A Song of Ice and Fire

[balut]

Anyone else here read George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series? "A Game of Thrones", "A Clash of Kings", and "A Storm of Swords" have been released so far, with "A Feast for Crows" coming out next, IIRC.

I find it to be superior "pulp-fantasy" reading, and IMHO a grittier evolution of the genre, mainly due to Martin's consistent internal logic and ruthlessness with his characters. In Martin's world, it doesn't matter if you're a "good guy" or a "bad guy"; if you plan and act intelligently, and prepare for the right contingencies, your plans will likely succeed. If you act foolishly or stupidly, your plans will likely fail, often drastically. No exceptions to this rule are made for being "noble" or "heroic". In fact, almost every character of whom he writes, with a few exceptions in each direction, hovers comfortably in that gray-shaded moral area.

I think I find it so engaging a series because, finally, I can read books where the "bad guys" can win and the "good guys" lose, because the bad guys had the master plan and acted more intelligently. I'm sick of novels where the villains enact a brilliant master plan and then the heroes win because of some stupid contrivance, just because they're "the good guys". In the Martin universe, a stupidly foolish "good guy" is surely a dead good guy.

In summary, I highly recommend George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. Good stuff.

- Balut

[Mark Asher]

Yeah, it's an excellent series. I've read the first two and I'm waiting for the fourth to come out so I can read another two in succession.

[Anonymous]

Yup, it rocks. I just wish the books weren't so big, I am starting to forget what happened in the first book!

[Tyjenks]

O.K. That does it. After I am finished with Thomas Covenant I am moving to Martin.

balut,

Your description has won me over.

I love Covenant because he is an extremely reluctant anti-hero with people dying all around him. I remember reading elsewhere that Martin did not fall in love with his characters so much that he could not kill them off anywhere in his books. I like the often picked at Stephen King for much the same reasons. He kills folks off when it is time for them to go.

I seem to have an unhealthy fixation on death. I must mention that common thread in all of my favorite readings to my therapist next week.

I am going back to the suddenly depressing "Everything Else" forums to pass out free Paxil, Zoloft, and Prozac. Who's comin' with me.

[Anders Hallin]

One sentence. "Keep your erect nipples out of my high fantasy"
I really didn't buy his battle scenes. Was very annoying. I just realized that I've stopped in the middle of the last three fantasy series that I've tried to start reading. First Martin's Song, then Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders, then Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars. Guess I'm sticking with Katharine Kerr at the moment.

[balut]

O.K. That does it. After I am finished with Thomas Covenant I am moving to Martin.

balut,

Your description has won me over.

I love Covenant because he is an extremely reluctant anti-hero with people dying all around him. I remember reading elsewhere that Martin did not fall in love with his characters so much that he could not kill them off anywhere in his books. I like the often picked at Stephen King for much the same reasons. He kills folks off when it is time for them to go.

I seem to have an unhealthy fixation on death. I must mention that common thread in all of my favorite readings to my therapist next week.

I am going back to the suddenly depressing "Everything Else" forums to pass out free Paxil, Zoloft, and Prozac. Who's comin' with me.

Heh, thanks, I always try to spread the gritty joy of Martin's works to others, especially the poor misguided souls that think Jordan's Wheel of Neverending Sequels...err Wheel of Time is the height of modern fantasy literature.

- Balut

[balut]

One sentence. "Keep your erect nipples out of my high fantasy"
I really didn't buy his battle scenes. Was very annoying. I just realized that I've stopped in the middle of the last three fantasy series that I've tried to start reading. First Martin's Song, then Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders, then Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars. Guess I'm sticking with Katharine Kerr at the moment.

Where did you stop in A Song of Ice and Fire? IMO, it gets better as it goes along, especially some of the events in Book 3, which have some really stunningly unexpected scenes.

- Balut

[Anders Hallin]

Where did you stop in A Song of Ice and Fire? IMO, it gets better as it goes along, especially some of the events in Book 3, which have some really stunningly unexpected scenes.


I think I just didn't bother buying the book that came after Clash of Kings.

[balut]

Ah, okay. Book 3, A Storm of Swords, IMO, is better than book 2, A Clash of Kings.

A few cool characters introduced, a few really big plot developments, and a few more characters brutally slaughtered.


- Balut

[James Galimo]

I've read the first two and a half books. I put down the third one about halfway through, finding it a bit boring (Oh God, ANOTHER Arya chapter!). Deciding instead to celebrate the LOTR movie by reading through the trilogy for the first time since high school. My roommate told me that it really picks up right after the spot where I stopped. Naturally.

I'll probably pick it up again when the fourth one comes out. Then just read them both.

I knew a guy that liked "The Wheel of Drivel" series. He loaned me the first one, telling me how much better they were then The Lord of the Rings. I read a couple of chapters and gave it back to him. Then I punched him in the mouth.

[balut]

I knew a guy that liked "The Wheel of Drivel" series. He loaned me the first one, telling me how much better they were then The Lord of the Rings. I read a couple of chapters and gave it back to him. Then I punched him in the mouth.

LOL, can I use this for a .sig?

As far as boring Arya chapters, I personally found the Sansa chapters the most wearying, as she is the epitome of the simpering, helpless damsel in distress. Just annoying. At least Arya learned to kick some ass from Syrio Forel, and dealt with a character as cool as Jaqen H'ghar. Hell, even The Hound, Sandor Clegane, is an interesting character that Arya hangs with.

- Balut

[Anonymous]

I agree with you there, Sansa's chapters are the least fun to read. Tho I am sure the feeling perfectly emulates what it would be like to know her in person. What a damned brat.

[Robert Sharp]

Actually, I enjoy the Wheel of Time, which gets better as it goes along, IMO. There are a lot of interwoven plot points and Jordan keeps up with them very well. Unfortunately, for those wanting to start the series, the first book is the weakest one, and very derivative of previous fantasy works.

[balut]

Ah, see, that's where we differ. IMO, the Wheel of Time gets progressively worse as it goes along - Jordan continually adds new plot threads and new characters while resolving few, if any, of his existing plot threads. Little, if anything, happened in A Crown of Swords or The Path of Daggers, and although something "big" did happen at the end of Winter's Heart, it seems to take Jordan 1500 pages to pass the equivalent of 1 day's worth of progress in his world.

I can't picture the WoT series getting resolved in any sort of satisfactory manner - he just has so many characters and individual arcs and plot threads to deal with, coupled with a serious lack of willingness to "whittle down" his enormous cast. Entire plot threads are conveniently dropped from his books now, as a result - where earlier books in the serious could jump chapters to each of the three original protagonists, his later books might involve only one of the main characters and force people to wait another 2-3 years to even see the rest of a plot thread he developed 4 books ago.

IMHO, Jordan was too ambitious and too sloppy with his handling of the WoT - now he's writing it as a soap opera, where it runs continuously but nothing significant ever happens. But at least he's still making money hand-over-fist on the fans that don't realize that, eh?

- Balut

[James Galimo]

All right Balut, you've convinced me. I guess I'll start Storm again after I'm finished with "If Chins Could Kill", an autobiography by Bruce Campbell. Normally, I don't read biographes, but this one's amusing to say the least.

You're right, though, about Sansa being the worst character (How could I have ever forgotten her?). Still, it got to the point where if I had to read another inane episode about Hot Pie I was just going to chuck that book into the fireplace (which would have pissed off my roommate, since it's his copy). With all the characters Martin has killed, you'd think he could bump off that little bastard. Maybe if hasn't done it by the end of Swords, I'll send him an e-mail suggesting it for the next book.

