The Best fantasy series of all time? Possibly.

[Rothfussfan !CSZ6G0yP9Q No.2320155]

This is hands down the best book I've read in the last two years. Patrick Rothfuss has single handedly breathed new life into the dying fantasy genre. His engrossing characters and adult themes will help readers of more childish fantasy like LOTR and the Wheel of Time series move on to more sophisticated fare.The romance between Kvothe and Denna is one of the most beautiful and realistic portrayal of young love ever written and I believe this is one of the reasons The Kingkiller Chronicle has had such wide spread success. Thank you Patrick Rothfuss for the Joy you have given me and countless other fans of your works.

[A young bi-curious boy No.2320156]

If you managed to elaborate upon one of the many negatives within this tome I would have actually considered your opinion. However, you've not done that, so what you've said essentially lacks any merit and it it just a fucking waste of space.

[Rothfussfan !CSZ6G0yP9Q No.2320161]

>>2320156
Lets read one of your Best Selling fantasy novels then! OH WAIT YOU NEVER WROTE ONE? All novels have faults only an autistic loser could pick apart an epic like TWMF and miss the bigger picture.

[Anonymous No.2320165]

i cant wait for book 3.

[Rothfussfan !CSZ6G0yP9Q No.2320169]

>>2320156
Besides you're a filthy degenerate anyway so it makes sense you'd hate Patrick Rothfuss.

[Anonymous No.2320171]

>>2320161
doesn't matter
he doesn't read this board
why'd you address it to him?
you made a big mistake
very early on
ignoring your posts now

[Anonymous No.2320172]

its one of the few books ive finished reading and started reading again from the start

[Rothfussfan !CSZ6G0yP9Q No.2320175]

>>2320171
>he doesn't read this board
why'd you address it to him?

What? Are you autistic? I'm not even gonna bother explaining it to you kid.

[Anonymous No.2320180]

Fanboyish drivel......

[Rothfussfan !CSZ6G0yP9Q No.2320184]

>>2320180
butthurt manchild...

[Anonymous No.2320194]

I rarely peruse /lit/. Apparently you guys are easy to troll. Even /v/ would have spotted this shit from a mile away. His trip is "Rothfussfan" and he called LoTR and Wheel of Time childish, for fuck's sake. How god damned obvious do you have to be to get called out on this board?

Normally I'd give this a 0/10, but seeing as I'm on /lit/, I guess I have to adjust my scale:

8/10 OP! Well done.

As for Wise Man's Fear, I thought it was alright but only with the fact that it's the middle book of a trilogy in mind. The middle books of trilogies tend to suck, and this is no exception. The plot concerning the Chandrian was hardly progressed at all, the love story with Denna continues to be idiotic, and large sections of the book were inserted seemingly only to explain some of Kvothe's strange pseudonyms and legendary reputations. I also had trouble suspending disbelief during a few parts of the book... like the ninja girls who don't think men have anything to do with pregnancy. The entire novel was a detour from anything the first book set up, and the "Darker Themes" were a yawn.

[Anonymous No.2320199]

>>2320194
>he called LoTR and Wheel of Time childish
But they are books for kids.

[Rothfussfan !CSZ6G0yP9Q No.2320203]

>>2320194
> I also had trouble suspending disbelief during a few parts of the book... like the ninja girls who don't think men have anything to do with pregnancy.

It's a deconstruction.

[Anonymous No.2320206]

>>2320199
Okay, let me append that statement.

He called LoTR childish COMPARED TO the Kingkiller Chronicle, which has so far been a slightly darker and grittier Harry Potter novel.


In any case, I'd argue that LoTR isn't childish. The Hobbit is, certainly, but LoTR is a much more serious story set in its own brilliant mythological world.

But this isn't really the thread for that.

[Anonymous No.2320207]

>>2320206
>LoTR is a much more serious story
It's fucking whimsy.

[Anonymous No.2320208]

>>2320203
>deconstruction

I think the very use of that word is further trolling. You're going to have to explain yourself.

[Anonymous No.2320213]

>>2320207
It doesn't even have a Happily Ever After ending. The power of The Three is undone, Frodo and a few other important character symbolically die, and the men of Middle Earth are left to bury their dead and rebuild after horrible wars. Even The Shire is fucked up by the end of the series. Maybe you unreasonably associate fantasy with childishness.

