The Internet Will Shutdown Today Because Patrick Rothfuss Won It

By Alexander Joenks | Miscellaneous | January 20, 2014 |

By Alexander Joenks | Miscellaneous | January 20, 2014 |

This actually is relatively old news, though it’s not exactly news even by the loose modern cable definition of the word, and if you haven’t seen it before than it’s not a rerun to you either. So really, I don’t know why all of you are complaining in my head.

There is something of a renaissance of fantasy going on. And I don’t mean the fact that the Internet has guaranteed mankind instant access to any variety of pornography at a moment’s notice. I mean fantasy of the genre Tolkien built. Back twenty years ago, it tended to be a sparse field, certainly not empty, but the neighbors were a good shout across the field. Now it’s positively bustling with Erikson, Weeks, Abercrombie, Sanderson, Rothfuss, Lynch, and about a dozen others (including George R.R. Martin once a decade or so when he feels like dropping in) punching out enough content to content even the quickest of readers. And these books are good. Not just good for lovers of the genre, who in generations past would recommend Shannara to other fantasy lovers, but in terms of if-you-like-books-you-need-to-read-this level of good.

Anyway, Patrick Rothfuss (Name of the Wind, Wise Man’s Fear) has been a bit of funny guy on the Internet. You have to allow that he might be slightly crazy from living in northern Wisconsin. He likes to post reviews of other author’s books, like here in which he reviews one of Brandon Sanderson’s novels on Amazon and says that the story is so good that it is starting to piss him off as a competing author.

Well, last month, noticing that not only had Goodreads put up his third novel (which is still being written), but that people were writing reviews of it, Rothfuss went ahead and reviewed his own unfinished novel. It is wonderful: