but the Denna description was at 44% and the Meluan description at 46%.) The connection to Kvothe's mother is clear later on, but that may not be the only one because Kvothe said of Meluan that he "would have thought [he] knew her from the University." The Jo Walton article also pointed out something I'd missed, that the Lackless box had Yllish writing on it and Denna had Yllish braiding.
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Mar 21, 2011 16:01
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AngusPodgorny posted:Mt first thought about Meluan Lackless wasn't Kvothe's mother but Denna: Unsubstantiated Dresden Files-Time Travel caliber theory - Kvothe finally nails Denna and they live happily ever after until they find out that Lackless is both of their mothers and they are brother and sister. This revelation drives Kvothe off the deep end, kills everyone, and then swears on his power to never be anything but emo again.
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Mar 21, 2011 16:08
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I think I'm getting off the train at this stop unfortunately. I finished the book and while I love his prose the story doesn't seem to be going anywhere. By the end of book 2 in a trilogy with these kinds of page counts I would expect to have some proper idea where we're headed. Despite his claims to the contrary this doesn't seem to be planned out in the slightest, WMF felt like he just threw everything at the wall to see what would stick. It's a shame because I love his style of writing but the seemingly directionless story is putting me to sleep.
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Mar 21, 2011 16:14
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The Gunslinger posted:I think I'm getting off the train at this stop unfortunately. I finished the book and while I love his prose the story doesn't seem to be going anywhere. By the end of book 2 in a trilogy with these kinds of page counts I would expect to have some proper idea where we're headed. Despite his claims to the contrary this doesn't seem to be planned out in the slightest, WMF felt like he just threw everything at the wall to see what would stick. It's a shame because I love his style of writing but the seemingly directionless story is putting me to sleep. Says the poster with a Dark Tower avatar. (I kid, I kid) I can see where you are coming from, I just think this wasn't intended as an "epic" in the sense that most fantasy series are.
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Mar 21, 2011 16:43
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Bizob posted:Says the poster with a Dark Tower avatar. (I kid, I kid) Hah, touche sir. Actually the lack of "epic" was what kind of drew me to it in the first place, it seemed a lot more modest in its scope. I guess I just find the current time Kvothe stuff a lot more interesting and I'm disappointed that he hasn't really gone anywhere with it.
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Mar 21, 2011 17:15
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Finished the book on a trip late last week, and wanted to take some time to digest it before briefly posting my thoughts. And having now digested it, the preeminent thought I have is: Rothfuss spent 4 years and 1000 pages on about 3 months worth of timeline and almost no actual story movement. Given his angsty protagonist and too-often infuriatingly one-dimensional female characters, I'm starting to fear that we're seeing Robert Jordan, Jr. I'm just boggled. The first book had some issues, and some of the same character problems, but managed to nevertheless progress at a good rate and cover about 15-16 years of Kvothe's life in 2/3s of the space it took to get us virtually nowhere in book two. At this point, I'm not really looking forward to book 3 with anywhere near the same sort of anticipating I had for WMF. In the end, I'm sort of left with the question: Who the hell is this guy's editor and why did she allow this book to hit the shelves in its current form?
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Mar 21, 2011 18:05
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Habibi posted:In the end, I'm sort of left with the question: Who the hell is this guy's editor and why did she allow this book to hit the shelves in its current form? I think it was posted earlier in this thread that the only editorial input he got was a loose upper-limit on the total wordcount.
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Mar 21, 2011 18:51
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Flatscan posted:I think it was posted earlier in this thread that the only editorial input he got was a loose upper-limit on the total wordcount. Well, loose in the sense that it had to be possible for it to be physically printed and bound.
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Mar 21, 2011 18:58
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Flatscan posted:I think it was posted earlier in this thread that the only editorial input he got was a loose upper-limit on the total wordcount. Eh, I recall his editorial posts from the blog, not quite accurate. A couple posts from googling "Patrick Rothfuss drafts": http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2010/02/is-it-drafty-in-here/ http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2010/04/i-said-id-tell-you-when-i-knew/ So basically, he'd sent in three drafts and probably went back and forth with the editor on all of them - he gets specific about it with the draft 3 - before presumably turning in a draft four that would be the final draft. He seems to do a ton of the revision on his own, but it's not like he was completely unedited. Just unedited as far as wordcount limits. onefish fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Mar 21, 2011 |
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Mar 21, 2011 19:21
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Ok, his editor isn't lazy, just poo poo.