[Robert Sharp]

I do see your points, balut. Jordan may be in over his head. But I still enjoy all that weaving in the novels. You know who is really running a series into the ground? Terry Goodkind. That is a guy who doesn't know how to write. He spends more time than anyone on pure, pointless descriptions. Do you ever wonder why so many fantasy novelists in particular think that adjectives and general descriptions are so important? It's a sign of really bad writing, and I agree that Jordan is as guilty of it as many others. Still, I like the characters in WoT and I think the plot moves along quite well. I do, as you suggested, sometimes question whether or not Jordan knows where he is headed.

[Mark Asher]

Just saw that a collectible card game based on Martin's series is coming out.

[balut]

All right Balut, you've convinced me. I guess I'll start Storm again after I'm finished with "If Chins Could Kill", an autobiography by Bruce Campbell. Normally, I don't read biographes, but this one's amusing to say the least.



"If Chins Could Kill" is a good read. Very cool seeing just how far they've come since their days of super-8 in high school. Hell, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man passed the $400 million mark. Oh, and Bruce Campbell is still super-cool.

- Balut

[balut]

Just saw that a collectible card game based on Martin's series is coming out.

Oooh!! Too bad I'm not into CCG's anymore (after a bad addiction to M:tG in Freshman year college), but that might be worth getting just to see artists' renderings of the characters and locations of A Song of Ice and Fire. I'd especially want to see how Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper of Dorne, is portrayed, as well as others like Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of Morning, and Jaqen H'ghar.

Any idea what stores would have these cards, and when? Would they be in hobby shops, or maybe also bookstores and computer/video game stores?


- Balut

[balut]

I do see your points, balut. Jordan may be in over his head. But I still enjoy all that weaving in the novels. You know who is really running a series into the ground? Terry Goodkind. That is a guy who doesn't know how to write. He spends more time than anyone on pure, pointless descriptions. Do you ever wonder why so many fantasy novelists in particular think that adjectives and general descriptions are so important? It's a sign of really bad writing, and I agree that Jordan is as guilty of it as many others. Still, I like the characters in WoT and I think the plot moves along quite well. I do, as you suggested, sometimes question whether or not Jordan knows where he is headed.

I've seen Goodkind's series in bookstores and read some of the synopses off the back/inside covers of the books. Never felt like reading them because Goodkind seems pretty derivative of Jordan, and from what some friends who have read Goodkind have said, this is true.

I do feel that there's a really good story lying at the heart of WoT, I just think that Jordan has to spend more time "trimming the fat" and work on a leaner, more manageable story and character structure. Until he starts to show some progress towards that I won't really change my currently low opinion of his works. His books as is are like really really bloated spaghetti code, to use a bad coding metaphor.


- Balut

[Tyjenks]

Just saw that a collectible card game based on Martin's series is coming out.

Any idea what stores would have these cards, and when? Would they be in hobby shops, or maybe also bookstores and computer/video game stores?

- Balut

Here's the publisher:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/got.html

It seems like they just announced it in March. Who knows when it'll be done.

Looks like they have some other interesting stuff over there, too. :) It seems like I read a review for their LoTR card/boardgame and it was pretty good. What was the name of that game site? Grrrr!!! I cannot remember. Games unplugged or something.

[Tyjenks]

Just finished Game of Thrones. Wow. I am not one for hyperbole, so I can say with all certainty that that has to be one of the most entertaining books I have ever read. I could spew about it, but much of the praise has been talked about already. I will spare everyone the lovefest. I will say, however, that I almost came to this thread a number of times while I was reading it just to post the word: wow and then get back to the book.

I bought it used along with Wizard's 1st Rule and the 2nd Thomas Covenant trilogy. I would start those, but dammit I want to know what happens with the Starks, Lannisters, et.al. SO I guess I will venture out today for the other two in the series. The 4th is not out yet, correct?

Thanks to all who recommended it. That was the shortest 800 page book I have ever read. :)

[graller]

By the end of Storm Of Swords so much is clearer. I won't spoil it but if you did not finish the book you did yourself a huge disservice.

[Tyjenks]

No, I am definitely going to finish them all. I am simply debating whether I should read some other stuff I have or continue with the 2nd and 3rd book right away. I do not mind the way so many things were left open-ended at all. That fact makes me all the more eager to simply continue on with the series.

[Mark Asher]

Yeah, Game of Thrones is great. It makes you realize how crappy so many other fantasy novels are.

The Wizard's First Rule series is a guilty pleasure of mine. At some point I realized they are really as much romance novels as fantasy novels, which likely explains Goodkind's amazing sales success since more women read nowadays than men. Once I knew that, I skimmed over the lovey stuff and pages of one character longing for the other.

[balut]

Just finished Game of Thrones. Wow. I am not one for hyperbole, so I can say with all certainty that that has to be one of the most entertaining books I have ever read. I could spew about it, but much of the praise has been talked about already. I will spare everyone the lovefest. I will say, however, that I almost came to this thread a number of times while I was reading it just to post the word: wow and then get back to the book.

I bought it used along with Wizard's 1st Rule and the 2nd Thomas Covenant trilogy. I would start those, but dammit I want to know what happens with the Starks, Lannisters, et.al. SO I guess I will venture out today for the other two in the series. The 4th is not out yet, correct?

Thanks to all who recommended it. That was the shortest 800 page book I have ever read. :)

Yeah, that's exactly how I felt when I first read AGoT. I remember my friends going on and on about how great it was, and just kind of blowing it off, until I actually sat down and read it. Then I couldn't stop until I read the next one, and the next one.

Man, A Storm of Swords. There must be a good three or four times I actually stopped reading because I was SO tempted to call up friends and just go "WHOAH!! DID THAT JUST HAPPEN??". What's great about Martin is that all of his books have some parts like that. His books are so entertaining because he's not afraid to break any standard fantasy novel conventions and cliches.

Personally, I'd love to see A Song of Ice and Fire turned into a grand strategy game for the computer. Something like a modified Europa Universalis type game, only with the Starks, Lannisters, Baratheons, Martells, etc.

- Balut

[Tyjenks]

Yeah, Game of Thrones is great. It makes you realize how crappy so many other fantasy novels are.

That is exactly what I thought. Therein lies my quandry. Do I devour the other books in the series or space them out amongst other stuff which I will only be comparing to Martin's work? The whole time thinking ahead to the next book.

Martin, Donaldson, Goodkind, or maybe Tad Williams. I started Wizard's First Rule since I had it already, but once the weekend comes and I am at the bookstore.......I can here the "M" section calling my name everso faintly even as I type.

[balut]

Blaze through the rest of Martin, then go read that other stuff and turn it into parody as you realize how much weaker the writing is. And scoff. Loudly.

- Balut

[Tyjenks]

Hey, balut. I want you to know I did not plaigarize any of your post, especially the first line. We must have been typing simultaneously.

Just wanted to provide this discaimer since it is such a hot topic over in the games forum.

[balut]

LOL, thanks for the disclaimer. I honestly couldn't care less unless somehow money was involved :P


- Balut

[Tyjenks]

Personally, I'd love to see A Song of Ice and Fire turned into a grand strategy game for the computer. Something like a modified Europa Universalis type game, only with the Starks, Lannisters, Baratheons, Martells, etc.

