Pat Rothfuss XVII: Games, Bets, and Minecraft

[Garlan the Gallant]

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

That was always the deal.

Didn’t read the fine print

[Kyll.Ing.]

Donations: USD 381,324 as of this writing.

Ender Dragon: Still flying, alive and happy.

 

Now let's wait and see about those chapters ...

[Myrddin]

Someone posted a clip over on Reddit with Pat confirming the in story connection of book 3's title. I realized I had no memory of the story outside general vagaries of Kvothe being in school and his various adventures. No sense of the larger world. its politics, mythology. 10 years is really a long time to pause on a story like this.

I was looking to make room in my book shelves for new books. My Rothfuss books are likely getting moved into a box. Or maybe ebay. Wonder what they're worth...

[Garlan the Gallant]

3 hours ago, Myrddin said:

Someone posted a clip over on Reddit with Pat confirming the in story connection of book 3's title. I realized I had no memory of the story outside general vagaries of Kvothe being in school and his various adventures. No sense of the larger world. its politics, mythology. 10 years is really a long time to pause on a story like this.

I was looking to make room in my book shelves for new books. My Rothfuss books are likely getting moved into a box. Or maybe ebay. Wonder what they're worth...

Similar here. I remember the sex with the forest goddess and the sex ninjas. He’s good with a guitar? His parents died? He likes a girl. He can’t do magic anymore. Big things like that. Funny enough, I think I remember the door is in the school library maybe?

[Kyll.Ing.]

Hmm ... it has been a fair few years since I read the books as well, but I think they went something like this:

Book 1: Kvothe is a grumpy old bartender in the present, but was a child prodigy in the past. Something he did in the past set up the current mess the world is in, and made him take up bartending. We learn that he had a rough childhood, but got into university and did well there, but that he never had any money. He also encounters a rival there, who may be someone important. He starts unraveling a strange mystery with an ancient group of evil monsters, and discovers that his girlfriend/soulmate is doing some strange business on the side. He leaves university for a while and has an adventure.

Book 2: Kvothe is still a grumpy old bartender in the present and we still don't find out why. Past-Kvothe goes back to university where he still does well but still has no money. His rival might still be someone important, but we don't get to know why. His girlfriend is still doing some strange business on the side, but we don't get to know why. The ancient group of evil is still ancient and evil, but we don't get to know why. Kvothe goes on a new adventure involving a lot of fighting and honky-tonky, but comes back to university afterwards. The book ends in approximately the same situation as the first one, with none of the mysteries being any closer to a solution. It's a gripping read, but after a while you look back on it and think "wait, did anything in this book even need to happen?"

 

As far as I can remember, I got the impression a while ago that the first book had set up two situations on either side of a time gap, but lacked a way to build a bridge between them. Book 2 made very little progress towards that bridge, it just repeated the set-up. The difficulty in constructing that bridge is, I suspect, a major part of the reason why Book 3 doesn't yet exist. We know the story begins here and ends up here, but like the Pan-American highway there is no good way to build a connection across the gap (Darién Gap, look it up. Interesting story). Book 1 presented the problem, but Book 2 postponed doing anything about it, and now with Book 3 it needs to be addressed. The gap needs to be bridged, without it there's no Book 3, but the author still hasn't figured out how to build the bridge and so Book 3 is stuck in limbo. It was an issue that should have been addressed in Book 2, but it wasn't for whatever reason, and now the essential problem has caught up with the series.

[Veltigar]

Like many, I have given up hope that this would ever appear. It would be a great mindfuck if Rothfuss lands before GRRM can even release tWoW, but at least it is something. I'll take a flicker of good news over no news  

[Rhom]

32 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

Like many, I have given up hope that this would ever appear. It would be a great mindfuck if Rothfuss lands before GRRM can even release tWoW, but at least it is something. I'll take a flicker of good news over no news  

I just figure I’ll never see either of those.  

[Veltigar]

11 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I just figure I’ll never see either of those.  

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Rothfuss just read the prologue.  Same pattern.  New stuff going on in the Waystone.

[Myshkin]

On 12/10/2021 at 12:00 PM, Myrddin said:

 

I was looking to make room in my book shelves for new books. My Rothfuss books are likely getting moved into a box. Or maybe ebay. Wonder what they're worth...

Five or six years ago I sold a NotW first edition (Fabio cover) on eBay for $220. Don’t know what it’s worth now.

[KiDisaster]

I still don't think the book ever comes out but getting the prologue was neat. 

Spoiler

The bits about the copper locks and Kvothe having 'designed' the Waystone Inn caught my eye but it's been long enough since I read the books that maybe that's not new information?

 

[Myrddin]

32 minutes ago, Myshkin said:

Five or six years ago I sold a NotW first edition (Fabio cover) on eBay for $220. Don’t know what it’s worth now.

Mine is the standard first edition (10th printing). So not worth much.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

31 minutes ago, KiDisaster said:

I still don't think the book ever comes out but getting the prologue was neat. 

  Reveal hidden contents

The bits about the copper locks and Kvothe having 'designed' the Waystone Inn caught my eye but it's been long enough since I read the books that maybe that's not new information?