[Anonymous No.2320225]

>>2320213
I think you're being a melodramatic pussy. End of Narnia is the end of the world, the kids realise they were dead all along, and it's still a kid's book.

[Rothfussfan !CSZ6G0yP9Q No.2320229]

>>2320208
Mr.Rothfuss skillfully subverts the standard "ninja sex elves" trope into something truly special. He shows just how flawed and strange such a society would actually be. By highlighting the ignorance in the ademi he makes them human.

[Anonymous No.2320238]

>>2320225
You like A Song of Ice and Fire, don't you? Maybe LoTR didn't have enough graphic sex in it.

[Anonymous No.2320250]

>>2320229
That's... obtuse BS. I don't know how to refute that.

[Anonymous No.2320259]

>>2320238
I don't know what Narnia you've read, but my copies don't have graphic sex in them. Also:
>graphic sex
>violence
>makes something more mature

[Anonymous No.2320268]

>>2320259
>can't read

[Rothfussfan !CSZ6G0yP9Q No.2320269]

>>2320250
> I don't know how to refute that

Because you can't. Because I'm right and everyone knows it.

[Anonymous No.2320276]

>>2320269
Tell me, are you religious?

[Rothfussfan !CSZ6G0yP9Q No.2320280]

>>2320276
I hardly see how my religious beliefs are relevant

[Anonymous No.2320287]

>>2320280
No, I suppose you wouldn't.

[positive haiku critic No.2320299]

opinions differ
you shouldn't be arguing
rejoice in reading

[Rothfussfan !CSZ6G0yP9Q No.2320303]

>>2320299
Do you follow the Lethani too?

[thread reported No.2320789]

>implying there is anything wrong with writing for young people
>implying spending insane amounts of time deconstructing tropes isn't the stupid man's way of trying to appear smart
>implying rothfuss could ever write a story as compelling as LOTR et al
>implying you're not just a troll trying to drum up interest and sales in a dying, shitty series

[Rothfussfan !CSZ6G0yP9Q No.2320907]

>>2320789
reported for fraudulent reporting

[Anonymous No.2321957]

I REALLY liked this book, and I can overlook it's smaller flaws. The two things that really irked me about it were this: The time in the fae went on for far too long, and a good chunk of the latter 1/3rd of the book was a fantasy boogie nights. Otherwise I love TNOTW and TWMF.

Eagerly awaiting the 3rd book,
Me

[Anonymous No.2321971]

the name of the wind was a great book, one of my favorites.

wise man's fear was awful in comparison.

[Anonymous No.2321989]

i'm "digging" this thread

5/5 would read again, funny shit

>>2320229
fucking beautiful, weeping tears of joy, etc

OP, you are truly the patrick rothfuss of creating threads on 4chan

[Anonymous No.2321996]

Anyone know any GOOD grimdark fantasy? Im talking as dark or darker then Deadhouse Gates.

[Anonymous No.2322004]

>>2320155
>>2320155

>"adult themes"
Are you 12?

[Anonymous No.2322020]

>>2321996
R. Scott Bakker's Earwea books. They're definitely the best "epic" novels I've ever read. They do an excellent job of capturing the feel of ancient and alien morality instead of transplanting contemporary ethics into a medieval setting.

[Anonymous No.2322025]

>>2322020
... is that Death from Sandman?
if so, please sauce

[Anonymous No.2322057]

>>2321996

R. Scott Bakker and Joe Abercrombie are the only ones worth shit.

[Anonymous No.2322105]

>>2320155
>>2012
>>LotR is considered childish fantasy despite the fact that it reads like literature, not pop-fic, and has much higher minded concepts than the smut Bakker and Rothfuss pump out. If breathing new life into a dying fantasy genre means turning it into accessible trash with "adult themes" (read overused sex and violence), then let it fucking die. Sophisticated fare my fucking dick.

[Anonymous No.2322107]

>>2322105
i'm like 98% sure that Rothfussfan is a troll/joke. no chance that he's serious.

[Anonymous No.2322112]

>>2322105

>LoTR
>higher mind concepts

You're fucking joking, right?

LoTR is the cancer of fantasy.