- Balut

Has anyone tried the CCG out? I think it has been released, but I have not seen it in stores yet.

[Toddy]

Man, A Storm of Swords. There must be a good three or four times I actually stopped reading because I was SO tempted to call up friends and just go "WHOAH!! DID THAT JUST HAPPEN??"

You can say that again. A couple of events in the third book are just stunning. One in particular--anyone who read the book knows which one--was like being punched in the stomach, considering everything that had taken place before. Anything could happen in this series.

[graller]

Lannister truly shitting gold was my personal favorite

:twisted:

[balut]

You can say that again. A couple of events in the third book are just stunning. One in particular--anyone who read the book knows which one--was like being punched in the stomach, considering everything that had taken place before. Anything could happen in this series.

That's actually pretty interesting - when I spoke to my friends about that BIG event in particular in the 3rd book, I described it as akin to being "punched in the stomach". I guess that event just knocks the wind right out of you, it's so unforgettable. Probably one of the _most_ memorable moments in any book series. It's even better when you think about past events and see the foreshadowing of it, and how it, too, follows Martin's ruthless internal logic.

- Balut

[Tyjenks]

Just stop it!! I am 100 pages into Wizard's First Rule and do not think I can make it if you guys do not quit it with the praise and hints of things to come.

Must........have.......GRRM......fix.....ackkk!

[Toddy]

Yeah, you can sort of see it coming, but can't really believe that Martin's actually going to do it. Then it happens anyways, and is still shocking. What a fantastic series. Like it so much that I was stupid enough to blow over a hundred bucks on a first edition of A Game of Thrones. Interesting how that book has gone up so much in value.

[graller]

Dang - My book is worth some money then. I forget what site it was that
steered me into Game of Thrones when it was first released but I can only say "Bless you".

On a different note - anyone else have favorite characters? For the series mine has been the "Dwarf". But in the last book Jamie Lannister actually started stealing my sympathy as well...once we started getting pieces in his "view" I was amazed at the depth of his character.

[balut]

Characters I like:

Oberyn, the Red Viper of Dorne.
Jaqen H'ghar.
Syrio Forel.
Littlefinger - this bastard knows _exactly_ what he's doing at all times.


Characters I hate:

Ser Loras Tyrell, the "Knight of Flowers" - why is it every time he comes up, I picture Leonardo Dicaprio?
Ser Gregor Clegane, the "Mountain that Walks". I won't say why because of spoiler reasons.

- Balut

[Toddy]

Characters shift so much that it's hard to have favorites. Some of the most evil bastards early on have developed into fully rounded people with greater focus. Martin's a master at changing viewpoints until he gives a complete picture of what a character is truly all about. To me, that's what makes his episodic chapter structure work so well.

[Jason Becker]

Just great writing. How he keeps so many characters, and storylines going so well its amazing. The previous commment how its not just a straight up evil vs good thing too is so refreshing.

Best character:

'The Dwarf'. Who couldn't love the little SOB. :twisted:



The comment a friend said comes to mind . He thought the subtitle for the third book could have been "Dropping like flies".

[Tyjenks]

Since I revived this thread, I decided to let you all know (as I am sure you were on pins and needles wondering what Tyjenks was reading) I have put down Goodkind for Clash of Kings.

It is as simple as Jason put it: great writing. Usually the first one or two hundred pages of books this size is simply setting things up. The first two of Martin's series feel like we are jumping right into the meat of the tales from page one. He takes care of any background or exposition as we move along as part of the story as a whole.

His style is so....oh, I don't know...unobtrusive. It really stands out when you go straight from one of his books to someone, who IMO, is not quite as good.

*Grins as lunch(book) hour approaches*

[Anonymous]

It's good to see so many other people enjoying this fantastic series. I just about cried when I read A Feast of Crows is now tenatively set for release in 3/03, rather than the earlier fall 2002 that had been predicted. :cry:

[balut]

Thanks :(
Damn, I was looking forward to that this fall.

- Balut

[Tyjenks]

Now I know I should pace myself and hold off on the third book until maybe Nov./Dec.

BTW, I love the Imp!!

[Drunkagain]

Now I know I should pace myself and hold off on the third book until maybe Nov./Dec.

Good luck man. Once I started I simply couldn't stop reading any of the books. Amazingly they actually seem to get better with each book, and so make it even harder to pace yourself. :D

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I nearly busted my keyboard when I read that Feast for Crows is due out in March/April. Word is that the Brits will get it a month before us, so you could order from Amazon.co.uk and they'll ship it across the pond. (I don't know why they'll have that month headstart, Martin is American; but the Brits are a more literate society than ours, and I know from being over there that they tend to get stuff before we do.) From what I hear, though, the U.S. version will have an extra map that the Brit version won't. (The Brits never got the map of Kings Landing in Clash of Kings.)

Word to whoever noted that Martin will spoil you rotten. I cannot read any other fantasy series now... I tried reading Goodkind's stuff but just couldn't progress past chapter 2.

My sister's boyfriend got into Martin's series on my recommendation, and when he got to Book 3, I told him to hang on for the ride ahead. And like clockwork, he'd stop reading at certain points in stunned disbelief and call me up in shock. I have heard from a lot of people who have literally been heartbroken several times reading through Book 3. Some almost threw the book at the wall in disbelief.

I've been recommending the series to my other friends... telling them that it blows the doors off anything they've read in terms of fantasy. It's like Lord of the Rings for grownups, with tons of gratuitious sex and violence. Oh yes, TONS of sex and violence and intrigue and excellent characters and everything you could ask for.

What I like is that it's not a typical Middle Earth-type fantasy. Very Lancastrian England/War of the Roses setting; the empahsis is on swords, not sorcery (although those who have read it know the reasons why for that). And what I like is that there is so much vital information to the story that is just unexplained and lurking out there... like what the hell The Others are.

Needless to say, I'm hooked bad. If you want to share with a ton of other Song of Ice and Fire fanatics... this is a great board. Tons of spoilers, too, if you want to spoil it (and personally, I don't, cause these books are the real deal).

http://pub26.ezboard.com/basoiaf

[Anonymous]

Oh yeah, wanted to add that if you like the books, make sure to pick up Silverberg's Legends anthology, cause there's an excellent Song of Ice and Fire story in it called The Hedge Knight that George R.R. Martin wrote. It's set about 100 years before the series kicks off, and it's a pretty darn good story about the land of Westeros. Be careful to pick up the right edition of Legends though, because there are a ton of different versions floating around (Legends was published in three parts, and then later rebound into a single volume); so make sure you pick up the one with the George R.R. Martin story in it.

Oh yeah, part 2.
Tyrion, the Giant of Lannister, has got to be the best character in all the books, hands down.

[Anonymous]

Oh, yeah, part 3 (final post)...

Roaring Studios (http://www.roaringstudios.com/) will publish a graphic novel based on The Hedge Knight later this year. Some excellent preview drawings on their web site.

George R.R. Martin's has said that he will notify us on his web site (http://www.georgerrmartin.com) as soon as Book 4 is done and packed off to his editors.

[Chris]

A Waldenbooks nearby has the hardback copy of Legends in the discount section for $5.99. I recommend it for The Hedge Knight alone but there are some other great stories in there as well.

[Jason Becker]

A friend said another title to the third book could have been "Dropping like flies".

