Pat Rothfuss XVII: Games, Bets, and Minecraft

[Gaston de Foix]

OK, I dropped off and now have to log off.  To come back to Derfel's question though, I think (what follows is speculation): the honest answer is we don't know and he doesn't know.  He's come back to writing after a long break because of serious mental health issues.  This is something he has done. 

As an indicator of when he will do more writing, including the kind of writing that 99.99% of his fans want from him, it's weak.  But it's better than radio silence and broken promises.  

[Ninefingers]

1 hour ago, KiDisaster said:

Sure, I'll read another novella. I loved Slow Regard. 

Same. Even if it is just an expansion of an already released short story.

Also, happy for him that his extended hiatus from social media was productive time. I bet he feels great about it. 

[Rhom]

3 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Umm, I wouldn't expect answers to that question on this Twitch stream, although people are asking. What can I say, it's my first Twitch stream.  

We are talking about sexy badgers now.  

My God... has anyone told @Kalnestk Oblast?

(Edit:  Went back and figured out what Kal is going by these days.)

Edited May 18, 2023 by Rhom

[Ser Not Appearing]

3 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Pat is on Twitch right now promising a new novella.  He's polling folks about whether they have read the Slow Regard of Silent Things.  Who has?

I have. It's pretty fascinating and great, imo. Totally different mannerisms and thought processes.

[Ser Not Appearing]

3 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

This is apparently a revised, expanded version of the Lightning Tree in Rogues.  Twice as long, totally rewritten.  

Kind of a bummer but also interesting. Whatever gets him back in the saddle.

[Kalbear]

It is absolutely unfortunate that j can pull off an almost perfect cosplay of Rothfuss with his hair and beard. That was my look during covid.

[butterweedstrover]

So I guess everyone just forgot about the missing chapter. 

Rothfuss can just hide away for a month without even an apology and then get right back to cashing checks. You people deserve him. 

[Lord Patrek]

It will be interesting to see how well this new novella will sell. Slow Regard debuted at number 2 on the NYT list because John Grisham released a novel on the same week. Given the anger/disappointment generated by Rothfuss these last few years, how well this new title will do commercially will give us an idea of whether or not he's still a genre powerhouse.

You probably recall all the crap thrown GRRM's way for the long delay between AFfC and ADWD, with readers promising never to read ASOIAF again. And Dance spent nearly a year on the NYT list when it came out. . .

The difference here is that Rothfuss is rereleasing a new version of an existing story, not the long-awaited third installment in his trilogy.

[Gaston de Foix]

12 minutes ago, Lord Patrek said:

It will be interesting to see how well this new novella will sell. Slow Regard debuted at number 2 on the NYT list because John Grisham released a novel on the same week. Given the anger/disappointment generated by Rothfuss these last few years, how well this new title will do commercially will give us an idea of whether or not he's still a genre powerhouse.

You probably recall all the crap thrown GRRM's way for the long delay between AFfC and ADWD, with readers promising never to read ASOIAF again. And Dance spent nearly a year on the NYT list when it came out. . .

The difference here is that Rothfuss is rereleasing a new version of an existing story, not the long-awaited third installment in his trilogy.

There was a certain haphazardness in conducting a poll about how many people had read the Lightning Tree (on Twitch, at short notice) after having written and agreed upon a publication date for the novella. 

If the answer had been 100%, what exactly would he have done differently?

My own instinct is that the novella will not sell that well, principally for the reason Lord Patrek gives.  People want Doors of Stone, not anything else.  

I have only vague memories of the Lightning Tree story (it keeps blurring in my mind with Rothfuss's write up of the fight between Jamie and Kvothe for that cage-match thing).  But Slow Regard was a difficult and confusing book.  If this novella is a challenging read, that will hamper its sales even further. 

14 hours ago, butterweedstrover said:

So I guess everyone just forgot about the missing chapter. 

Rothfuss can just hide away for a month without even an apology and then get right back to cashing checks. You people deserve him. 

 Actually, no I haven't.  I didn't particularly care about the chapter and had no plans to read it, but there is a long pattern of lies and broken promises from Rothfuss.  It is, objectively, infuriating. 

But I very much believe that it is his awareness of that anger that, in part, drives him to ingratiate himself by promising something he can't deliver.  So, maybe, we should try to break the cycle by letting go? It feels like where we are right now is the Bad Place.  

