How did one of the best selling fantasy authors of the twenty-first century lose the adaptation
opportunity of a lifetime? Just ask The Kingkiller Chronicle’s Patrick Rothfuss.
Fans of George R.R. Martin's fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire know just how torturous it
is to wait for a forthcoming book in a series when there's no release date in sight. That said, fans
of The Kingkiller Chronicle series might want to have a word with those desperate Martin readers.
Written by Patrick Rothfuss, The Kingkiller Chronicle hit shelves in 2007 with its first
installment, The Name of the Wind. Book 2, The Wise Man's Fear, followed that up in 2011 after
an extended but reasonable delay. However, the third book, The Doors of Stone, is still nowhere
to be found. As of early 2023, readers have been waiting for well over a decade for the celebrated
saga to come to a close, with essentially no information about when that conclusion will come.
In case you're not one of this series' devoted fans,
The Kingkiller Chronicle is set in the world of Temerant and told primarily through the main
character's oral history as he recounts it to a historian known as "chronicler."
The main character, Kvothe might be a simple innkeeper in the story's present day,
but he was an accomplished wizard and musician known by many ominous names in
the past. In The Name of the Wind, Kvothe tells the story of his tragic childhood
and his time spent in cities ravaged by crime, eventually arriving at a heralded
University where he begins to master a variety of magical practices. The Wise
Man's Fear follows Kvothe as his education progresses and he travels to further corners
of the world in his endless pursuit of the legendary demonic group, the Chandrian.
Between the over 1 million copies of The Name of the Wind sold, The Wise Man's Fear reaching the
top spot on the New York Times Bestseller list, and the Game of Thrones-driven fantasy craze of
the mid 2010s, it's not at all surprising that Hollywood moved fairly quickly to get
an adaptation off the ground. In the summer of 2013, it was reported that a group of writers
and producers had optioned the project, but the rights expired after a couple of years.
Enter Hamilton scribe and Pulitzer Prize winner Lin-Manuel Miranda.
As a self-proclaimed megafan of Rothfuss' work, Miranda was set to produce a TV series based on
The Kingkiller Chronicle. This seemed to mean only good things for Rothfuss,
as fresh off the mania aroused by Hamilton, Miranda was the hottest commodity in the industry.
Miranda, who was reportedly also going to write original music for the series,
was effusive with his praise for The Kingkiller Chronicle books. He told Vulture,
"I think fans of good writing just like The Name of the Wind. I had not read a lot
of fantasy books at that point, but I read the first sentence and I just, I was very drawn in."
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Miranda also said his experience appearing in HBO's
His Dark Materials helped him understand The Kingkiller Chronicle better. Unfortunately,
the solution for how best to approach the adaptation eluded even Miranda's sharp mind,
and he left the project in 2022.
Rothfuss has been elusive about the third book in the promised trilogy for a while — to the
point that many fans doubt the series will ever reach a conclusion. In fact, his own editor,
Betsy Wollheim, wrote in a Facebook post that she hadn't read a word of Rothfuss' work in years,
sowing more seeds of doubt about the trajectory for the book's release.
What's more, as a Reddit user summarized in Summer 2022, Rothfuss also raised money for his charity
by promising to release a new chapter from The Doors of Stone by February 2022. As of early 2023,
the chapter has yet to materialize and Rothfuss has yet to make any formal announcements as
to why, which may do some harm to his credibility in the eyes of producers.
Rothfuss has, however, addressed his lack of punctuality a few times.
"You can't be more irritated about not finishing this thing than me,
or my publisher. You got — at best, you're third in line."
It's worth noting that Rothfuss pretty much entered the Sci-Fi/Fantasy scene with The Name of
the Wind, and he probably didn't expect his first two books to blow up as much as they did. Unlike
authors like George R.R. Martin, who has been writing consistently for decades, Rothfuss doesn't
have the longstanding reputation that might pacify fans regarding long delays in his writing.
It's also worth acknowledging that Rothfuss has released two Kingkiller
novellas in the time since The Wise Man's Fear came out, so fans can rest
assured the universe has not been sitting stagnantly since the release of book two.
It's likely that after Game of Thrones outstripped its source material,
Hollywood might be more liable to look askance at unfinished series. Miranda's
departure may not mark the end of the road for The Kingkiller Chronicle's Hollywood journey,
but it may be the end until the author produces a concluding installment.