The Fool (spoilers for all RotE books, including LST)

[o0Ampy0o]

there actually is a Fitz & the Fool story being written (notice that quote is from 2008, things change). Someone at amazon posted a title saying something like "Fitz and Fool 1 Hb" and after a lot of confusion among the fans, Robin very reluctantly admitted that she is indeed working on a new story featuring them. This was late last year at the newsgroup and although the original message is long gone, you can still find quotes from it by googling.

Yeah, I have read at least some of both. Not having the ability to see either in their original context I do not know whether I have read all of those two comments. I wondered whether the quote mmmmmmm referred to might be something different though I suspected it was the same. If mmmmmmm posted it we could see.

As far as I can tell Hobb did not have the future book details ready to deliberately bridge the ending of TM to the next book when she completed TM. She wrote an ending for TM. She had some additional ideas about the characters but she did not know how or whether she would follow through on them. She does clearly state that some of these ideas cannot come about because speculation from readers has ruined the conditions to present them properly. She still has a response in the FAQ of her website stating she is finished with the characters.

She publicly acknowledged writing the next Fitz book in the newsgroup before her Sword & Laser interview was aired in November 2012 where she continued to avoid acknowledging it.

Interesting, she says that in the original outline of Assassin's Apprentice The Fool had one appearance with one sentence, nothing more.

She seems very level-headed.




This is the more recent admission text for reference:

" With great reluctance, I am addressing this thread, as it simply won’t go away, I suppose.

The accidental listing on Amazon.co.uk is extremely premature. I’d say very extremely except that’s a misuse of adverbs. I’m not blaming anyone for being curious about what the listing means! I just wish it hadn’t happened at all.

Clearly, for some time, my publishers have wanted me to write a continuation of the Fitz and Fool story. It was my hope to work on such a story slowly, carefully and very privately. For years. Because if I do it badly or hastily, I will have ended my career.

[...]

But it’s out there now and there’s no dodging it.

I’m going to avoid posting about this. I’m not going to reply to any queries about it. Not because I’m trying to be a diva or an artiste, but because I need to focus on writing, not talking about writing. I think I’ve posted here before about what I see as the difference between Being a Writer and Writing. I’m not going to Be a Writer about this. There will be no hints, page counts, updates, teasers, or warnings that A Main Character Will Die! I know that many other writers use things like that to build excitement and increase internet chatter. But I don’t. For me, writing is like working on a long complicated math equation. If someone in the room is reciting phone numbers or saying the times table out loud, everything gets scrambled. So I’m going to insulate myself. "

Source: Blog
A Dribble of Ink: Robin Hobb working on new ‘Fitz & Fool’ novel
By Aidan Moher on September 11th, 2012