Patrick Rothfuss is one of the most successful fantasy authors writing today, but who inspired him? The legendary Neil Gaiman reigns supreme.
Patrick Rothfuss, the acclaimed author of The Kingkiller Chronicle, is one of the biggest names in the wide and ever-expanding world of fantasy writers. His books always pop up when it comes time to discuss the best works of the genre. But as popular as he is, who are the authors that inspire him? For Rothfuss, there’s only one name: Neil Gaiman.
Gaiman has been a household name for decades now, having written everything from Coraline to American Gods, Stardust, The Sandman and much more. “I’m not just a reader of Neil Gaiman,” Rothfuss said during a Twitch stream. “It’s fair to say that I am a fan of Neil Gaiman. To say nothing of the fact that I am probably in many ways a fanboy of Neil Gaiman.”
As a successful author himself, Rothfuss can relate to Gaiman, although obviously they have very different lives:
"When I think of Neil Gaiman, the way that I feel about him, as I think he is very cool and fancy. I don’t imagine what his life is like. I mean, I can if I think about it, if I focus in, I can imagine what parts of his life are like because we are both authors, we both do tours, we both write books. Of course, his experience is entirely different from mine in so many ways. When I think of Neil Gaiman, I have almost a tone. I have sort of a sensation of how I perceive his life to be. And that tone and that sensation is cool and fancy because that’s how I think of Neil Gaiman."
In fact, Rothfuss’ admiration of Gaiman is why you might notice him being referenced a ton of times on his blog. “Over the years as I’m on the blog, I’ve always used Neil Gaiman as sort of a benchmark,” he said. “If I want to reference a cool writer I reference Neil Gaiman because he’s pretty ubiquitous, everybody reads Neil. Everybody likes his books. He’s delightful and charming and very present in the mind of the community.”
Rothfuss’ books are terrific, so perhaps his admiration of Gaiman yielded good results. It’s just a shame there aren’t more of them. Rothfuss has been famously slow to turn in the third and presumably final book in his trilogy, The Doors of Stone. But when it happens, we’ll be waiting and ready:
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