[Anonymous No.2322127]

I've just started reading the first book.
His prose is mostly really good, but it seems all to often to just go too far into purple territory. Otherwise I'm not far enough to say much else

[Anonymous No.2322129]

>>2322112
you're nt serious right

[Anonymous No.2322136]

>>2322112
>the cancer of fantasy

how can the progenitor of modern fantasy be the cancer of fantasy

unless you think that everything we know as fantasy is wrong, somehow

[Anonymous No.2322140]

>>2322025
Yes, it's death.

And a girl from FLCL... I think her name is kitsurubami.

Some drawfag must have mashed them together for some reason.

[Anonymous No.2322147]

>>2320199
>LotR
>a book for kids

Why? Because it's not mature and edgy enough to have sex scenes and swear words?

[Anonymous No.2322157]

>>2322147

I read LotR. The word "count" wasn't in it. Not even once. Thank goodness GRRM came to save fantasy.

[Anonymous No.2322161]

>>2322157

"Cunt." Fucking autocorrect.

[Anonymous No.2322173]

>>2322136

>everything we know as fantasy is wrong, somehow

LoTR isn't "everything we know as fantasy". LoTR is everything that is wrong with fantasy. LoTR ushered in the age of shit, LoTR is the reason fantasy took such a nosedive and is currently one of the least seriously taken genres.

Maybe LoTR is "everything my retard babby brain knows as fantasy"

[Anonymous No.2322178]

>>2322173
It's cute, I almost took you seriously for a second.

[Anonymous No.2322183]

>>2322173
I didn't say that it was everything we know as fantasy. I said it created everything we know as fantasy. All modern fantasy stems from Tolkien.

[Anonymous No.2322187]

>>2322173
ahahahaha look at how wrong and dumb you are, look at it!

lord of the rings is really, really good. some of the epic fantasy it inspired isn't good, true. but the thing itself is still good. also, your periodization of fantasy is not really good, because non-epic fantasy has been and is still being written post-lotr. tbqh not even sure what you're thinking about as good fantasy here.

[Anonymous No.2322189]

>>2322183

>I said it created everything we know as fantasy

But that's fucking wrong you retard.

[Anonymous No.2322194]

>>2322189
alright, where then does modern fantasy stem from if not Tolkien

[Anonymous No.2322211]

>>2322194

George MacDonald

[Anonymous No.2322217]

>>2322194
he's actually got a pretty good point. patricia mckillip doesn't come from tolkien, neil gaiman doesn't come from tolkien, john crowley doesn't come from tolkien. fantasy is a wide and divergent form with many sources - imaginative literature like morris and cabell and dunsany, swords-and-sorcery low fantasy like leiber, many other things. tolkien is tremendously influential on the most visible and popular form of fantasy (epic fantasy), but that doesn't mean he "created modern fantasy". and dude does have a point, in that a lot of epic fantasy kind of blows.

of course, he's wrong insofar as lord of the rings is still really, really good

[Anonymous No.2322223]

>>2322211
He wrote fairy tales.

Short, sweet, and simple kid's stories.

We're talking about the fantasy epic here.

[Anonymous No.2322229]

>>2322223
again, not to belabor the point here, but your equation of "fantasy" and "epic fantasy" is exactly what the guy is objecting to

those things are not coterminous

[Anonymous No.2322251]

>>2322173

>Implying that because LotR was so awesome it's inspired leagues of people trying to do the same thing without the decades of world–building behind it and writing shitty books with no understanding of how JRRT was reviving medieval prose and poetry styles is somehow Tolkien's fault.

[Anonymous No.2322266]

>>2322251

>decades of world–building

It's amazing how he spent decades building a world that is at the end of the day so fucking simplistic.

[Anonymous No.2322274]

>>2322251
>>2322266
"The great modern fantasies were written out of religious, philosophical and psychological landscapes. They were sermons. They were metaphors. They were rhetoric. They were books, which means that the one thing they actually weren’t was countries with people in them. The commercial fantasy that has replaced them is often based on a mistaken attempt to literalise someone else’s metaphor, or realise someone else’s rhetorical imagery. For instance, the moment you begin to ask (or rather to answer) questions like, “Yes, but what did Sauron look like?”; or, “Just how might an Orc regiment organise itself?”; the moment you concern yourself with the economic geography of pseudo-feudal societies, with the real way to use swords, with the politics of courts, you have diluted the poetic power of Tolkien’s images. You have brought them under control. You have tamed, colonised and put your own cultural mark on them."