Great summation by kale about what makes this series so awsome. I'll second the setting too. The world and characters just feel so real, not just standard cookie cutter D&D character types you see in so much of the mass market fantasy you see today.

[Ergo]

Another good epic fantasy writer out there is a Canadian named Steven Erickson. His series is called The Malazan Tales of the Fallen. First book is called Gardens of the Moon. Excellent stuff--like Martin, he immediately throws you into the thick of things without wasting chapters setting up the world first. His characters are all shades of grey. Even supposed villains aren't entirely what they first seem to be. Best of all, he can write.

The drawback to all of this is that the books haven't been printed in the US (yet). I got mine as imports from Amazon UK.

[Sharpe]

I just re-read A Storm of Swords, to get pumped up for the next book coming in April, and it just blew me away again. As much as I liked the first two, ASoS is the best book so far. There are several bits in Book 3 that just make every other current fantasy series look like a completely weak sister: The Trial by Combat; The White Book; Arya & The Tickler; The Red Wedding; Joff's Wedding; and of course, Tyrion & Tywin in the end.

I have been to the spoiler board recently and now i am full of idle speculation, and foolish theories :). I need a new fix! I need MORE MORE ASoIaF!! Aaaaaaaaaaah!!



On a different note, if you want some very intelligent, very *different* fantasy then I highly recommend two newish books by China Mieville: Perdido Street Station and The Scar. They are not at all like most current fantasy (they are a weird steampunk/fantasy/scifi/gothic fusion) but they are very very good. Good in the way Martin's books are: they are deep, and layered, and political, and yet with lots of great action bits.

Dan

[balut]

The Red Wedding. Probably the most memorable written sequence I've read in all of Fantasy/Sci-Fi. Just a pure literary punch to the gut.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, Martin himself said that he couldn't bear to write the Red Wedding, so he wrote it last. You can tell because there's a minor continuity error shortly after the Red Wedding in one of Lord Tywin's quotes, which I won't reveal because it could easily spoil it.

[graller]

I just read the Melville books as well. Really found them to be great reads with a grittiness to the environments that was really cool. And I loved the SteamPunk/Magic of the world. The isle of the mosquito women was incredible.

[Tyjenks]

Stop bumping up this thread!! I was going to put off my first reading of SoS until the first of the year. I hated to tear through all three and then have to wait 8 or 9 mos. for number four. I had done well, avoiding bookstores and only picking stuff up used.

Now I do not know if I can take it. I have started on the second chronicle of Thomas Covenant which I have never read. Very refreshing after a couple of snoozers, but this malignant thread has adhered to my brain.

[voltaic]

Covenant rocks, dude. Phear the white magic.

[Miramon]

Well, I do enjoy the books, but they aren't really great. I like a bunch of the characters, and several of the plot threads, but others are painful to me. For grittyness mixed with fantasy, I prefer Glen Cook, who I think is a less pretentious but quite possibly better writer (at least he's more consistently entertaining) -- though I admit that Cook has a few odd writing quirks, and that some of Martin's other books have had better writing.

IMO, this series is far too consciously written in the standard fantasy-blockbuster style, with the large number of independent character viewpoints more or less alternating, the repeated views of the same events from different sides, and some plot lines that for several books in a row are utterly unconnected -- lots of ways to unnecessarily pad book size to get to the big-and-bulky shape that marketing research indicates fantasy-novel-buyers prefer. The fact that Martin shakes things up a bit with an imaginative setting, characters that aren't quite as obvious as they seem at first, and the deaths of apparently important characters makes the series better than merely conventional trash, but can't really elevate it out of the rut of its subgenre.

I can't quite remember it to quote, but I will paraphrase one of the better lines in the Martin series, where some arrogant knight is having all his stuff stolen by some revolting peasants: "Yeah, well, we're foraging the hell out of you, OK." If he could just stick to the main military plotline with the (uh, I forget everyone's names) cynical dwarf character, the ruthless knight character, and the bastard border guard character, it would be much better. I can do without the kids and the dragon people, among others, as well as some of the secondary characters in the main plot lines which could just be dealt with from the PoV of the main characters instead of giving them their own threads.

I guess I will probably buy the remaining books, which I am certainly not doing for the whiny repulsive gits in that horrible interminable Jordan series.

[Mark Asher]

I've put off reading the third book until the fourth comes out because I want to read two in a row. It's getting hard not to read the third one, though.

I checked his webpage and now he's adopting a "when it's done" answer about the fourth book, A Feast of Crows. He told fans to stop emailing him about it, ha ha.

[Jason Becker]

"It's getting hard not to read the third one, though. "


Best in the series. I too have usually only read a series after their done and having to wait for book four reminds me why.

[Mark Asher]

"It's getting hard not to read the third one, though. "


Best in the series. I too have usually only read a series after their done and having to wait for book four reminds me why.

I started a David Gerrold series, The Chtor or something like that, but I don't know if he's ever going to finish it. It's been several years since his last one. Kind of annoying.

[Anonymous]

That series gets really weird in the later books. Lots of sex. male-male. male-female. female-female. Still waiting for him to get around to finishing it, though. The first books are awesome though. And I'm dying to know the truth behind the invasion.

[Toddy]

IMO, this series is far too consciously written in the standard fantasy-blockbuster style, with the large number of independent character viewpoints more or less alternating, the repeated views of the same events from different sides, and some plot lines that for several books in a row are utterly unconnected -- lots of ways to unnecessarily pad book size to get to the big-and-bulky shape that marketing research indicates fantasy-novel-buyers prefer. The fact that Martin shakes things up a bit with an imaginative setting, characters that aren't quite as obvious as they seem at first, and the deaths of apparently important characters makes the series better than merely conventional trash, but can't really elevate it out of the rut of its subgenre.

Actually, everything you say indicates that Martin's Song of Ice and Fire isn't part of the bombastic fantasy genre. The story doesn't run on rails, it's got a lot of characters you simply wouldn't see in stereotypical fantasy, characterization depth that matches the best literary fiction (seriously), and an intricate plot with all sorts of twists and turns. I certainly don't see any padding in these books at all. All of it is slowly coming together. What you seem to want is what's represented by the very worst of the subgenre that you deride--namely a predictable, straight-ahead plot with heroes in armor, maidens in chainmail bikinis, a magic sword/ring/book, and some nonsense about a chosen one and evil.

[Tyjenks]

What Brett said.

[Mark Asher]

That series gets really weird in the later books. Lots of sex. male-male. male-female. female-female. Still waiting for him to get around to finishing it, though. The first books are awesome though. And I'm dying to know the truth behind the invasion.

Yeah, the sex stuff does get weird. I have no idea why Gerrold includes it. He also long, boring didactic passages I learned to skip. I know this makes the books sound bad, but the alien invasion stuff is fascinating. I'd like to know what's behind it too. It seems mindless.

[Miramon]

What you seem to want is what's represented by the very worst of the subgenre that you deride--namely a predictable, straight-ahead plot with heroes in armor, maidens in chainmail bikinis, a magic sword/ring/book, and some nonsense about a chosen one and evil.

<SNOB-MODE level="high">

Here I am, imaginary Ph.D. in Scifi-ology, I read James Branch Cabell, Gene Wolfe, and Jose Luis Borges for fun, and my credentials include looking at the first chapter of the first Terry Brooks Shannara novel and throwing it away in disgust :), and you say I want a trashy fantasy novel instead of Martin's groundbreaking literary tour-de-force....

