Hello and welcome to The Book Swede! How great it is to have you here, offering you even now cookies (or if you're like Karen, and are too good for cookies ... ice-cream). Hello and welcome!

A: Howdy.

Quite a few people of late have taken to living in caves. In case they've come out and finally discovered the Internet and your name, could you give us a little overview of the Kingkiller Chronicles?

A: Oh boy. Y'know. Of all the questions that I should be good at by now.... I should have this one down pat. But I don't, I really, really suck at describing the book.

How about you do it. Then I'll chime in with something witty afterward...

Youch, hoisted by my own petard, or something similar. Let me see... Hmm... There's something decidedly wrong here, I was meant to be asking, you answering.

Kvothe kicks butt in an awesome fantasy novel made of lovely thick paper (and, in the UK edition, it has inside cover flaps which are bigger than usual, but look very cool) that smells nice, too. The story isn't bad, but it's the paper that really makes this book.

I couldn't agree more. The ink helps too. They used nice, dark ink. I don't think the book would have been nearly as good without the ink.

OK, that's that bit dealt with ;) Now... This question isn't really related to books, but I thought I'd bring your life's wisdom to bear on this long disputed subject: in a massive inter-special war, who would win – bird-kind or monkey-kind?! Any chance of a scene like this is Book 3 (which is called...)? ;)

A: Are we talking about modern birds and monkeys, or futuristic, mutated, or somehow weirded up versions of birds and monkeys?

I think a bit of both really. Just so long as the word "beak-flips" is included in your answer. I'm not sure whether to include weaponry into it, though? Could be fun, this definitely has its place in every respectable fantasy novel.

Hmmm.... It still comes down to the thumbs and brains vs. flight. I've got to with monkeys for the win.

I've recently heard that book two, A Wise Man's Fear is "a novel". I was unaware of this until very recently ... is the same true of The Name of the Wind?! I truly hope not. I thought I was reading the autobiography of a (admittedly King-killing) man named Kvothe. True, it does sometimes have a little switch between first-person and third-person, but I thought these were merely psychotic episodes. Can you shed any light on the subject? And was I, in fact, correct?

A: There is a definite autobiographical tendency to the books. However, in the sake of full disclosure, that doesn't necessarily preclude you having a psychotic episode as well. It could be both.