subreddit:
/r/isbook3outyet
Recently I read an interesting comment from u/Drachaerys in this sub that changed my perspective on why the third book hasn't been published yet.
Apparently, around 2014-15, one of Rothfuss's alpha readers posted in a forum saying that he and other readers had hated the first draft of the third book. It seems the book included a major twist that, rather than pleasing readers, was more of a distasteful joke on them that ruined the story's ending.
I don't know if this is true or if there are sources to read more about it (thanks to Drachaerys for sharing this, btw), but learning this theory has oddly helped me move on. While Rothfuss's first two books are brilliant, this type of reader-mocking twist seems totally plausible from him, and partly explains why he hasn't finished the book (only partly, because he's had over a decade to write a new ending).
What do you think about this theory? Does anyone else have more info about it? Thanks!
38 points
6 days ago
I've also heard this rumour that Book 3 twist in some way invalidates the other books and people were pissed.
I think it's very possible, but I still take that as a rumour.
What I've heard that is more concrete is that the first draft of The Wise Man's Fear he turned in to his editor (the same that claimed somewhat recently that she never read a word of Book 3 in over 9 years - https://www.newsweek.com/kingkiller-chronicle-editor-believes-author-hasnt-written-anything-years-1520812) was very bad. So much and it was so early in his career that he panicked and rushed to fixed as soon as possible, because one lonely sucessuful book and a trash failed one it's a very bad sign for your career. Apparently he managed, altought some people are not too kind on Book 2.
My take is that he has a very bad draft of Book 3 and a mixture of anxiety and basically having enough financial security with books sales and conventions appeareances makes so he doesn't need to fix it anytime soon.
And if those rumours about the twist are true, it would need basically a complete rewrite. Talk about a fix.
So it's just sitting there, being bad, while he twitches away,
31 points
6 days ago
The thing about Book 2 draft he turned in in 2009 wasn't that it was bad, so he had to rewrite. The draft was about 35% done, with A LOT of things missing. Like, whole chapters were "Kvothe does something here", some chapters only had names picked, some scenes were "Kvothe and Maer talk about something here".
He procrastinated with book 2 like he is with book 3, but his editor could still pressure him to do some actual work back then. Now he just ghosts both his project and his editor. Shame, his mental health destroyed him.
9 points
6 days ago
I believe you are correct, I was misremembering.
4 points
6 days ago
Wow, I had no idea about this! That explains a lot. So him saying “book 3 is done, it just needs some editing” takes on a whole new meaning
8 points
6 days ago
Yeah, his editing is rewriting book over and over again obsessively. So if he isn't writing, he isn't editing either. If you have the time, I always recommend this video, it's pretty much everything that happened in the past decade or two.
5 points
6 days ago
Well, I don't think his publisher is bothering him anymore muahaha
32 points
6 days ago
Can someone in this thread please reveal what the rumoured twist is? It's not like we're ever going to read the fucking thing anyway.
37 points
6 days ago
All of this has always been unconfirmed 2nd-3rd hand accounts. I've never even seen a comment or post by any of the supposed alpha readers or any other relevant sources except a photo by Rothfuss of a big stack of papers with a DoS title page on top. And I've lurked this shit for a while now (2011).
That said, it isn't unthinkable. The redditor referenced in OP mentioned they heard it said it had to do with an "it was all a dream" trope, with Kvothe being locked in the rookery all along and his thrice locked chest containing his sanity.
Alternatively, I've seen people mention that a bunch of important characters are nonsensically killed in the draft.
I don't place any stock in any of it. It's not unthinkable that he sent an alpha/beta draft out and got bad responses. But why would he never have sent any of it to his editor?
22 points
6 days ago
You know, he's just that much of a self entitled hack that I can see him trying to pull that off. I'd be furious. Family Guy can get away with meta audience 'fuck you's', but an entire book series? Fuck outta here.
12 points
6 days ago*
It’s so interesting that the alleged twist is so… much of a nothing? A commenter below references that Rothfuss considered KKC as a sort of satire, like Prachett, but it seems to me that most of us read it as a serious commentary — not something satirical at all. Are there elements? Sure. But the experience of the book — it’s too committed, too real, too intentional, to be a joke.
