Just a quick update on Patrick Rothfuss

But Lynch turned in a manuscript for his next installment in June, so there is hope on the horizon. Maybe Thorn will be released next year.

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Maybe Thorn will be released next year.

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I remember saying this 3 years ago.

I hated his second book.

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But how many times will it be rewritten and re-edited etc.

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I don't think that is a valid concern until the specific author shows tendency for that ::cough:: Rothfuss and Martin ::cough::

I just got into gentleman bastards but has that been an issue for Lynch in prior books?

Hooked me enough that I'll read his last book, but I'll buy it used.

Not mine, but says it all about this bastard:



Chronicler awoke refreshed the following morning, and he walked down to the bar at the Waystone Inn awaiting Kvothe’s arrival to finish the story he had told the past two days. But as the day wore on, and the hours turned form morning until noon until night, Kvothe never came.

When Bast showed up as the sun was setting, Chronicler asked where his master was. ?

“He needs his sleep,” Bast said. “How can you begrudge him that?” ?

“Of course,” Chronicler said. “Do you have any idea when he’s going to wake up?”

“He’s not your bitch,” Bast replied.

As he retired to his room that night, Chronicler poked his head in to Kvothe’s room to make sure he was still breathing. Kvothe was awake, playing solitaire.

“Chronicler!” Kvothe said, smiling. “Check out these cool cards! Aren’t they awesome?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so,” he said. “I was surprised, though, when you didn’t come down to finish the story.”?

“I will finish soon,” Kvothe said. “And like Aslan, I call all times ‘soon.’ ”

Chronicler didn’t know who Aslan was, but he didn't want to pry. Kvothe, after all, was not his bitch. Not even a little bit.

The next morning, Chronicler was up before sunrise, and as he walked down to the common room of the Waystone, he saw Kvothe waiting on a handful of customers who had come for breakfast.

“Hey, look, it’s Chronicler!” Kvothe cried. “Everyone say hello to Chronicler!”

Three people waved. One unsuccessfully tried to stifle a fart so foul it would have killed a king. ?

Chronicler waved back, turned to Kvothe, and said “Do you want to get started?”

“Way ahead of you,” Kvothe said. He handed him a clutch of papers the included eight pages of crude drawings of a girl making soap.

Chronicler looked at the drawings and tilted his head. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s soap!” Kvothe said. “Everyone needs soap!” ?

“Yes, but it’s not a story,” Chronicler said. “And it’s certainly not your story.”

“So?”

“So people expect certain things from a story. If people read this story looking for those things, they wouldn’t get them, so they’ll be dissatisfied.”?

“frick those people,” Kvothe said. The crowd murmured their assent to this sentiment, and one started speaking in a strange language, which led Bast to think perhaps he was a skin dancer, but it turned out he was just Pentecostal. ?

Chronicler turned to look at Bast, who gave him a thumbs up and threw a knife at him. Chronicler ducked, and the blade lodged itself in the ear of the farting guy. ??

When it was clear that he wasn’t going to get any more info out Chronicler went back to his room, where Bast joined him in short order. ?

Can you help explain what’s going on?” Chronicler asked.

Bast sneered an evil sneer. “He doesn’t owe you anything,” he said. ?

“Well, no, he doesn’t, but it would still be nice to get the end of the story.”?

“What part of ‘he’s not your bitch’ do you not understand?” Bast asked, sneering an even eviler sneer than the one he had just sneered, which was, in and of itself, already pretty evil.

“Well, most of it,” Chronicler said. “All of it, really. I never said he was my bitch. He just said he was going to finish his story, and now that he won't finish his story, and - ”

At that moment, Kvothe burst into the room. “Guys, good news! I have a big announcement to make!”?

Chronicler smiled. “You’re going to finish the story?”

Kvothe smirked. “What? No!” He then held out two small bags of stones. “Look! I made tinker’s packs! Who wants one?”

Chronicler reached out his hand to take one, but Kvothe pulled the sacks back. “Buy two, get one free,” he scowled. “I’m not your bitch!” He then smiled and skipped out of the room, throwing playing cards over his shoulders as he frolicked down the stairs.

“What do you mean you ‘don’t get it?’” Bast said extra-sneeringly. “Did you see how happy he is? Don’t you want him to be happy?”

“Well, yes, I…”?

