Will The Narrow Road Between Desires lead to The Doors of Stone?
By Daniel Roman
What can we glean about The Doors of Stone from The Narrow Road Between Desires?
Patrick Rothfuss took to his blog and Twitch channel this week to announce a new Kingkiller Chronicle novella is coming out on November 14. The Narrow Road Between Desires is the first new book set in the world of Temerant since The Slow Regard of Silent Things novella released in 2014.
It isn’t entirely new, though; The Narrow Road Between Desires is almost an anniversary edition of its own, in a way. A previous version of the story titled The Lightning Tree was published in 2014 as part of the Rogues anthology, one of the themed cross-genre short fiction anthologies edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. It follows Kvothe’s fae companion Bast over the course of a single day as he gets up to some fae mischief. The Narrow Road Between Desires is over twice the length of The Lightning Tree and will feature more than 30 illustrations from Nate Taylor, the same artist who illustrated The Slow Regard of Silent Things. So it’s a substantial expansion on the original tale, even if the core conceit remains the same.
The novella is being published by DAW Books. Rothfuss had glowing words for his editor Betsy Wollheim and DAW on his blog. “While I write the books myself, publishing them is a team effort. And as many of you already know, my publisher is DAW, and my editor is Betsy Wollheim. Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” he wrote.
He also praised Wollheim for allowing him the flexibility to announce the novella first on his blog. Publishers often announce release dates for their authors, but since there are always rumors swirling about The Doors of Stone, Rothfuss has promised fans he will announce any big news first on his blog so that they know it’s legitimate. This “makes things harder” for his publisher, but they allowed him to do it anyway.
"They have to do extra work in order to keep things secret, and it ties their hands a little. Believe it or not, promoting and marketing a book is way harder when nobody knows a book is in the works. Despite all this, we’ve all been keeping news about the novella secret, and the lovely folks at DAW have done that extra work so that I can make the announcement here first."
All of this is a pretty good indicator that things have improved between Rothfuss and DAW Books since those headline-making Facebook remarks back in 2020.
Should we start getting our hopes up for The Doors of Stone?
Time has proven that there is nothing which can make Patrick Rothfuss get The Doors of Stone done faster, but it’s not unreasonable to suspect that if contracts were renegotiated during Astra’s acquisition of DAW, the publishers might have wanted to lock in some other release from him. Despite not having published a new Kingkiller book in nearly a decade, Rothfuss remains one of their biggest authors. DAW releasing a new Patrick Rothfuss book post-Astra acquisition sends a firm signal, both for their relationship with the author, and that things are stable enough at the publishing house to get one of their bestsellers back onto shelves with a major new release after a years-long absence.
Is it cause to hope that things may be getting back on track for The Doors of Stone? That perhaps The Narrow Road Between Desires might be a lead up to the third and final book of The Kingkiller Chronicle? After all, we still haven’t heard the story of how Bast and Kvothe met; that’s something we’ve long expected to see in The Doors of Stone, which could make The Narrow Road Between Desires a logical primer for it. But we’ve been burned too many times before to get our hopes up quite yet.
At the very least, this novella is the most encouraging thing to happen for The Kingkiller Chronicle in years. The Lightning Tree was a great story, and has always deserved its own standalone release to match The Slow Regard of Silent Things. That we’re getting one after all this time is a nice balm for the jilted reader, especially when it’s an entirely new version of the story.
Whenever The Doors of Stone is done, Patrick Rothfuss will let us know on his blog. Until then, we’ll be counting down the days until The Narrow Road Between Desires hits shelves. It releases on November 14 from DAW Books.
Next. 10 things we need to see in The Doors Of Stone. dark
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