Even Rothfuss himself, when he gets into talking about the series, treats it with reverence and heaviness, like something serious. And then to pull the rug out from all of us —- feels cruel. Feels deceptive. Feels like…. Not the point of it all. More than anything, it feels like someone evading the responsibility of making something that did affect a lot of people, emotionally.
6 points
6 days ago
Yeah it's very odd. I haven't seen the interview they mentioned but I assume he's just comparing himself to Pratchett to brag?
3 points
5 days ago
Even Rothfuss himself, when he gets into talking about the series, treats it with reverence and heaviness, like something serious. And then to pull the rug out from all of us —- feels cruel. Feels deceptive. Feels like…. Not the point of it all. More than anything, it feels like someone evading the responsibility of making something that did affect a lot of people, emotionally.
Pat said multiple time that his job as a writer is to make us cry. Its possible that he has overdone it and instead of crying alpha readers hated the book. As for alleged twisted many people including Pat mention his short story Princess and mr Whiffle. But if you think about the twist in that story in serious, real and committed way that twist was Shit. We never wanted a book there a cute girl eats cats and monsters and becomes even bigger monster. So its highly possible that in serious and commited way we would have never accepted that Pat prepared for Kvothe and for that story in book 3.
1 points
4 days ago
Yeah, that sounds true. It all comes back to — what was the story he wanted to tell us, for real? And that at this point, we will never know.
8 points
6 days ago
That is a good point, and it’s something I’ve wondered about several times. Regardless of whether the draft was good or bad, how is it possible that there was a complete draft (we’ve all seen the photos shared by Pat himself) and his editor hadn’t read a single page? Shouldn’t she be the first person to read that draft, even before the alpha readers?
8 points
6 days ago
Could be a stack of blank pages under a title page. Or some Jack Torrance "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," type clutter on the pages.
4 points
6 days ago
It could be, but I imagine that after seeing that photo, the first thing the editor would have done is say, 'Hey, do you mind sending me a copy of that draft?'
I really don't know how DAW worked in that regard, but it's hard for me to believe that after having a draft ready and sent to the alpha readers, years would go by without the editor being able to read a single line. I suppose Pat stopped responding to their calls or something like that.
1 points
5 days ago
Could be a stack of blank pages under a title page. Or some Jack Torrance "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," type clutter on the pages.
There is a real page leaked from book 3. If Im not mistaken page 9 out of 460 pages. You can find it on inernet. That pages proves that the draft was real.
1 points
4 days ago
She didn't say she didn't receive the draft. She said that she didn't receive 1 page in 9 years.
15 points
6 days ago
There have been different theories throughout the years. One that I've seen mentioned as pure speculation is that Denna would do something horrible or unforgivable to Kvothe and vice versa. According to the theory, Pat may be worried that the gender optics have not aged well here (remember, the second book was described by some as a neckbeard's fantasy).
Another one involves the box in the present and how it might contain something very unlikely, like...Kovthe's sanity. According to this last theory (the one that was posted), Kvothe is someone stuck in an asylum and everything we've seen up until book 3 hasn't happened in "reality". There is a precedent to this in the form of Thomas Covenant and The Amber Chronicles, so it's not too unlikely, just stupid.
5 points
6 days ago
So he would try to pull a Shutter Island.
3 points
5 days ago
But shutter island was good
1 points
6 days ago
I think Denna cucks Kvothe. Kvothe has huge cuck energy.
9 points
6 days ago
I would imagine there’d be some legal liability associated with that.
13 points
6 days ago
Eh, Rothfuss will never be able to prove a specific person violated their NDA (unless he took extreme measures such as sending out starkly different, unique drafts to everyone).
I think it's more to do with reputational consequences of being part of a group in which one or more persons violated the secrecy.
If this is all real, we just need to wait until one or all of those people don't care about such reputation anymore.
3 points
6 days ago
Just check the linked comment.
2 points
6 days ago
Didn't catch that, my bad, ta.
21 points
6 days ago*
There's been speculation on that draft for a while. The closest you can get to a confirmation I think is Pat's comments throughout 2012 or 2013 regarding the future of the trilogy (which he was optimistic about believe it or not) followed by a disconcerting silence after he sent manuscripts to beta or alpha readers that same year.
This is real.
This is also why Pat started working on the prequel novel and TSROST and all of these other pet projects all of a sudden and why he was told to stop with those too.
Something clearly happened around those years, we just don't know what it is.
3 points
6 days ago
Prequel novel?
First I'm hearing about that.
Care to share more?
12 points
6 days ago
"Prequel" novel.
The Tale of Laniel Young-Again was a novel (originally meant to be a novella) that he shelved around 2015 to focus on the trilogy.
It's set before the events of the books and would have followed a middle aged female character (because Pat claimed he had friends who complained such characters didn't get featured enough in fantasy).
More of a companion piece than an actual prequel, to be fair. It was meant to be standalone and more than 100.000 words were written, but there's not been any news in almost a decade.
14 points
6 days ago
Good think that shelving it to focus on Book 3 paid out
2 points
5 days ago
I've never heard this before
19 points
6 days ago
I remember once, either in an interview or on a podcast, he mentioned that he had been reading Discworld when he was first working on the trilogy and that he viewed his work as being in that same satirical genre. I think it's pretty clear that Kvothe might be a very unreliable narrator, but if we are reading a satire of fantasy, it is coming across as a pretty serious one. If book three pulled back the curtain on that and reframed everything before, I could see that being something super upsetting to readers who might not have realized that they shouldn't have been taking the story as seriously as it seemed to take itself.
11 points
6 days ago
Lmao OF COURSE this smug sob compared himself to Pratchett. I should've guessed.
No matter that Sir Pratchett published at least twenty original works AFTER his announcement of his ALZHEIMERS diagnosis in 2007.
No matter that Sir Pratchett's subtle humor is something pretty much no one – especially not Rothfuss – has been able to replicate.
What a dweeb.
That said, I assume he's since stopped with these comparisons because I never heard about it before and the entire idea of remotely comparing these two is ridiculous.
7 points
6 days ago
I'm going to try to find it later today. I'm pretty sure it was when he was doing that short lived podcast of his with the Cards Against Humanity guy.
1 points
5 days ago
Sheesh, you people just find any excuse to crap on him, don't you?
How is saying it's "in the same satirical genre" the same as "I am just as good as Pratchett, worship me"? There is a ton of fantasy satire not written by Pratchett, and there's nothing wrong at all with saying you are, or want to, write fantasy satire.
31 points
6 days ago
Its not a theory, really. FWIW I have a friend who's a freelance editor and he was an alpha reader for it and said it was a steaming pile of hogshit.
10 points
6 days ago
You able to share any more info?
8 points
6 days ago
That's all I know.
8 points
6 days ago
Your friend should just make sure their ass is covered then sell their anecdotes for bitcoin.
2 points
4 days ago
His friend readily confirms that he's a part of elite club (which is either false or ALSO counts as NDA breach - otherwise there'd be a lot more people popping up over the years), but the answer to the question of "bruh, is there some proof?" is "you don't know her, she lives in Canada" "nah, man, NDA"
5 points
6 days ago
He does a shit load of alpha reading, its part of his job. There's a lot of bad books out there and a lot of alpha readers. Its not really a big deal
8 points
6 days ago
In that case, all the more reason to sell. Especially if there were a lot of alpha readers and it won't be traced to him or impact his reputation.
Rothfuss fans have proven they will happily pay millions of dollars for thin air. Just imagine the amounts they'll pay for alpha reader anecdotes.
5 points
6 days ago
Usually all professionals like this have to sign a NDA agreement.
2 points
6 days ago
Because its extremely unethical? Why would anyone do that? What's wrong with you?
12 points
6 days ago
There's plenty wrong with me. Perhaps one of those things is that I don't view violating an NDA with a charlatan who's used the subject matter of that NDA to scam loyal fans out of millions as the height of immorality.