“DIDN’T YOU SEE HIM FROLIC?!”

“I saw him frolic, certainly, but…”?

“Repeat after me - NOT. YOUR. BITCH.”

“If it’s all the same, I’d rather not.”

Bast’s eyes bulged out like Large Marge in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, and then there was a puff of sulfury smoke, and he was gone, but not at all like Nightcrawler from the X-Men, who Bast sort of resembles if you think about it.

So the next morning, Chronicler woke up and found that Kvothe had gone on tour to sell his cards and tinker’s packs. Chronicler sighed, and then he began to weep as he realized that Kvothe wasn’t his bitch - he, Chronicler, was actually KVOTHE’S bitch.

At that point, Chronicler took up residence in the Waystone Inn, waiting for Kvothe to return. Days turned into weeks, and then months to years. Occasionally, he received letters where Kvothe complained about politics and others where he tried to sell him stuff, and one with a story about a cat, but there was no word at all as to when or if Kvothe would actually finish the story. Chronicler would write back, and he would ask, politely, whether or not Kvothe had any intention of finishing the tale he had started so long ago.

Kvothe finally came home eight and a half years later, and Chronicler was overjoyed to see him. “How was your journey?”

“It was fine, except for your letters,” Kvothe snarked snarkily.

“What?” Chronicler said. “What do you mean?”

“When you ask about day three - “ he made a whiny noise. “ ‘Wheeeen’s day threee?' That’s what y'all sound like to me when you... “ He made another whiny noise. "You know like the sound of of like a nail being dragged across my teeth combined with the smell of someone who just... shite on themselves. That's the sound it makes in my head when you are like ‘When’s day three, you said we would be done years ago.’ “


Just then, an asteroid hit Temerant and everyone was wiped out in an extinction level event. Also, Denna was a dude the whole time. The end.

Good stuff. I likely won't spend money on the third myself. The worst thing to me with him taking so long and why I doubt I'll pay another penny for anything he writes is that this trilogy won't even wrap anything up, the whole story is basically prequel, unless he just makes a downer ending where kvothe continues to hang out in the inn doing nothing.

Well, I also won't buy anything because the second book sucked and he's a prick. Which is amusing considering the second book has a higher rating than the first on Goodreads. Fanboys are weird.

Lynch's first two were some of the absolute best fantasy novels I've ever read.

I know some people weren't big on book 2 but I loved it.

Need to get to mclellan but outside if some of the malazan, a couple WoT, and some others that escape right now, those two from lynch are hard to match for my money and what I've read.

Some of Sanderson's wax and Wayne is like just a notch below and the storm light stuff is just different, hard to compare 1,200 page epics to that. The bug works building series are my favorite, but it's hard to have bookes getting to the 900 /1,000 page Mark's that dont drag some.

The awesome thing about writing fantasy is that you can put in institutions, moral questions, weapons, characters and situation that you always imagined / dreamed about / wish were in the real world.

From what I gather having not read the books, I guess PR really wanted to bang some wood elves or fairys or whatever.

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I just think he's wildly overrated as an author. He can turn a phrase, but his structure and pacing and character building is dogshit. The first book was a fun take on Harry Potter. For a bit. Then it went to shite and meandered. His second book was a complete mess. I will not be buying his third book.

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This is pretty much my take on him. His prose is among the best in the business, but the story in the first was the run of the mill miracle hero goes to school and deals with douchebags and makes friends, with pretty run of the mill characters (though the Chandrian in the background had potential as interesting bad guys, but they were barely touched on in 2 books so who cares really).

Lynch has at least had legit issues he was dealing with that delayed his books, and as you said even his down books haven't been bad, 2 and 3 were at least solid. I'm hopeful he'll turn things back around, even though it's unlikely he ever writes anything close to as good as his first.

Same for Ryan and Blood Song really (though I enjoyed his dragon series a good bit), reading Wolf's Call right now and it's just not grabbing me in a way that makes me not want to put it down.

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Yeah, but Lies was an almost perfect book. It was a great start to the series and by itself is a great stand alone novel.

I don’t expect the rest of the series to be as good but book 3 did get things going on the right direction. I didn’t really care for Red Seas

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Agreed, Lies is my favorite fantasy book over the past 15 years or so, and the third was a step in the right direction.