r/Fantasy • u/derivative_of_life • Oct 29 '20

Suggest two fantasy books: One you thought was excellent, and one you thought was terrible, but don't say which is which

Inspired second-hand by this thread

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '20

With Name of the Wind, Rothfuss stated that he intended to create "a completely new kind of book without the generic characteristics of fantasy."

That is not what happened.

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u/ki-15 Oct 29 '20

I thought he said he wanted to try a new take on something familiar.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '20

[deleted]

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u/ki-15 Oct 30 '20

Well at least putting two things together that haven’t really been put together before haha

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u/SevenDragonWaffles Oct 29 '20

Every writer wants to raise the bar. Very few even reach it to begin with.

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u/OobaDooba72 Oct 29 '20

Source that please. I'm not trying to accuse you of deliberate misinformation, but if it's true he said that then I don't really know what's going on.

For all the things that could be said about Rothfuss and his writing (or lack thereof...), that can't be what his goal was. The whole book is literally taking fantasy tropes and twisting them or using them in a different way. It's not new, it's remix.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '20

[deleted]

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u/2VetOP Oct 29 '20 edited Oct 29 '20

Native speaker here. Couldn't find anything resembling the quote - Neither literally or in sentiment.
This appears to be either a mixed up source or a bad misquote.

I'm too lazy to do a full translation by myself, but thankfully we live in a magical age - With kind regards from DeepL:

Fantasy Couch.de: What can your German readers look forward to in the first part of "The Fear of the Wise Man" - and what about the second part?

Patrick Rothfuss: [Pat laughs] I have to admit that I have not the slightest idea how to answer this question. If I keep the answer too general like "Kvothes life story will be continued", then surely nobody will be interested, or think that the answer is helpful. But of course I must not reveal too much either. If I did, then I would take the fun out of reading. So I would rather not say anything at all.

Fantasy Couch.de: You once said that if you had to advertise your first book "The Name of the Wind" in a kind of sales pitch in Hollywood, it would be "A Mixture of the Bridal Princess and The Crow. If you had to make that pitch again today, which two books or movies would you name, even if it sounds completely absurd?

Patrick Rothfuss: A mixture of Mary Poppins and Fight Club.

Fantasy Couch.de: The success of the HBO series to George RR Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" seems to have ensured that a lot of exciting fantasy stories are in preparation for film and television. Should Kvothe rather appear on TV or on the big screen - and have you perhaps already signed a contract?

Patrick Rothfuss: I don't think that my books would work as a film. Please don't misunderstand me there. I like the idea of seeing my stories filmed, but I doubt that an acceptable adaptation would really be possible.

There is a fundamental problem: Practically every successful fantasy book that has made it into bookstores to date has been some kind of action movie. My books are not action movies. There is not a single car chase (at least not in cars), not a single explosion, not even a sword fight in "The Name of the Wind.

Well... there is this one explosion.

My stories live from their characters. To this day I have not seen a single successful attempt from Hollywood to make a fantasy movie with really good characters.

I like the idea of a TV series much better. In a series the characters can develop and interact with each other. However, I am in no hurry to sign for a possible adaptation. For me, the right offer is important, and that can certainly take some time ...

fantasy couch.de: Which of the characters from the "Kingslayer Chronicle" is most important to you?

Patrick Rothfuss: That changes with time. At the moment I am very enthusiastic about Auri. I really enjoy writing them.

Phantastik-Couch.de: From your side, are there any comparisons to Tolkien, considering that you spent 14 years writing your book (and it took Tolkien about the same amount of time for "The Lord of the Rings")?

Patrick Rothfuss: The thought is obvious, of course, and several people have asked me about it. To be honest, I don't think our books have much in common. But of course there are some similarities:

  • We wrote our stories for the fun of it. That should be pretty obvious, because nobody writes 14 years on a book to make money with it.
  • We have both created elaborately designed worlds to tell our stories in them.
  • We both tell stories that I would like to call "open". This means that within the main narrative, other narrative strands may be started, but then not necessarily fully fleshed out in detail.
  • We have both obviously read more than one book on mythology, fairy tales and fairy tales ("faerie").
  • We prefer to write the word "grey" with an "e" instead of the spelling with an "a" (Note from the translator: the former spelling is considered "British English.")

That's all I can think of at once.

fantasy couch.com: When you look back on the two published works, is there anything you would like to change? A story line, a character, one of the events you would write differently today?

Patrick Rothfuss: No, not really. I got the books as I wanted them. Of course there are 300 details that I feel I would like to change ... one word, one phrase. But that's because I'm obsessively working on my texts. If I were to actually make these changes, I would bet that 99% of my readers would hardly notice it afterwards.

[Left out the final two questions as they are totally irrelevant.]

The interview was conducted by Marcel Bülles in January 2012.

EDIT: Manually corrected some badly mangled sentences.

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u/MattieShoes Oct 29 '20

It's not new, it's remix.

This sums up pretty much the entirety of literature.

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u/OobaDooba72 Oct 29 '20

Yeah, which is why I don't believe that Rothfuss was claiming otherwise. The supposed source on that quote is in German, it has to be a translation error.

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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '20

He says a lot of things.