- M John Harrison

http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/i/viriconium/

[Anonymous No.2322307]

>>2322266
>simplistic
>not elaborate
>not ornate
>not complicated

Yeah... do you honestly think that Middle-earth is simplistic?

[Anonymous No.2322320]

>>2322307
Just how many languages did Tolkien invent, again?

[Anonymous No.2322326]

>>2322266

>ITT: Faggot who knows nothing about linguistics or history or theology.

[Heraldry Anon No.2322330]

>>2322274
So essentially we need to shut up and not ask the obvious, dumb questions because that would break suspension of disbelief?

Don't get me wrong, I love Tolkien, the Hobbit was fantastic, and the LoTR was probably one of the best things to happen to the fantasy genre. (Also the worst, once everybody started copying Tolkien.) But at some point, the implausibility gets to the point where either the author needs to do a better job of explaining the world his story is set in, or the reader just stops.

[Anonymous No.2322340]

>>2322274
>Yes, but what did Sauron look like?

However he wanted, silly goose!

[Anonymous No.2322342]

>>2322330
or because the point is not, and never was, about creating a world as real as reality. it's still myth and folklore and meant to be. it has realistic languages because tolkien was really interested in language. thinking about the economics of middle-earth or w/e can be interesting, sure, but criticizing it for not being realistic enough as a world does not seem like a fundamentally sound critique, because who gives a shit? it's a work of fiction, of imagination.

[Anonymous No.2322346]

>>2322342

A lot of other stuff is realistic other than the languages, though. For example: the geography and underlying geology is pretty well reasoned, especially the changes of the coastlines over the ages.

Tolkien doesn't get into the economics because he isn't that interested, but with knowledge of ancient & medieval history, it isn't hard to come up with ideas of how things might have worked.

[Anonymous No.2322349]

>>2322342
>tolkien was really interested in language

He was a philologist. Studying the mechanics of language was his academic specialty.

[Anonymous No.2322348]

>>2322307

Yes it fucking is.

Just because it's vast doesn't mean it has depth. Fucking D&D worlds have vastness. Doesn't mean it has depth.

>>2322326
>>2322320

Why is inventing a language supposed to impress me so fucking much? It's like if some guy who was an architect wrote a novel and in it he showcased his knowledge of architecture in detail. Yes it's a nice addition but it's superficial.

[Anonymous No.2322352]

>>2322346
yeah but whether or not it works is irrelevant

it is unimportant

>>2322349
i'm aware

[Anonymous No.2322356]

>>2322348
Just what do you mean by depth? And have you actually read anything Tolkien's ever written?

[Heraldry Anon No.2322360]

>>2322342
Look, no matter how into fiction you get, you're still tied to reality. People still act and feel emotions for the exact same reasons you and I do. A work of fiction still has to adhere to a few rules, not many rules, but a few.

[Anonymous No.2322364]

>>2322348

>Implying the languages don't create the entire flavor of the setting.

And calling D&D settings vast, oh wow. They are faux–Tolkien without nearly the detailed historical and sensible geographical and cultural design behind them. What flavor they get, they get from aping Tolkien.

[Anonymous No.2322366]

>>2322360

>2012
>Thinking everyone feels emotions and acts on them for the same reasons.
>ISHYGDDT

[Anonymous No.2322368]

>>2322360
that's completely fucking different from the kind of questions about the realism of the world Harrison is talking about

they are great works from a literary viewpoint, and that includes the emotional realism. it does not need to include the realism of middle-earth as a world. just read the fucking piece.

[Anonymous No.2322369]

>>2322352
okay... I just thought you were selling Tolkien short

it's like saying of an ichthyologist "that guy is interested in fish"

yeah he'd have to be but it's more than that... it's his job

[Anonymous No.2322371]

>>2322356

>Just what do you mean by depth?

the quality of being profound (as in insight) or full (as of knowledge)

>And have you actually read anything Tolkien's ever written?

Of course.