The King Killers Chronicles Book 3 Release Date

[Solana Axton]

Thewait for The Doors of Stone, the third and final book in Patrick Rothfuss' The Kingkiller Chronicle trilogy, has been ongoing for over a decade with fans still waiting for news of its release. Rothfuss has always planned the main Kingkiller Chronicle story - i.e. the one of how Kvothe became a "Kingkiller" and then an innkeeper - to be comprised of three books. However, with the first, The Name of the Wind, released all the way back in 2007 and the second, The Wise Man's Fear, in 2011, there's still no sign of book number three.

The Doors of Stone title was revealed many years ago, but like George R.R. Martin's The Winds of Winter, there's still no release date confirmed. In the years since The Wise Man's Fear, Rothfuss has written two stories in the universe: the novella The Slow Regard of Silent Things, which centers on Auri, and the short story The Lightning Tree, focusing on Bast, were both published in 2014. Despite the growing popularity of the book franchise and various attempts to adapt the series into a show or movie, there has been little movement on the third book and the long wait for The Doors of Stone continues.

Rothfuss initially had ambitious plans for The Kingkiller Chronicle series: with The Name of The Wind finished and set for publication in 2007, the author planned to deliver the second book a year later, and the third and final book just a year after that. Yet, despite hopes of having The Doors of Stone released by 2009, The Wise Man's Fear hadn't come out by that point. This was explained in a post on PatrickRothfuss.com, with the author writing about the many revisions needed for the second book. He discussed having not written to such a tight deadline before, and being unable to complete the story on time:

Rothfuss continued to discuss how he put off his editor for a long time, until eventually she read a draft of the story, and pulled The Wise Man's Fear from the schedule. This was to allow Rothfuss the time he needed to complete the book, which ended up coming out in 2011. That, of course, had a major knock-on impact on The Doors of Stone, which not only didn't release but also had to take more of a backseat once again while the second book could be finished, and that's continued to reverberate for the 12 years since.

Rothfuss has discussed The Doors of Stone's delays a few times over the years. In a 2015 interview with Christopher Paolini, he said that he had turned attention from another spinoff, The Tale of Laniel Young-Again, in order to focus on the third book, despite having around 75% of that story written (which would itself further explain The Doors of Stone delays). There was no publication date at the time, but he did so it needed "a lot of work." However, in a Facebook post from 2020 [via Newsweek], Rothfuss' editor, Betsy Wollheim, stated that she hadn't seen any of the book, and believed he hadn't written anything in years.

Rothfuss himself has spoken openly about his struggles with finishing the book and the impact it has taken on him mentally. In a Twitch stream [via Reddit] the author discussed the pressure of finishing the book and the importance of getting it right:

"I absolutely care about finishing the book... I feel bad about [not giving people what they want] all the time. It's one of the things that's f**king me up, I'm in a lot of therapy right now... I went from fiddling around with a book that I just liked to work on and I knew would never be published... then it's like 'hey a million people are disappointed in you because they want this book.' If I didn't care about the book, you'd have it by now... I owe everyone who loved the book something beautiful.

There hasn't been movement on The Doors of Stone's release date, but there is a new book in the Kingkiller Chronicle's universe coming in 2023: The Narrow Road Between Desires. The novella, due for publication on November 14, will be an expansion of The Lightning Tree, telling a story about Bast covering a single day. Given parts of this story were already written, then it was presumably easier (relatively speaking) to finish it before The Doors of Stone, and allows for something to help fill the gap and ease the wait. While this could be frustrating, it does mean Rothfuss has made good writing progress on a Temerant project, which should be a positive for The Doors of Stone.

In a 2014 interview with Christopher Paolini, The Doors of Time author Patrick Rothfuss revealed he thought he had about "a year" left of writing on the project to get it right:

"My writing energy is going toward working on Book 3. There is no publication date. Believe me, if there was a pub date I would share it with everyone. It still has alot of work before it is perfect. And here is what I told the people that showed up to my Portland event, because somebody asked, 'When's Book 3?' And I am like, 'Okay, that is a fair question.' And I said, 'It is going to take me at least a year to make the book everything that I want it to be.'"