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Mar 21, 2011 20:08
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Edit: ^^^ I hate to say it, since I have no clue who his editor is and for all I know have read other books she's edited, but this is the direction I'm leaning in, as well. I feel like there are a lot of authors out there whose writing would really suffer if it wasn't for the direction/filter of their editor, and this seems like a half-assed job.Daico posted:Well, loose in the sense that it had to be possible for it to be physically printed and bound. Yeah, I had read that bit earlier in the thread, and thanks to onefish for more information on that. It was just odd to me, because I was reading the book on my Kindle, so the page count wasn't immediately obvious (I only paid attention to it as I was approaching the end). After I finished and it hit me just how long the book actually was, I was flabbergasted at how small the story progression was. It's just depressing more than anything else, because I enjoy his prose (sex scenes and relationships aside), I really like the magic system he's come up with and the way sympathy works, and he's a great read when the story is moving - but WMF comes really close to standing still (even more so in comparison to NotW). And I'm getting really, really tired of Denna. All of that said, there were a few highlights. I think my favorite moment was Kvothe quipping to the Maur about how an Edema Ruh's tongue got his wife into bed, though the exact quote escapes me just now. Habibi fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Mar 21, 2011 |
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Mar 21, 2011 20:28
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I completely disagree that no progress was made in Wise Man's Fear, and I think that the people who were disappointed misunderstood the author's intentions. The books are not about finding the Chandrian or avenging Kvothe's parents deaths. Those things are there as a point for the plot to head to, but the story within a story structure makes it obvious that the purpose is to see Kvothe develop into the person he is in the present. The first book Kvothe was innocent, completely misunderstood women, and was so arrogant that he expected success with everything he did. In the second book, Kvothe doesn't exactly "grow" as a person, but he does change. After he has sex, lots and lots of sex, the gild is off the lily, so to speak, when it comes to his relationship with Denna. I think she will be more of a real person in the next book, as Kvothe's reminiscences are colored by the way he felt at the time, not by the way he feels now. Kvothe also has no money problems, so he is self-sufficient, and he at least has started down the path of being a great magician. Book III will be disappointing if we don't get closure on the Chandrian thing, but that is ultimately unimportant compared to finding out what causes Kvothe's breakdown. We'll get both, but I guarantee Rothfuss feels more strongly as a writer about finishing his protagonist's character arc than fulfilling a generic revenge plotline.
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Mar 22, 2011 05:15
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I agree that there wasn't much progress made in book 2. It seems like all of book 2 was filled with Kvothe getting awesome at more things. First I started thinking that he was pretty much still a virgin and terribly at any kind of romance, and then he went off with Felurian and became a super-stud manwhore right away. Also, just as I started to notice that Kvothe was incompetent at any physical combat, here comes Tempi in what was obviously going to lead to Kvothe finally learning to be an above average sword-fighter in a matter of weeks. Book 3 has a lot of ground to cover. TOO much ground, in fact. 1) He still needs to get expelled from the university 2) There still needs to be some resolution with the Amyr and Chandrian (it almost feels like those two will happen separately, given the plot with the Maer and studying the Amyr) 3) There's some big huge war that's supposed to start, that Kvothe blames himself for. 4) When does he meet Bast? I got the impression that the Fae are tied to the war mentioned in #3 5) At the start of the series, I thought there was going to be some resolution to the 'frame story' (how old-man-Kvothe gets his groove back) but given the pacing so far, that seems less and less likely. 6) Some resolution with Denna 7) Kvothe kills some king For all of my complaints, I'll still be reading book 3 when it's released. EDIT: God, the more I think about this, the more plots I think of that need resolving. syphon fucked around with this message at 07:35 on Mar 22, 2011 |
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Mar 22, 2011 07:19
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The problem with this book, is that we get all these short stories and he goes on a big adventure, but it doesn't build up to anything, and doesn't really end. The third book is probably going to build up to all the awesome scenes that should have been in this book, and I get the feeling that killing the king, starting the war and figuring out what the hell was up with the Amyr is probably all going to be handled in the same chapter. Either that or he takes five years to publish another thousand pages of filler. I guess it could go either way. Or maybe authors should just stop trying to write massive epic fantasy series , because it seems like no one ever finishes the loving things. Ghetto Prince fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Mar 22, 2011 |
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Mar 22, 2011 08:04
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Habibi posted:Edit: ^^^ I hate to say it, since I have no clue who his editor is and for all I know have read other books she's edited, but this is the direction I'm leaning in, as well. I feel like there are a lot of authors out there whose writing would really suffer if it wasn't for the direction/filter of their editor, and this seems like a half-assed job. Betsy Wollheim, isn't she? She's experienced enough to have her name on the imprint at least, though I still don't know how to translate that to books she's actually worked on.