You don't have to read his books, or this book.  You don't have to say its okay that he lied, because it isn't.  But, maybe, on a human level accept that him taking a small step towards writing again is a healthy thing.  I think he has enough money to live out his natural life, so I don't think he's doing it for that.   

[Ser Not Appearing]

The Lightning Tree is nothing like Slow Regard, from what I recall.

Slow Regard was odd because it's from the perspective of an odd person. It's more fascinating than is it a fun read. It's basically just a character exploration of someone who's partly cracked. The Lightning Tree is also a character exploration but a vastly different character so a vastly different result. Bast is devious and not even human so his perspective betrays that. It was a more fun read but less interesting to me.

I think Bast and Auri as important characters speaks for itself. But the fact that these are the two who got side project novellas to explore the characters takes that importance to another level.

I have long thought that Slow Regard is a clear sign that he wanted to weave her in significantly moving forward but couldn't even write her in a way that felt correct, so he wrote a story that explores how she perceives the world and how she relates with Kvothe. It was concrete enough and good enough that he released it but I don't suspect releasing it was necessarily the original goal. 

From the same perspective, rewriting The Lightning Tree is interesting because it suggests to me that he needed to explore Bast more or found (through rewrites of main novel) that Bast isn't quite the same guy he thought at the time The Lightning Tree was written. That's a spark of intrigue I appreciate. I'm honestly super intrigued to see who he presents Bast as in the rewrite. What's his relationship with Kvothe and the mortal world and what might that mean about where Doors will go?

All that said, I've been known to be wrong.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Ser Not Appearing

[Veltigar]

If the reviews here are good, I might check it out. Chances are pretty big that I'll skip it though and even if I do feel like I'm missing out, I'll do my best to find a second-hand version of the novella.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I’ll probably get the book with a deep sigh recognizing what we all really want is DoS…

[Werthead]

I haven't even read Slow Regard and have little interest in doing so. I suspect I'll not even be bothered about The Doors of Stone when/if it appears.

[Derfel Cadarn]

17 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I haven't even read Slow Regard and have little interest in doing so. I suspect I'll not even be bothered about The Doors of Stone when/if it appears.

Of course you will. How else will you kill time in that retirement home? 

[Rhom]

57 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Of course you will. How else will you kill time in that retirement home? 

Porn.  The answer is always porn.

[Jaxom 1974]

1 hour ago, Rhom said:

Porn.  The answer is always porn.

Based on how some of Wiseman's Fears went...seems like there's a good chance Doors of Stone will qualify for this!

[williamjm]

8 hours ago, Ser Not Appearing said:

The Lightning Tree is nothing like Slow Regard, from what I recall.

Slow Regard was odd because it's from the perspective of an odd person. It's more fascinating than is it a fun read. It's basically just a character exploration of someone who's partly cracked. The Lightning Tree is also a character exploration but a vastly different character so a vastly different result. Bast is devious and not even human so his perspective betrays that. It was a more fun read but less interesting to me.

From what I remember The Lightning Tree was a good short story, but I'm not convinced that making it longer is going to make it better.

[Garlan the Gallant]

I didn’t watch the live stream, but does this self-described "break from writing" confirm that he has not, in fact, written anything prior to this novella for a very long time, as his publisher claimed on Facebook?

[Gaston de Foix]

14 hours ago, Garlan the Gallant said:

I didn’t watch the live stream, but does this self-described "break from writing" confirm that he has not, in fact, written anything prior to this novella for a very long time, as his publisher claimed on Facebook?

I understood it to be a soft admission.  She is still his editor/publisher (including for this novella).  

[Lord Patrek]

On 5/19/2023 at 10:29 AM, Gaston de Foix said:

My own instinct is that the novella will not sell that well, principally for the reason Lord Patrek gives.  People want Doors of Stone, not anything else.   

Given Rothfuss' numbers, even if only 10% of his fans buy the novella the week it comes out, unless another big name releases something that same week, it could nevertheless be more than enough for it to debut at number 1 on the NYT list.

What will be interesting to see is whether or not it makes a huge splash that first week, and/or if it continues to sell in steady fashion after that. It's hard to estimate what kind of demand there will ultimately be for this novella.

But keep in mind that it's been over a decade and both TNotW and TWMF remain in Amazon's Top 100 fantasy books sold basically every month. . .