Well I'm here to tell you that this George RR Martin series is trashy. It's not bad, but it's trashy, and of no great literary value either. Fritz Leiber asleep or drunk could write fantasy that was more original, more entertaining, and of greater literary value, whatever that is. Robert Howard, bikini-clad maidens and all (at least according to the covers) was a better writer for that matter, and I could name off the top of my head a dozen other living fantasy-genre writers who have current novels out superior to the books in this series.

</SNOB-MODE>

Marginally more seriously, I admit that George RR Martin has written some pretty good books in the past, and this series has some sparks of merit, but I also insist that the structure and style of the book is deliberately that of the bombseller best-seller. It is like Robert Jordan only moreso.

So there.

[Tyjenks]

It is like Robert Jordan only moreso.

So there.

Ouchee! I was willing to respect your opinion until this slap in the face. I will see you at daybreak! Knives or pistols? :wink:

[Anders Hallin]

I could name off the top of my head a dozen other living fantasy-genre writers who have current novels out superior to the books in this series.

Like Katharine Kerr :)

Marginally more seriously, I admit that George RR Martin has written some pretty good books in the past, and this series has some sparks of merit, but I also insist that the structure and style of the book is deliberately that of the bombseller best-seller. It is like Robert Jordan only moreso.

So there.

I've been distinctly unimpressed with Martin, when I've read the first two books.

[Miramon]

knives or pistols?

While a knife fight is admittedly the proper way for critics to resolve their difficulties, I prefer to rely on skill in affairs of honor... Rapiers or smallswords, please....

Anyhow, when I said it was like Jordan, except moreso, I meant that Jordan doesn't use nearlyas many character viewpoints at one time. He generally just hops around two or three of them in order, but Martin has like 8 or so, and you never know when the story will be interrupted to go to some other continent where something else is happening to someone else....

like Katherine Kerr

Oo! Good one! I remember a while back when she was first getting popular, I picked up a book and couldn't even read it. The prose was so clunky and horrible I just had to stop. However, that was a long time ago, maybe she's improved :)

[Anders Hallin]

like Katherine Kerr

Oo! Good one! I remember a while back when she was first getting popular, I picked up a book and couldn't even read it. The prose was so clunky and horrible I just had to stop. However, that was a long time ago, maybe she's improved :)

Well, she certainly has made some improvement in her writing style the last 16-20 years. The first four are the rather standard fantasy fare, but around book 5-6 it becomes a lot more than that. I personally hold it as one of the most complete worlds in fantasy today.

[Mark Asher]

IS that the Deryni stuff? I tried to read one of the first and gave up too. Glad to hear she's better at it now.

[Miramon]

No, that's uhh, Katharine.. Katharine... Kurtz! Actually, some of the early Deryni stuff I didn't mind, but it was tedious and soap-operaish, and I found the conflation of Catholicism with the weird theology on that fantasy world to be somewhat inane, though I guess that's a minor point. This IMO is a good example of something that would have been an OK trilogy, but at a dozen novels or whatever the number is, definitely outlived its welcome, at least for me; I thought each successive book was worse until I quit in the middle someplace. My standards have risen over the years, I doubt I would last that long with the books if I encountered them for the first time today.

At least from what I've read, though, Kurtz seems to be a technically superior writer to Kerr, but I haven't read either of them this millenium.

[Anders Hallin]

I wonder how often those two get confused..
It should be said though that I'm certainly not one to comment on the finer points of writing, since English is only my second language.

[balut]

It is like Robert Jordan only moreso.

So there.

Ouchee! I was willing to respect your opinion until this slap in the face. I will see you at daybreak! Knives or pistols? :wink:

I suggest pistols that shoot knives. Or dogs. Or the killer bees. Or the dogs with the bees in their mouth and when they bark bees fly out.

[Casper]

I just have a question...does having mass appeal mean something is less good? so what if the books were written for blockbuster success? does that change how good they are? I'd much rather read a book that I can understand and that leaves me wanting more and tickles my imagination than something that is groundbreaking and inaccessible...

[Tyjenks]

I just have a question...does having mass appeal mean something is less good?

Evidently. It works that way for books and music, too. Any attempt at monetary success must trump any critical and/or reader/listener acclaim.

[balut]

Well, come on, you can't be an elitist snob if everyone likes what you like. Otherwise you'd be on the same level as the common masses you despise.

[Mark Asher]

Some authors have pulled off critical and commercial success. John Irving is one. Jonathen Franzen hit the bestseller lists with The Corrections. He mentioned in several pieces that he made more than a million bucks from the book -- it was actually kind of odd that he kept mentioning it. Guess it was some kind of validation for him.

[Miramon]

I just have a question...does having mass appeal mean something is less good?

Good question. Generally speaking the answer is "yes" as far as I'm concerned, especially for books, movies and television shows, but perhaps less so in art and music, where my tastes are less developed, and for which I have much less education. I can like Bach and say Blue Oyster Cult both without really understanding how fugues work, or even the supposedly simple chord progressions of rock and roll. The same thing applies in art to say Raphael and Michael Whelan, to choose another disparate pair, both of whom I like without knowing much about painting. Anyhow, as it happens I know and care more about writing than I do about art and music, and that colors my tastes.

But it isn't mass appeal per se which I have problems with. There have been plenty of books which turned out to be bestsellers which I liked. There is however, a sort of obviously deliberate attempt to fashion a bestseller which I don't like. There is a kind of "bestseller mold" IMO for many books, especially in the fantasy genre, which usually has as a consequence if not a prerequisite features such as bad writing, meager vocabularies, formulaic plots, stereotyped characters, unnecessary multiplication of viewpoints and narrative styles, and huge amounts of text padding to make the book nice and thick, or to turn a single volume into a trilogy.

Also, I am not disparaging commercial entertainment per se. There's nothing wrong with trying to make money out of any form of art as far as I'm concerned, and of course having a bestseller is a great thing for any professional author. It's just that the effort to produce a bestseller typically produces inferior fiction in my opinion.

[Anonymous]

I read most of Game of Thrones or whatever the first one was. I liked it but for some reason lost interest. I think one reason is that I tend to read for escape, and I frankly like cheesy books where the good guys win, evil gets its comeuppance, and they all (more or less) live happily after, with maybe one or two martyr-like sacrifices along the way. But, that being said, I did find a lot to like in Martin and as soon as the third one is in paperback I plan to start the whole lot of them again.

As for Jordan, I confess to an addiction of sorts. I've read the first three books through three times (working on the fourth iteration now), the second three two or three times each, and the last two only once so far, but I'll get through them before next year's release I'm sure. I think the first three are the best, then the next three, with the last two being firmly in the "come on, DO something!" category. I agree wholeheartedly that Jordan (not his real name, but I can't remember what his real one is) drags stuff out too long, has way too many subplots, and can't resolve a plotline to save his life, though he has made some progress in that regard. I really think that he has written himself into a corner, in that it's nearly impossible to see how he can resolve the issues he's created in a way that makes sense and doesn't suck.

As a complete non-sequitor, I'd recommend John M. Ford's The Dragon Waiting if you can find a copy. Alternate-history fantasy that I think is really nifty, and well written.

[Tyjenks]

I think one reason is that I tend to read for escape, and I frankly like cheesy books where the good guys win, evil gets its comeuppance, and they all (more or less) live happily after, with maybe one or two martyr-like sacrifices along the way.