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Mar 22, 2011 08:26
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I would bet that the king Kvothe kills is Ambrose
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Mar 22, 2011 16:20
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Ghetto Prince posted:The third book is probably going to build up to all the awesome scenes that should have been in this book, and I get the feeling that killing the king, starting the war and figuring out what the hell was up with the Amyr is probably all going to be handled in the same chapter. Or Kvothe will say that its been talked about to death and refuse to narrate, like with the trial.
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Mar 22, 2011 16:43
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Ok, from the link above:quote:
I haven't read Wheel of Time in a long time, but isn't this exactly what happened with the desert people and the gypsies in that story?
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Mar 22, 2011 16:48
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War Eagle posted:Ok, from the link above: You are absolutely correct - Aiel and Tuatha'an (Jenn Aiel)
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Mar 22, 2011 17:29
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syphon posted:Book 3 has a lot of ground to cover. TOO much ground, in fact. There's no way it can be resolved; the books of the series are entitled Days 1 & 2 of the Kingkiller Chronicles, and the loose ends of the frame story (the box/the war/the scrael) can hardly be resolved in the single Day 3. So unless there's a sequel series planned where Kvothe goes out and rights his wrongs, it's got to end with him permanently disabled somehow. The only way I can see that happening is if he kicks it or returns to Felurian, and my god I hope it's the former.
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Mar 23, 2011 01:57
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Dramatika posted:You are absolutely correct - Aiel and Tuatha'an (Jenn Aiel) Not to get all spergy but the Jenn Aiel are another group altogether. The Jenn Aiel were the "true" Aiel who fulfilled their pact with the Aes Sedai by founding Rhuidean (and ended up dying out in the process). The Tuatha'an and the Aiel were the splinter groups that went hippie and warrior respectively.
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Mar 23, 2011 02:05
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coffeetable posted:There's no way it can be resolved; the books of the series are entitled Days 1 & 2 of the Kingkiller Chronicles, and the loose ends of the frame story (the box/the war/the scrael) can hardly be resolved in the single Day 3. The loose ends of the frame story don't necessarily have to get resolved in the space of the third book, and if he had to rush it, I'd honestly rather he just finish Kvothe's character arc. If he wants to continue the present-day story then he should write another series.
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Mar 23, 2011 02:12
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Mahlertov Cocktail posted:The loose ends of the frame story don't necessarily have to get resolved in the space of the third book, and if he had to rush it, I'd honestly rather he just finish Kvothe's character arc. If he wants to continue the present-day story then he should write another series. I think the Kvothe character arc is all he ever intended to finish, and I doubt he will confront / kill the Chandrian. He might learn about them, but I wouldn't be shocked if they hand him his rear end and the moral of the story ends up being "even insanely gifted and intellegent savants are no match for 5000 year old creatures of legend and unfathomable power."
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Mar 23, 2011 16:19
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Yeah. And I'd really like that: This climactic confrontation finally happens, only to have Kvothe get the poo poo kicked out of him, and all his genius and precociousness can only get him away with his life and shame at failing his life-long mission.
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Mar 23, 2011 17:31
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I picked up the first book (on audible) the other day and didn't realize there was a thread for this guy. I haven't gotten into any of the terrible relationship yet (not even half-way through) but I eagerly await the goonery. I'm not overly fond of the guy reading, but the book itself is pretty engaging thus far.
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Mar 23, 2011 18:35
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Bizob posted:I think the Kvothe character arc is all he ever intended to finish, and I doubt he will confront / kill the Chandrian.
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Mar 23, 2011 20:05
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