[Werthead]

Patrick Rothfuss was signing copies of THE NAME OF THE WIND at Forbidden Planet in London last night so I headed down there, meeting up with Graeme from Graeme's Fantasy Book Review along the way. We got our copies of the book signed and got some photos with Pat (including one which I suspect I'm not going to live down - see the link) before heading to a nearby pub for a Q&A. There was a good crowd, including fellow fantasy author Chris Wooding, and some funny stories from Pat, who'd make an excellent stand-up comic. He read a rude poem about Leonardo da Vinci needing to get out more and an old college advice column where he compared human/female relations to those of monkeys.

Among the questions addressed was the one about the trilogy being complete and the release dates that weren't met. Pat explained that he spent 13 years working on the rough draft of 'the novel' (meaning the trilogy, which was written as one giga-normous book) before breaking off the first third to become THE NAME OF THE WIND and working on revising it. The writing practices he used for 13 years to work on a book that might never be published had to suddenly be changed when he had to revise the second novel in a year, which would be hard enough under ideal circumstances (see Scott Bakker's note in THE WARRIOR-PROPHET on this) but Rothfuss lost his mother in that time and his father was seriously ill. It took him some time to adjust to those problems and also deal with the problems of being a successful author (constant interview and signing requests and other PR and business issues). As a result, work on getting THE WISE MAN'S FEAR into a publishable state went slowly until Christmas, when things 'clicked' for him and he tore through the rest of the book in four months before submitting it a few weeks back.

He read an extract from the 'new' opening, set the Waystone Inn the morning after the end of THE NAME OF THE WIND, and it was great (no spoilers!), so I don't think he's got anything to worry about. US publication is not set, but Gollancz don't seem to be expecting to publish it until early-to-mid 2010.

Anyway, great guy and an excellent evening.

Since the Gollancz people were there, I thought I'd ask about the radio silence on Scott Lynch's THE REPUBLIC OF THIEVES. Gollancz are very confident of publishing the book in the UK in April 2010 and there not being any more delays. Based on Gollancz being the 'main' publishers and the UK getting the books before the USA, I would not expect US publication until that time at the earliest, unless Bantam pulled out all the stops and rushed it to the presses. So, reasons for optimism there.

[red snow]

I wondered who the hell it was taking part in the Bromance photoshoot on Thursday evening :)
It would have been cool to actually see a few of the board members there but I missed out on the Q&A session which looks like it was a lot of fun.
Patrick Rothfuss is making it 4 for 4 in authors I have met who are cool guys and it's always nice when they look enthusiastic and answer questions I'm sure they've heard several times (I deliberately avoided asking when book 2 is out though). I didn't quite pluck up the courage to ask if Kvothe gets out of the damned university in the next installment though.

Are any of the boarders going to the Abercrombie and/or Mark Newton Forbidden Planet signing in June? I'll have to try and have a quick word with you all.

[Werthead]

red snow, on May 23 2009, 15.05, said:

I wondered who the hell it was taking part in the Bromance photoshoot on Thursday evening :)
It would have been cool to actually see a few of the board members there but I missed out on the Q&A session which looks like it was a lot of fun.
Patrick Rothfuss is making it 4 for 4 in authors I have met who are cool guys and it's always nice when they look enthusiastic and answer questions I'm sure they've heard several times (I deliberately avoided asking when book 2 is out though). I didn't quite pluck up the courage to ask if Kvothe gets out of the damned university in the next installment though.

Are any of the boarders going to the Abercrombie and/or Mark Newton Forbidden Planet signing in June? I'll have to try and have a quick word with you all.

I'm going to both :)

SPOILER: Wise Man's Fear

The answer to your question is "Yes," by the way :)

[red snow]

Werthead, on May 24 2009, 01.27, said:

I'm going to both :)

Cool. At least I know what you look like now, although it may be hard to picture you without Pat by your side ;)

Thanks for having an answer for my unasked question. I am anticapitating Wise Man's fear somewhat more already.

[Jussi]

New release date for The Wise Man's Fear (DAW edition): August 2009!

http://www.borders.c...?sku=0756404738
http://www.amazon.de...i...5209&sr=1-1
http://www.booksamil...d=4344527856179

[red snow]

Jussi, on Jun 9 2009, 09.32, said:

New release date for The Wise Man's Fear (DAW edition): August 2009!

http://www.borders.c...?sku=0756404738
http://www.amazon.de...i...5209&sr=1-1
http://www.booksamil...d=4344527856179

I think those release dates are a little optimistic but hopefully it should turn up at the end of the year (I think I'll paperback it). The synopsis from the third link sounds very interesting although I wonder if the stuff about the King's road is in the present rather than the past.

[Foreverlad]

Jussi, on Jun 9 2009, 04.32, said:

New release date for The Wise Man's Fear (DAW edition): August 2009!

http://www.borders.c...?sku=0756404738
http://www.amazon.de...i...5209&sr=1-1
http://www.booksamil...d=4344527856179

Quite unlikely. Patrick posted to his blog on (...checking) May 11th that the first draft was completed, printed and shipped off to his editor right before he took off for his trip across the pond.

Not only would the manuscript have to be near-perfect, the publishers would likely need to drop everything they were doing to focus on getting that book on the shelves to meet that release date. We'll be lucky to see it for Christmas, but more likely not until 2010.

As an example, check out Republic of Thieves at Book Depository. It's slated to ship in 37 days.

Book marketplaces have generic dates that are generally unreliable.

[Jussi]

I agree, but these sites used to have an April 2010 release date. They just changed it to August 2009.

April 2010 still stands for the Gollancz edition in online bookstores.

