Series: Book 2 in the The Kingkiller Chronicles series
Rating: ****
Tags: Fiction, General, Magic, Fantasy, Fantasy Fiction, Fantasy Fiction; American, Epic, Magicians, Mercenary Troops, Attempted Assassination, Fairies, Heroes, Lang:en
Summary
Amazon Best Books of the Month, March 2011:
The Wise Man's Fear continues the mesmerizing slow
reveal of the story of Kvothe the Bloodless, an orphaned
actor who became a fearsome hero before banishing himself to
a tiny town in the middle of Newarre. The readers of Patrick
Rothfuss's outstanding first book,
The Name of the Wind, which has gathered both a cult
following and a wide readership in the four years since it
came out, will remember that Kvothe promised to tell his tale
of wonder and woe to Chronicler, the king's scribe, in three
days.
The Wise Man's Fear makes up day two, and uncovers
enough to satisfy readers and make them desperate for the
full tale, from Kvothe's rapidly escalating feud with Ambrose
to the shockingly brutal events that mark his transformation
into a true warrior, and to his encounters with Felurian and
the Adem. Rothfuss remains a remarkably adept and inventive
storyteller, and Kvothe's is a riveting tale about a boy who
becomes a man who becomes a hero and a killer, spinning his
own mythology out of the ether until he traps himself within
it. Drop everything and read these books.
--Daphne Durham
Author One-on-One: Patrick Rothfuss and Brandon
Sanderson
Rothfuss: Heya Brandon.
Sanderson: Hey there, Pat. Nice talking with
you again.
Rothfuss: Thanks for being willing to do
this. I know you're insanely busy these days. Okay. Let me just jump right in here with a question. How
long was
Way of Kings? I heard a rumor that the ARC I read
was 400,000 words long. It didn't really feel like
it…
Sanderson: Let me see. I will open it right
now and word count it, so you have an exact number.
It’s 386,470 words, though the version you read was an
advance manuscript, before I did my final 10% tightening
draft, which was 423,557 words. I didn’t really want it to be that long. At that
length we’re running into problems with foreign
publishers having to split it and all sorts of issues with
making the paperback have enough space. I didn’t set
out to write a thousand-page, 400,000-word book. It’s
just what the novel demanded.
Rothfuss: *Wise Man's Fear * ended up being
395,000 words. And that's despite the fact that I've been
pruning it back at every opportunity for more than a year.
I'd spend weeks trimming superfluous words and phrases, extra
lines of dialogue, slightly redundant description until the
book was 12,000 words shorter. Then a month later I'd realize I needed to add a scene to
bring better resolution to a plot line. Then I'd add a couple
paragraphs to clarify some some character interaction. Then
I'd expand an action scene to improve tension. Suddenly the
book's 8,000 words longer again.
Sanderson: Yeah, that’s exactly how it
goes. It’s very rare that I’m able to cut entire
scenes. If I can cut entire scenes that means there’s
something fundamentally not working with the sequence and I
usually end up tossing the whole thing and rewriting it. But
trimming, or pruning as you described it, works very well
with my fiction. I can usually cut fifteen percent off just by nurturing
the text, pruning it, looking for the extraneous words and
phrases. But I wonder if in doing that there’s a
tendency to compensate. There’s a concept in dieting
that if someone starts working out really hard, they start to
say, “Well, that means I can now eat more,” and
you’ll find people compensating for the extra calorie
loss by eating more because they feel they can. I wonder if
we do that with our fiction. I mean, I will get done with
this big long trim and I’ll say, “Great, now I
have the space to do this extra thing that I really think the
story needs,” and then the story ends up going back to
just as long. Though at least in my case I can blame my editor too.
He’s very good with helping me with line edits, but
where we perhaps fuel each other in the wrong way is that
he’ll say, “Ooh, it’d be awesome if you add
this,” or “This scene needs this,” or
“Can you explain this?” And I say, “Yes! I
can explain that. I’d love to!” And then of
course the book gets longer and then we both have to go to
Tom Doherty with our eyes downward saying, “Um, the
book is really long again, Tom. Sorry.” I have a question for you, then. Did you always intend the
Kingkiller Chronicle to be three days split across
three books? Or did you start writing it as one book and then
split it? What’s the real story behind that?
Rothfuss: Assuming I had any sort of plan at
the beginning is a big mistake. I just started writing. I
didn't have a plan. I didn't know what I was doing. For years and years I just thought of it as The Book in my
head. I've always thought of it as one big story. Then,
eventually I realized it would need to be broken up into
volumes. I can't say why I picked three books except that three is
a good number. It's sort of the classic number. And while the
story is working well in this format, part of me wishes I'd
broken it into smaller chunks. This second book has so many
plotlines. If I'd written this trilogy as say, 10 books, each
one would be much shorter and self contained. More like the
Dresden Files. That's pointless musing though. I'm sure if I'd written
smaller volumes right now I'd be thinking, "Oh! if only I'd
written these as longer books I could play more with
interwoven plot lines…" Read the full interview Starred Review. As seamless and lyrical as a song from the
lute-playing adventurer and arcanist Kvothe, this mesmerizing
sequel to Rothfuss's 2007's debut, The Name of the Wind, is a
towering work of fantasy. As Kvothe, now the unassuming
keeper of the Waystone Inn, continues to share his astounding
life story—a history that includes saving an
influential lord from treachery, defeating a band of
dangerous bandits, and surviving an encounter with a
legendary Fae seductress—he also offers glimpses into
his life's true pursuit: figuring out how to vanquish the
mythical Chandrian, a group of seven godlike destroyers that
brutally murdered his family and left him an orphan. But
while Kvothe recalls the events of his past, his future is
conspiring just outside the inn's doors. This breathtakingly
epic story is heartrending in its intimacy and masterful in
its narrative essence, and will leave fans waiting on
tenterhooks for the final installment. (Mar.)
Amazon.com Review
In an exclusive interview for Amazon.com, epic fantasy
authors Patrick Rothfuss (
The Wise Man's Fear) and Brandon Sanderson (
Towers of Midnight) sat down to discuss
collaborating with publishers, dealing with success, and what
goes into creating and editing their work.From Publishers Weekly
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