Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

Every few years a book is released that not only makes a splash but hits with such force it drives all water from the pool!
A few years back The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss was such a book.
I’ve known Pat almost from the beginning, in a way even before the book was published. When an agent takes on a new client, that agent will usually put the book through a series of edits to strengthen it for submission to editors. Gotta put your best foot forward, after all! As Pat finished those edits on The Name of the Wind for agent Matt Bialer, I was going through my own edits with Matt for Song of the Fell Hammer. Matt told me then The Name of the Wind was a special book and fantasy readers were going to love it.
He was right. They did.
Matt also shared that Pat had a voracious appetite for ensuring every single word on the page was in the perfect spot. I saw this first hand when, two years ago, Pat showed me his red-slashed marks on pages from his first book’s sequel, Wise Man’s Fear. What a mess! It was like Pat had slaughtered a dragon with the largest broadsword imagined and used the pages of the book to clean up. He told me the he puts a book through literally dozens of full edits before he is happy with it.
This habit has of course pushed back the release for Wise Man’s Fear. Pat had all three books of this trilogy finished before he even approached Matt, but they were the roughest of first drafts at best. They hadn’t experienced Pat’s unique editing process yet. It took more than a year to edit The Name of the Wind.
And look at how great that book turned out to be!
Since the release of his debut book, Pat has been hard at work with Wise Man’s Fear—writing, rewriting, editing, editing, editing. He knows what he has before him. If he does this right his character Kvothe could be one of the greatest in the history of fantasy literature and Pat wants to give Kvothe every opportunity. For two years Pat has edited Wise Man’s Fear, looking over every single word, paragraph and chapter, ensuring the book lives up to his expectations after the marvelous release of The Name of the Wind.
Well, he has finally finished Wise Man’s Fear!
As posted on his website HERE, Pat speaks to finishing the book and has taken a photo of the manuscript next to a hardcover copy of the previous book.
As you can see it is a massive manuscript.
It looks to be 1500 pages of single-sided double-spaced goodness! That is a huge book, larger than The Name of the Wind. It’s great to know the last two years of waiting has not been in vain.
So, what is next? Betsy Wollheim, Pat’s editor at DAW, will undoubtedly be reading it as soon as possible. She will ask for a series of edits as well. When Pat returns from his trip he will sit back down and make some changes.
Then the book will be ready to go.
How long will it be before it is published? Difficult to know. Depends on when Pat finishes those edits. But if I were a betting man I’d say it will be published sometime this Fall 2009.
So keep your fingers crossed!
This is great news!