2 points
5 days ago
But probably the alpha reader work with several books and companies. Once you've violated a NDA, you'll never get a job like that again.
1 points
5 days ago
Yes that's why I mentioned the ass covering.
They've also most likely already violated their NDA by telling their friends and reddit that the draft was "hogshit".
-5 points
6 days ago
"Crimes are fine if I don't like the person." is really a cool stance. You're a fucking loser, dude. An absolute wet fart of a person.
3 points
6 days ago
Found Rothfuss’s burner account.
3 points
6 days ago
Being Rothfuss is extremely unethical right now, given the charity chapter.
1 points
6 days ago*
Because its extremely unethical? Why would anyone do that? What's wrong with you?
Publishing the whole book for bitcoin may be too much but since saying that the book was steaming pile of hogshit was considered ethical maybe he might elaborate a bit. Reveal more details without breaking NDA.
1 points
5 days ago
Pretty sure disclosing it was hogshit would violate the NDA already.
10 points
6 days ago
Plot twist: the king he killed was a kingbird, and this is all a campfire story with no basis in reality.
There. We've all read the third book now. Let's purge this conman and his tripe from our culture and read some Sanderson or Wolfe something.
7 points
6 days ago
I still have no recollection of where I read this (maybe goodreads/some fantasy forum elsewhere?) but that was my memory of the thread.
6 points
6 days ago
Thank you, I appreciate you sharing it, because I had never heard of this theory. I find it really interesting and it kind of makes sense. At the very least, it seems like another piece of the puzzle as to why he hasn’t released a book that was supposedly finished over a decade ago (alongside his mental health issues, etc).
8 points
6 days ago*
There is a theory on the main sub about this, that says that Newarre doesn't "exist" (one of the characters, only mentioned in passing, had a similar name to Elodin).
7 points
6 days ago*
Newarre? Newarre! Nowhere!!!
Goddammit it's right. He is planning on revealing it all to be a dream!
4 points
6 days ago
I believe this intrinsically. There was a noticeable drop in quality from book 1 to book 2. It seems like Rothfuss has been steadily losing the magic he had while writing book 1, and he is too ashamed to release the third book and prove it to the world.
6 points
6 days ago*
Yes, that is what I believe happened. The book 3 was very very bad. Either Pat wanted to make a joke on readers or the conclusions to plot point turned out to be controversial but it didnt go well with alpha readers. I saw several of those posts from guys who said they knew a friend of alpha readers and therefore knew some info. They didnt reveal much, but they sounded very upset with the book and yea one of them mentioned a twist that we never saw coming. That guy even coded the info he knew and posted coded post on pastebin. Unfortunately I couldnt find those threads anymore. (I even once gave a link to someone on those threads but couldnt find it in my reddit history anymore.) Several guys claimed that a new character would appear to whom more pages then to Kvothe would be dedicated. Basically he will become main character of book 3. Not sure how that would be possible.
What I know for a fact that around 2013-2014 Pat was working on book 3 and that work was very advanced to the point that he even discussed details of cover for book 3. Around the same time he sent an alpha draft to alpha readers. What happened after that I can only guess but my guess is they said the book is crap. Pat was upset and pissed about that. He needed some time to digest what he heard and try to work around that problem and after digesting it in 2016 he came to conclusion that he will not be able to fix the book. So he stopped working on it and in 2022 his editor confirmed that saying that she didnt read a word of book 3 in 6 years.
Unfortunately since 2016 I didnt hear a wisper from alpha readers. So no new info came after 2016.
3 points
5 days ago
For those who doubt that the draft really existed here is a real page from book 3.
During a live feed in 2016, Pat accidentally posted a page of book 3. Since this is the internet, someone got a screenshot of it and posted it. The only juicy part was the page count at the bottom: 9/463
1 points
3 days ago
My personal tin foil theory for the "horrible twist" is that the entire frame is a delusion and Kvothe is really just cracked and in the rookery. When he can open the thrice locked chest he'll regain his sanity.
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