6 takeaways from our exclusive interview with Patrick Rothfuss
By Daniel Roman
Embrils and other elements from The Narrow Road Between Desires may appear in future Kingkiller Chronicle books
While The Narrow Road Between Desires is a reimagining of a previously published work, Rothfuss did add in some new elements which could have ramifications on the larger Kingkiller Chronicle world, or appear in future books. One of those is Embrils, a kind of rune-based fortune telling system that appears in the novella. “I didn’t create the Embrils just for this,” Rothfuss said.
"With Slow Regard, you got to meet Auri and you learn more about her and you learn more about the Underthing and you learn more about alchemy. But so did I. And all of that enriches the world and therefore it enriches the stories that I’ll write in that world. And the same thing is true here. I got to work on more about Glammourie and Grammarie, and Faerie everything, and Bast in the town. And so that enriches the world and it all ties together. And now I have Embrils to play with as a known thing."
The Narrow Road Between Desires may not have any world-shattering events that will be required reading for the main Kingkiller Chronicle books, but it’s cool to know that some of these worldbuilding elements Rothfuss introduced in the novella will make the leap to the rest of the series.
If Patrick Rothfuss could have any fictional character tell him their life story, it would be…
A last little fun question that I hit Rothfuss with was: if you could have any fictional character tell you their life story in the way that Kvothe is relaying his tale to Chronicler in The Kingkiller Chronicle, who would it be?
It made him “feel like a sellout” to say it, but Rothfuss had to go with one of fantasy’s most famous wizards: Gandalf the Grey from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
“I want to hear Gandalf’s mental process. Gandalf’s been around for a long time,” Rothfuss said. Tom Bombadil seemed to be a close second choice, though. “There’d be just a lot of chasing bees and kissing girls [for Tom Bombadil]. I’d get tired of that after a couple hundred pages.”
For more, you can watch our full interview with Patrick Rothfuss now on the WinterIsComing YouTube channel.
The Narrow Road Between Desires is out now from DAW Books, wherever books are sold.
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