"When I said, 'At least a year,' I heard this [mumbling] from the audiences. And I said, 'Think of it this way, who remembers watching the first 'Matrix' movie?' And everyone was like, 'Oh, I remember. It was awesome.' And I go, 'Who remembers the last 'Matrix' movie?' And every one is kind of like, 'Oh yeah...' And I go, 'Do you want me to take another year and get this shit absolutely right?' I want to get this absolutely perfect. I want this to be a book so good that it will break your heart and last for a thousand years. And I cannot do that really fast."

In 2021, Rothfuss revealed the book's prologue, doing a public reading of the first chapter on YouTube. This was the first indication that real progress had been made on The Doors of Stone, but it was still unclear if/when it would ever be released.

Rothfuss released The Slow Regard of Silent Things in 2014, a companion tale to the mainline Kingkiller trilogy. The book tells the story of an adventurer named Auri who goes searching in the tunnels beneath the famed University location from Rothfuss' other books.

The second companion novella, The Narrow Road Between Desires, was published in 2023. This book, also written by Rothfuss, focused on the character of Bast, the dashing assistant to Kvothe from the mainline books.

Alas. We suspected that this would be the case for some time now, but it has finally be confirmed: Stormlight 5 won't be coming until 2024. Though the reason why certainly isn't quite what we expected...

Brandon Sanderson did a Reddit AMA (ask me anything) with subreddit r/books last week, and u/VeryNiceName16 asked about the plan for the "Stormlight 4.5 novella" (tentatively titled Horneater) amid everything else going on in 2023. Which, if you've give a moment of thought for Brandon's release schedule for 2023, is a darn good question! We've got four Secret Project books, Defiant (Skyward 4), AND supposedly Stormlight Archive 5? Not to mention the Words of Radiance leatherbounds and several other smaller projects that might be coming along. I don't know about you, but I'm already sweating thinking about how much work it will be just to keep up!

Progress on Stormlight 5 has been slow of course, and Brandon finally confirmed what we all expected: the Stormlight 5 release just isn't going to happen in 2023 after all. While some people might be bummed by this, I have to say that I'm honestly a bit relieved. With so much content coming out, I'm more than grateful that we're getting a bit of extra time so that we can properly digest it all.

This delay should come as no surprise. Brandon's fastest turnaround time on a Stormlight book was Rhythm of War, which he started writing in early 2019 and was able to finish by the end of that year. Sanderson's plan was to start Stormlight 5 at the beginning of this year to hit the November 2023 release... Well, we're currently a little over halfway through the year and the first draft status bar is sitting at a mere 7%, with a few more weeks of Secret Project 3 revisions still on his plate first. Keep in mind Brandon will still have to work on revisions for Secret Project 4 and Defiant at some point as well. All of that to say, it would seem that he's roughly 6 months behind schedule as it stands, and that could slip a bit further. Brandon stressed at JordanCon 2021 that he will allow Stormlight 5's schedule to slide back if necessary. It's the "end of a sequence," as he called it, and he needs to make sure that sequence sticks the landing.

Brandon went a step further though to clarify why Stormlight 5 has been a bit slow-going, and it's not primarily due to the Secret Projects or any other writing projects: it's movie and television stuff.

It was ALSO at JordcanCon 2021 that Sanderson gave one of the biggest teases about about potential adaptations in quite some time: saying that if we "read in between the lines" we might be able to put some things together even though he couldn't announce anything official. In the recent AMA, he opened up a bit more on this saying: "This is the year that Hollywood came calling." With the success lately of various fantasy properties proving that Game of Thrones wasn't a fluke, streaming services, execs, and producers are on the hunt for more. Guess whose name shows up as the top bestselling author with no adaptations made? Brandon Sanderson has been getting a lot of their attention, and the recent Secret Project Kickstarter success only added more fuel to the fire. The result? Lots of phone calls and lots of meetings with several major streaming services and studios. (Netflix was one he named in particular.)

Brandon explained earlier in the AMA that he's doing everything he can to earn a relatively high level of involvement and creative control over any adaptations that come about, and the bargaining power that he seems to hold is sure to be a big help. Apparently Hollywood doesn't know what to do with someone who doesn't need their money?

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