That is exactly what I am tired of and found so refreshing about Martin's books. It is not that he has anti-heroes; many of his characters toe the line between good and bad (some character's are evil, but I would not use evil as an opposing pole for the one's I am speaking of) and after hearing their motives you can often identify with people on both sides of a plotline.

[graller]

In one of the other threads someone pasted a great line from a NYTimes book review. It struck me in the same way the comments here, which I know were somewhat in jest, come across with that air of intellectual elitism. Martin is not setting out to be the next Melville - who by the way I found unaccessible. He has set out to write a series in the "High fantasy" style. That does not prevent him from creating interesting characters - something I like in my books. In addition to plotlines that are not conventional for the genre. Or portray a world with a lot more grit and integrity then the vast majority of the writers in the field. Does this somehow make it crap because it shares some conventions of the genre like multiple "views" or large casts of characters? These are trivialities, and in my opinion, are greatly outwieghed by all the things he does that diverge from the "standards" of the genre.

[Miramon]

I agree that I prefer books where the inevitable victory of good over evil or whatever is at least disguised by a few serious damn setbacks for good, and where it isn't always entirely clear who is who.... The best kind of character is the evil character who redeems himself without doing some kind of saccharine transformation by illumination..... Without sacrificing any heroism or interest in the protagonists, Glen Cook does a decent job of having these kind of characters in his fantasy adventure novels, which are themselves pretty trash entertainment, but at least break the usual mold in many ways.

So for me the best character in Martin's series is that knight who seems at first to be an utter son of a bitch with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, but eventually turns out to at least be an honorable son of a bitch who has at least a few virtues once the book finally switches over to his first person viewpoint. I suppose it is almost inevitable he will get his in the end unless Martin shows some unusual sentimentality about him. Odd I can't remember anyone's names in this damn series....

Anyhow, re Jordan, he is not all that bad a writer if you look at him sentence by sentence. His writing is clear and understandable, and I think as far as I recall it generally conveys emotion through direct description as opposed to telling you what you are supposed to feel. However -- those characters! Those protagonist characters are the whiniest bunch of imbecilic losers since Covenant, and at least Covenant was reasonably intelligent and also hated himself; these characters are even more puerile, since they all locked into their stupid limited viewpoints and never take one second to think whether they are acting like idiots or not.

They all act like spoiled little children, which would be fine in the first half of the first book, where it is a bit humorous, but after they have been involved in their nth battle and the deaths of half the people on the continent, you'd think they would eventually snap out of it. The only reason I kept reading to the third book (or wherever it was I quit in disgust) was that I kept expecting someone to realize that he (or really she, since all Jordan's female characters are even more repulsive than the males) had been a total loser their whole life... but these characters just grow more repulsive and stupid over time, which may be somewhat realistic considering the corruption caused by power, but is entirely unappetizing.

[Miramon]

I'm not a big fan of Melville either, but you should know that Melville was trying to write innovative fiction that people would buy and enjoy, not literary works for the ages.... but as some authors become dated and enter the realm of high school English, somehow all the fun of reading them vanishes. I wonder how many people hate Melville and Dickens and authors like that who were not trying to write literature (just trying to write entertaining novels) because they were forced to read them in school. These days, even Dumas is some fancy old-fashioned author that no one would ever read because it would be too hard... whereas in his day everyone thought he was a hack who churned out adventure serials for the newspapers, and who didn't deserve to be famous.

It's hard to talk intelligently about any kind of artistic endeavour without getting lost in intellectualism. On the one hand you have reviews of the "this was great, 5 *s" variety, and on the other hand you have reviews which start talking about poststructuralism and deconstructionism and put everything in quotes or start crossing out every use of the word postmodern to show how clever they are....

Anyhow, I don't think Martin is trying to be Melville either, and if his stuff was worthless, I wouldn't spend so much time talking about it in this thread. (Actually, if over the last few days at work I had a single damn thing to do but wait to be laid off, I wouldn't spend so much time on it either :()

But take say Gene Wolfe as a current example of a fantasy author who writes innovative, groundbreaking, "high quality" literature which is also fun to read. Steve Brust is another random example of an active author who doesn't quite achieve Wolfe's dizzying literary heights, but who still combines highly entertaining material with good and interesting writing. It's possible to have your cake and eat it too with fiction, but with this series by Martin, you just eat the icing and let the dog eat the cake -- as it were :)

[Mark Asher]

I like Brust, but I don't see anything innovative about his work. He's basically writing tough-guy detective novels set in a fantasy world.

[Anonymous]

Well, I'm perfectly happy for everyone to have their preference, but I still like cheesy books :)

Melville is one of my favorites; I must have read Moby Dick a zillion times, and love it. FWIW.

I agree Jordan's characters border on the whiny side, too often for my taste. I particularly can't abide some of them not simply saying "ok, I'm a badass, so what? I'll deal with it." Instead, they anguish over their nifty abilities, etc. But overall, I find the world very compelling, and at times he spins some fantastic scenes, with real emotion (in an admittedly heroic fantasy cliche style).

Brust is another of my favorites. I don't claim he's particularly innovative, but then, I love Raymond Chandler books, and Vlad is Philip Marlowe with a pet Jhereg and a lot of knives, so I'm happy.

[Chris]

The thing I like about Jordan's series is how the mythic events actually happen instead of just being backstory. Similar to how the Lord of the Rings movie showed the Last Alliance of Men and Elves battling Sauron instead of it being told to the audience by one of the characters.

[Mark Asher]

"Brust is another of my favorites. I don't claim he's particularly innovative, but then, I love Raymond Chandler books, and Vlad is Philip Marlowe with a pet Jhereg and a lot of knives, so I'm happy."

Yeah, me too. I think it's a good series.

Oddly, I love Glen Cook's Black Company series, but his detective series set in a fantasy world I can't stomach. Cook's trying to parody hard-boiled and doesn't pull it off. Brust wants to spin a good yarn and isn't interested in spoofing the genre. He's is writing hard-boiled that just happens to be set in a fantasy world.

[balut]

This is why I hate Robert Jordan - let me paraphrase his last 9 or so novels in the series:

whiny annoying female character: *sniff**tugs braid*Men are idiots.

whiny annoying male character: I don't understand women. But I really should do something to stop the plans of the Dark One. I think I'll brood instead.

Then, sub-plot thread number 6.022x10^23 gets introduced, along with 390 supporting characters. Concurrently, no existing plot threads are resolved.

[Anonymous]

balut, you make some good points IMO. But...Jordan does eventually resolve some threads, and others you can clearly see where they're going (for good or ill, and it seems to take forever to actually get there). To be fair, the characters do evolve, and eventually accept their fates more or less. Except it seems Perrin, but he's always been the odd one out. The whining is more extreme early, and does attenuate, though admittedly not fast enough.

I do particularly like Jordan's blend of 80% fantasy, 20% sci-fi/alternate history though, and I agree with the above comment about the backstory actually being real events. In fact, I'd love to see more series about the Age of Legends and its end, the Trolloc Wars, Artur Hawkwing, etc. Then again we'd have to wait until 2343 to actually seen those books....

[graller]

Just imagine if all those women with heaving breasts didn't have braids to tug... :wink:

I have read all the Jordan books. Some of them more then once. I admit to being a huge fan when they first started. At this point I am reading them just to see where this all ends. I have to agree that the women have just gotten annoying at this point and the pouting amongst the men almost as bad.