This post has been edited by Jussi: 09 June 2009 - 11:04 AM

[Werthead]

This is undeniably the most ludicrously funny thing I have ever read on Amazon. Jaw-dropping in its comic goldness.

Essentially, a small cabal of about 6-7 people have taken a dislike to The Name of the Wind. They published a string of 1 and 2-star reviews in rapid succession and then started this thread, in which they accused the author of plagiarism and orchestrating a 'deceptive' publicity campaign, then accused him of fraud. When some of Rothfuss' many fans chimed in to defend him, they were all accused of being alts of Rothfuss himself. The fact the book has sold enormously well, won numerous awards and been well-received critically seems to have sailed over their heads. As the thread continues it degenerates way beyond the normal Internet flamewar and enters the realm of the truly delusional, with people comparing the timestamps of reviews with the times that Rothfuss was doing book signings and other things going way, way over the top.

[Ran]

That small cabal looks suspiciously like alts themselves. Hmm...

[Werthead]

I did a bit more digging and found that one of them was active on Wikipedia. He'd been trying to get Rothfuss' page deleted for 'non-notability' and was upset when other, saner editors kept undoing his edits on the ground that he had no leg to stand on. Because he'd then been accused of picking on Rothfuss he also picked another fantasy author's page to delete and chose Abercrombie's. A key part of his argument was that 'obviously' both Abercrombie and Rothfuss had created both their Wikipedia articles themselves.

Except they didn't. I did. You can tell that just from the User Contribs panel.

So you heard it here first, I actually am a gestalt entity formed by the unholy union of Abercrombie-Rothfuss (a bit like Voltron). Fear my power! :hat:

[Slick Mongoose]

Werthead, on Jun 10 2009, 23.03, said:

So you heard it here first, I actually am a gestalt entity formed by the unholy union of Abercrombie-Rothfuss (a bit like Voltron). Fear my power! :hat:

I think, subconsciously, i've known that for a long time.

[Raphaelite]

Delightful conspiracy-theorist crazies. I love this idea that the book's success is solely down to a massive marketing machine and Rothfuss skewing some award voting and so on and on and on. As if anyone would take that sort of time and effort for a bad book when it'd be easier to write a good one! And funnily enough...

[RedEyedGhost]

Werthead, on Jun 10 2009, 16.03, said:

So you heard it here first, I actually am a gestalt entity formed by the unholy union of Abercrombie-Rothfuss (a bit like Voltron). Fear my power! :hat:

:bow:

[Werthead]

I've worked it out.

The critics are all Robert Stanek. He has taken exception to Rothfuss' critical acclaim whilst his books wallow unsold and has used his mighty power of Immediate Alt Creation to pour scorn on what he sees as his 'rival'.

[BlueRose]

Wert, is Pat aware of what's going on? His facebook status said that he was distressed about the 1 star reviews, maybe you should let him know that it's just some spiteful person or persons.

[Werthead]

BlueRose, on Jun 11 2009, 00.54, said:

Wert, is Pat aware of what's going on? His facebook status said that he was distressed about the 1 star reviews, maybe you should let him know that it's just some spiteful person or persons.

I left a comment to that effect on his post. Whether he reads all of them (they tend to go into the hundreds) I don't know.

[williamjm]

Werthead, on Jun 10 2009, 21.39, said:

This is undeniably the most ludicrously funny thing I have ever read on Amazon. Jaw-dropping in its comic goldness.

That's a very bizarre thread. I'm guessing someone with a lot of time on their hands has a grudge against Rothfuss for some reason.

Quote

So you heard it here first, I actually am a gestalt entity formed by the unholy union of Abercrombie-Rothfuss (a bit like Voltron).

I guess that's the true reason Wise Man's Fear has been so delayed, you've been busy writing Best Served Cold instead.

Quote

I think, subconsciously, i've known that for a long time.

I was a bit suspicious of the supposed picture of Wert and Rothfuss, where someone had clearly photoshopped in a young Brian Blessed ;)

[kuenjato]

lol, I've been following that thread for the past week or so. I tried to post a few sane moderate posts (like telling them they were out of order for recommending Rothfuss "go to iraq to get some life experience"), but both sides are a bit wacked. One of the defenders has posted comments in virutally every negative review (many of those before the "cabal" began their antics), including telling one poster that their "opinion doesn't matter" because Robin Hobb gave it five stars. But what is really hilarious is checking out the page after 2 or 3 days and seeing all those one-star reviews pushed out by, yep, five star reviews!

IMO, this is one of the most overrated fantasy books of the last five years, and if I had paid full hardback price instead of waiting for a library checkout, I'd probably be pissed at the overflow of glowing praise and probably have rated it two stars instead of three. Though I'm sure there is some sort of disgruntled campaigning going on, the shoe fits the other foot as well, given the general review-fraud that goes on at Amazon, both from legitimate companies and loonies like Stanek.

This post has been edited by kuenjato: 10 June 2009 - 08:47 PM

[Werthead]

I agree that the praise for the book is pretty full-on from some quarters, but at the same time I don't think it was quite as effusive here and on other forums. There's plenty of people who either didn't like it, or liked it but got turned off by the slow pace or the shoehorned-in dragon sequence, or even really liked it but had a few irks. The shitstorm does highlight the overwhelming problem with Amazon, that when people like something they tend to give it 5 stars and when they don't they give it 1 and that's it. People in the middle don't tend to get much of a look-in or get criticised for being fence-sitters.

That said, I think marking a book down for hype is not very fair. I reviewed the book and enjoyed it just as the hype was starting to build, so managed to avoid that problem. But given that fan hype is something outside the author's control, it seems churlish to criticise them for having your expectations raised by other people.