 

Spoiler

Yeah… a copper lock doesn’t make much sense as copper is so soft and easy to break.  It has to have some arcane meaning.  It reminds me of the Woodsman’s story where “Taborlin the Great” has a copper sword…

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

The is a text transcript of the prologue to The Doors of Stone  read by Rothfuss on Twich today:

Spoiler

Prologue
A Silence of Three Parts

IT WAS STILL NIGHT in the middle of Newarre. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

The most obvious part was a vast, echoing quiet made by things that were lacking. If the horizon had shone the slightest kiss of blue, the town would be stirring. There would be the crackle of kindling, the gentle murmur of water simmering for porridge or tea. The slow, dewey hush of folk walking through the grass would have brushed the silence off the front steps of houses with the indifferent briskness of an old birch broom. If Newarre had been large enough to warrant watchmen, it would have trudged and grumbled the silence away like an unwelcome stranger. If there had been music... but no, of course there was no music. In fact, there were none of these things, and so the silence remained.

In the basement of the Waystone, there was the smell of coal smoke and seared iron. Everywhere was the evidence of hurried work. Tools scattered; bottles left in disarray. A spill of acid hissed quietly to itself, having slopped over the edge of a wide stone bowl. Nearby the bricks of a tiny forge made small, sweet, pinging noises, as they cooled. These tiny forgotten noises added a furtive silence to the larger, echoing one. They bound it together, like tiny stitches of bright, brass, thread. The low drumming counterpoint, a taber, beats behind a song.

The third silence was not an easy thing to notice. If you listened long enough, you might begin to feel it in the chill copper of the Waystone’s locks, turned tight to keep the night at bay. It lurked in the thick, timbers of the door, and nestled deep in the buildings gray foundation stones. 

And it was in the hands of the man who had designed the inn, as he slowly undressed himself behind a bare and narrow bed. The man had true red hair, red as flame. His eyes were dark and weary, and he moved with the slow care of a man who is badly hurt, or tired, or old beyond his years.

The Waystone was his, just as the third silence was his. This was appropriate, as it was the greatest silence of the three, holding the others inside itself. It was deep and wide as autumns ending. It was heavy as a great river-smooth stone. It was the patient cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.

 

[KiDisaster]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

  Hide contents

Yeah… a copper lock doesn’t make much sense as copper is so soft and easy to break.  It has to have some arcane meaning.  It reminds me of the Woodsman’s story where “Taborlin the Great” has a copper sword…

 

Spoiler

Elodin's cell was also lined with copper. There's an implication that it can't be manipulated with naming magic. 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

28 minutes ago, KiDisaster said:

  Hide contents

Elodin's cell was also lined with copper. There's an implication that it can't be manipulated with naming magic. 

 

Spoiler

You’re right.  I had forgotten that.

 

[Lord Patrek]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The is a text transcript of the prologue to The Doors of Stone  read by Rothfuss on Twich today:

  Reveal hidden contents

Prologue
A Silence of Three Parts

IT WAS STILL NIGHT in the middle of Newarre. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

The most obvious part was a vast, echoing quiet made by things that were lacking. If the horizon had shone the slightest kiss of blue, the town would be stirring. There would be the crackle of kindling, the gentle murmur of water simmering for porridge or tea. The slow, dewey hush of folk walking through the grass would have brushed the silence off the front steps of houses with the indifferent briskness of an old birch broom. If Newarre had been large enough to warrant watchmen, it would have trudged and grumbled the silence away like an unwelcome stranger. If there had been music... but no, of course there was no music. In fact, there were none of these things, and so the silence remained.

In the basement of the Waystone, there was the smell of coal smoke and seared iron. Everywhere was the evidence of hurried work. Tools scattered; bottles left in disarray. A spill of acid hissed quietly to itself, having slopped over the edge of a wide stone bowl. Nearby the bricks of a tiny forge made small, sweet, pinging noises, as they cooled. These tiny forgotten noises added a furtive silence to the larger, echoing one. They bound it together, like tiny stitches of bright, brass, thread. The low drumming counterpoint, a taber, beats behind a song.

The third silence was not an easy thing to notice. If you listened long enough, you might begin to feel it in the chill copper of the Waystone’s locks, turned tight to keep the night at bay. It lurked in the thick, timbers of the door, and nestled deep in the buildings gray foundation stones. 

And it was in the hands of the man who had designed the inn, as he slowly undressed himself behind a bare and narrow bed. The man had true red hair, red as flame. His eyes were dark and weary, and he moved with the slow care of a man who is badly hurt, or tired, or old beyond his years.

The Waystone was his, just as the third silence was his. This was appropriate, as it was the greatest silence of the three, holding the others inside itself. It was deep and wide as autumns ending. It was heavy as a great river-smooth stone. It was the patient cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.

 

Is this all there is to it???

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

31 minutes ago, Lord Patrek said:

Is this all there is to it???

Yes.  It’s consistent with the other two prologues.  There will be a full cast reading of a chapter from TDOS at a later date.

[Jaxom 1974]

41 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

  Hide contents

You’re right.  I had forgotten that.

 

Spoiler

Kinda easy to forget things when it's a decade or more after the fact, isn't it...? 

 

[Werthead]

I feel this is next-level milking of a very minor deal.