[Miramon]

First of all, the Jhereg series isn't all Brust has written. Many of his non-Jhereg books are very innovative and unusual in almost every respect. For example, Brokedown Palace, The Sun, Moon, and Stars, History and Necessity, among others, are quite unusual and distinctive, as are various of his other independent novels. I mean really, the Chartist rebellion presented from a Marxist perspective as the context for occult detective story that turns out not to be occult after all is not exactly a well-trodden literary path....

However, even within the Jhereg series, there is a lot of innovation, though not necessarily in the most obvious places. The idea of the tough guy in the fantasy world is not particularly innovative. The fantasy world setting itself is interesting and unusual, but it isn't really earthshaking in its uniqueness, and it almost seems, especially in the early books, as if it was influenced by some kind of RPG.

What is more interesting and unusual is the writing style and the way he messes around with style deliberately, especially in some of the latter books. Brust has a lot of fun with pastiches. The most blatant would of course be the Dumas homage of his 3 Musketeers-ish books, but one also notes a considerable amount of Zelazny mixed in with the Chandleresque riffs. A lot of people thought the books which dealt with Vlad's marital problems were a low point in the series, and perhaps they weren't as fun as many of the other books, but I think Brust deliberately changed the style and tone in those books for fun, and to play around with the affect of the books. It may or may not have been the most successful experiment in the world, but it is unusual to see an author messing around like that in the middle of a successful series. The only other such example I can think of offhand is the almost melancholy middle-aged adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, but those were written a very considerable length of time after most of the other stories.


Moving on to Cook, I very much agree that those silly detective books are much less interesting than his other stuff. It seems that the marketers of the books were at odds with the author over what to do with them. Some passages in those books, adventurous as they are, are extremely bleak in tone, but these books are marketed as "hilarious" fantasy escapades, and indeed, you can see Cook trying desperately from time to time to be funny, which is really not his oeuvre (as it were.) One thing which was amusing to me about those detective books is that I believe the mystery part of the plots is always isomorphic to some conventional detective story. In a couple of the books I don't see the reference, but I happened to read some Hammett at the same time as I read a couple of the Cook novels, and the plots of 2 Continental Op stories are just about identical to the mystery plots of 2 of the Cook stories; I think I found a few other such matches, but I don't recall at this point what they were, but probably Chandler or maybe Ross MacDonald contributed the mystery parts of a couple of the other books. Of course the Dead Man is some kind of mixture of Nero Wolfe and Mycroft Holmes, for that matter. Still, even if they are trashy and not as good as some of his other books, I still find these detective books at least mildly entertaining. One of the silliest things about these books is how frequently Garrett gets laid by random beautiful women -- probably several dozen in this series of, what, maybe 8 books? It's a wonder how he ever finds time to actually bash heads or solve crimes, and also a wonder how his genitals hold up under the constant strain. He almost needs a schedule and a receptionist like a chiropractor -- "Yes, Ms. Tinnie, I think I can squeeze you into Garrett's 11:10 to 11:30 slot next Tuesday. Please be prompt."

[Jason Becker]

Why anybody would read the never-ending boring drivel of Robert Jorden(multiple times) is beyond me. I was dumb enough to read through the first three before I realized.

[Tyjenks]

I was actually debating starting the series before coming to this board. I assumed lots 'o books = great series. After the varying degrees of hatred and wide spread condemnation of Jordan's WoT series, it seems as if I have dodged a long, meandering bullet.

Thanks Qt3'ers. I love you all.

[Anonymous]

You should find out for yourself Tyjenks, you may enjoy the series.

[graller]

For the pulp escapism factor the first 2-4 books are a fun fast read...its only when the story stalls in 5-8 that the fans turned on him and got bitter. There are some who hated him from day one but that is clearly not the majority or he would not be the best selling king of fantasy that he was for the 90's.

[balut]

Honestly, I actuallly enjoyed reading Jordan's WoT through book 6, although his characters were getting increasingly annoying by book 3. Then I read book 7, and became irritated. By book 8, I had given up the series for lost, and admitted that Jordan's merely drawing the series out as far and long as he can. Now I look back at those books and realize just how bad they were. I honestly can't see how he can resolve the thousand or so plot threads he's generated to any remotely satisfying conclusion. Not without finishing the series at book 78, at least.

[Tyjenks]

You should find out for yourself Tyjenks, you may enjoy the series.

Guest, why would I want to try something when like-minded people in this forum, almost to a man, echo the two posts directly above by balut and graller. I guess I could try the one's up until where the majority of posters here agree they begin to suck. There is just too much else out there for me to read rather than begin a series I will never finish.

[Anonymous]

Well, it amazes me that people read all sorts of stuff, but I don't insult them for doing so. Books are like music--different strokes for different folks, etc. Unless of course your main interest in reading is to look important by telling everyone how high brow your reading tastes are. Me, I read stuff I like. I re-read them too. I'm not terribly concerned whether anyone likes what I read (or watch, or play, or eat for that matter).

Then again, I don't find my virility threatend by people with different tastes....

[Tyjenks]

All I am saying is I think I'll take a pass. I came to that decision after thoughtfully considering some posts here and speaking with friends. Several readers agree that WoT starts well. Then it becomes obvious to many, Jordan has no idea where he is going with it. I do not particularly want to start something I will eventually be dissapointed in when there are other choices.

Were you directing that virility jab my way? If so, I am not sure where you are coming from.

[balut]

Were you directing that virility jab my way? If so, I am not sure where you are coming from.

Of course you wouldn't know where he was coming from, you namby-pamby wuss pansy boy! That's right!


:P

[Toddy]

Well I'm here to tell you that this George RR Martin series is trashy. It's not bad, but it's trashy, and of no great literary value either. Fritz Leiber asleep or drunk could write fantasy that was more original, more entertaining, and of greater literary value, whatever that is. Robert Howard, bikini-clad maidens and all (at least according to the covers) was a better writer for that matter, and I could name off the top of my head a dozen other living fantasy-genre writers who have current novels out superior to the books in this series.

No, it's not. You're so far off base about Howard and Leiber that you're in danger of being picked off. Unless you're basing that opinion on some fond memories from reading Conan stories between classes in Grade 9. In which case, I congratulate you on your nostalgia. And suggest that you re-read this stuff as an adult. No two fantasy authors were more overtly into pulp, writing stuff crafted for a barely adolescent male audience. If you can get through more than a couple of pages of this stuff beyond the age of 17, much less enjoy it, you must be some sort of Jim Carrey-like manchild.

Martin's work is fantasy, so it has elements of traditional swords and sorcery in it, but it is not trashy or pulpy in any other way. This is fantasy for adults, for people who have grown out of Leiber, Howard, Lovecraft, and pretty much everyone else you could name save Tolkien himself. Personally, I find much literary merit in these books. It speaks to my love of adventurous, epic fantasy fiction but doesn't insult me as an adult or as a sophisticated reader. Which pretty much makes the series perfect by my eyes. But to each his own...

[gnmarsh]

I just finished rereading the Jordan books ( I read 3500 words a minute and have a job with lots of downtime) and changed my opinion of them. Originally i agreed with the idea that he lost his way and will never resolve anything. On rereading there are very specefic hints to what will happen as early as book one, things that don't take place till much later on. That being said Martins books are much better, just thinking that Jordan's detractors have not read them as a whole at this point. With the time between them and the somewhat rambling nature of his writing style it would be easy to forget that he did enough foretelling in earlier books.

