Brandon Sanderson Defends Patrick Rothfuss And His Progress on The Kingkiller Chronicle: "No One Wants That Book To Get Done More Than Him"
Outside of George R.R. Martin, no author gets mocked more than Patrick Rothfuss for not working on his epic fantasy book. However, Brandon Sanderson defended Rothfuss in a new video capturing one of his writing courses.
Patrick Rothfuss became famous for his book The Name Of The Wind, which mainstream fantasy critics and establishment publishing hailed as the next Game of Thrones. They didn’t realize at the time that the series would mirror George R.R. Martin in a very big way—Rothfuss would completely freeze and become unable to complete the final book in the trilogy.
Much like Martin, Rothfuss seems willing to do anything but complete his The Kingkiller Chronicle series, with book two coming out in 2011, fourteen years ago. A myriad of excuses have been presented over the years, but none to the satisfaction of fans.
Three years ago, Rothfuss came under fire as he saw fans begin to turn on him as he released a new novella set in the series. He raised $700,000 for charity, and he read one chapter from the alleged forthcoming novel. At the time, he said he would add stretch goals for the charity to read another chapter, but started getting cagey, saying he never promised such.
Eventually, fan backlash became so large that his community manager stepped in and apologized. The team changed the stretch goal to have the new chapter read by a professional actor. Fast forward to October 2023, and Rothfuss made a video still giving excuses about the chapter. “I feel really bad about the chapter,” he said in a question and answer session on video, but he didn’t have good answers for why he couldn’t finish one chapter of a book.
Now, Brandon Sanderson has chimed in while speaking at one of his writing classes. He was giving a lecture on what a tragic character was in terms of character progressions, and after using Star Wars as an example, he began to speak on The Kingkiller Chronicle.
“I’m on record saying multiple times saying I think this is the structure that Pat Rothfuss is going to use when he’s writing The Name Of The Wind trilogy, if we ever get the third one, which I think we will. I know Pat. No one wants that book to get done more than him, I believe I’ve said that one before, but I believe this is a Greek tragedy.”
It’s a tragedy for fans who are now quickly losing a second decade without getting a book complete, with Rothfuss having become more of a Twitch streamer than an author in recent years, spending most of his time talking online rather than writing, something we’ve seen a lot with different creators who have raised too much money for their work and yet seem unable to complete it.
Do you think Patrick Rothfuss will ever complete The Kingkiller Chronicle like Brandon Sanderson does? Leave a comment and let us know.
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I doubt Martin or Rothfuss will finish. If they do. Yes it will be a big event. But what could have been? Maybe they don’t care about their legacy. Fans do.
I think Rothaus’s should let Sanderson finish the third book for him.