[graller]

I for one am not concerned that Jordan can't pull the story to a conclusion. I just am not as interested in it as I used to be. He went from telling sweeping history in one book like the Great Hunt to covering one day of action in an entire novel...and not very exciting action at that. If the books were full of scenes like we saw in the beginning no one would complain. But when you have pages of exposition on what bodice ripping gown barely restraining heaving breasts while we tug our braids...<possibly pulling their brains out at the same time> it just became numbing at some point. Winter's Heart went a long way for recapturing an earlier feel to the series for me. Big events happened again and we can see that all of a sudden we are a lot closer to the "end". If he puts out another book like it my jaded nature may take another turn. But working your way thru a book like "Lord of Chaos" was just painful. That and the fact that major scenes were big bad guys were killed with serious effort in arlier books being turned into trivialities as they all are brought back in new forms is just flat out annoying.

[Anders Hallin]

I for one am not concerned that Jordan can't pull the story to a conclusion. I just am not as interested in it as I used to be. He went from telling sweeping history in one book like the Great Hunt to covering one day of action in an entire novel...and not very exciting action at that. If the books were full of scenes like we saw in the beginning no one would complain. But when you have pages of exposition on what bodice ripping gown barely restraining heaving breasts while we tug our braids...<possibly pulling their brains out at the same time> it just became numbing at some point. Winter's Heart went a long way for recapturing an earlier feel to the series for me. Big events happened again and we can see that all of a sudden we are a lot closer to the "end". If he puts out another book like it my jaded nature may take another turn. But working your way thru a book like "Lord of Chaos" was just painful. That and the fact that major scenes were big bad guys were killed with serious effort in arlier books being turned into trivialities as they all are brought back in new forms is just flat out annoying.

I agree about Winter's Heart, it proved there is light at the end of the tunnel and that being commited to finishing it isn't a hopeless prospect (I was at the 8th book when I realized the quality of much of the writing). And I would say that he writes some of the best "great events" that I've read.
I rather enjoyed Lord of Chaos, Crown of Swords however.. :(

[Dirt]

Tolkien is for adults? Two words: Tom Bombadil.

Sounds to me like Jordan's publisher and editors let the dollar signs swimming before their eyes get in the way of editorial restraint when reading the drafts. I did enjoy Jordan's version of Conan. But this was when I was 12.

I've always been in more of the Sword and Sorcery camp. Moorcock, Gemmell, Green. But all this talk about Martin has really been giving me the itch to pick it up. I just hate having to wait such a long time inbetween books.

[Anonymous]

No, Tyjenks, my jab was for Jason Becker. Your comments I can respect and appreciate. My apologies for any misunderstanding. You're wrong, but that's ok too :D I can live with it. :P

[Tyjenks]

No, Tyjenks, my jab was for Jason Becker. Your comments I can respect and appreciate. My apologies for any misunderstanding. You're wrong, but that's ok too :D I can live with it. :P

Whew! That kept me up last night. :wink: No need for apologies and just between you and me, that Jason Becker character seems a little suspect to me, too.

[Anonymous]

George updated his web site on Friday, and the big news is that HE IS NOT DONE YET. Though he is somewhat bemused that Amazon has managed to figure out a page count even though he hasn't yet.

http://www.georgerrmartin.com/

I hate CCG's, just because they're nothing more than a way to milk more money out of fans, but I am going to have to resist buying into the Game of Thrones CCG. Though I'd probably kill to actually see an artist's representation of a lot of people/places/things in the books.

[Tyjenks]

***grumble, grumble***

:evil: Charter :evil:

***makes evil eye ward sign in the air***

[Tyjenks]

Why is there no little, $7.95 paperback of Storm of Swords? I think I missed this change in the publishing world. When did it go from Hardback($25) --> Paperback($8.00) to Hardback($25) --> Big Paperback($14) --> Paperback($8.00 )?

Just wondering. I seriously have not seen this with many of the authors I read. Maybe that middle tier book simply is not circulated down to the Southeastern U.S. usually. Maybe I should shut the Hell up and pay the extra 6 or 7 bucks. Right now, I am still trying to hold off until a more firm date is set for A Feast of Crows and the price difference is juuuust enough for this cheap bastard to continue his rationing of the Song of Fire and Ice books.

[Tyjenks]

I am approx. 600 pages into Storm and all I can say is OUCH!!!

[DrCrypt]

I used to have a girlfriend in Belgium who absolutely loved these books, to the point that I camped outside of a Brussels bookstore one day to buy the last one for her as a surprise. I tried to read a couple of chapters of the first one, but what stopped me absolutely dead (and what stops me in most fantasy) was how poor the writing seemed to me. I was completely unwilling to trudge through 2700 pages of such awfully written dreck, no matter how exciting the subject matter.

We've been broken up for a couple of years now, though, and in that time, a lot of the tastes that she had that at the time seemed absolutely appalling to me have started to grow on me (anime, some fantasy novels, etc.) She was a pretty cool girlfriend and, in some ways, I value her intelligence more now than I was actually constantly exposed to it. Still, my impression of A Game of Thrones' writing sticks to the back of my throat even now. Does the writing actually get better as it goes along, or is the first few chapters indicative of the writing quality of the rest of the book? As a disclaimer, I've read Martin's short stories and didn't find them half-bad, so I wasn't totally prejudiced against him.

[Tyjenks]

I remember you calling them crap a few months ago in this thread. At the time, you were new at Qt3 and thought you were just a loon and disregarded your Guiness clouded opinion. While I was correct on that count (except I left out that you are an intelligent, well-spoken loon :wink: ), Martin's writing style may leave something to be desired. However, the twists and turns and shocks he packs into the storylines he weaves together keep me turning pages faster than any series I have ever read. Honestly, that is no message board hyperbole either. I have really enjoyed all three books that much, but then I read a whole lotta Cliff Notes in High School and college so what the hell do I know.

FWIW, from looking at the thread you started which I was afraid to even enter into, your literary tastes may be a little broader and skew a little higher-browed than mine.

[DrCrypt]

FWIW, from looking at the thread you started which I was afraid to even enter into, your literary tastes may be a little broader and skew a little higher-browed than mine.
Hey, don't let that stop you from posting in there - my list of Montaigne, Barzun and Johnson hardly even phased someone from already giving their own personal Booker Prize to Halo as best book they read last year. Plus, I've gotten a tad less pompous from six months ago about other people's reading tastes, probably due to the slovenly degeneration of my own. Hey, is it too late to add Grover's "There's a Monster Somewhere In This Book!!!" to my faves list?

As for Martin, just take a look at the first couple of chapters of Game of Thrones for me. Is that style of writing indicative of the rest of the series? I'd love to try it and I don't mind exciting books without any literary pretensions, but it needs to at least be competently written without a cliche or aphorism a sentence.

[Bub, Andrew]

Hey, is it too late to add Grover's "There's a Monster Somewhere In This Book!!!" to my faves list?


And you should! That one has everything. Pathos, suspense, great character, bricks, and a surprise ending that'll make you clap with glee. Glee I tell you!

[DrCrypt]

Actually, it is a great book. I remember reading it when I was a little kid and being scared to turn the page. But I didn't read it this year, so it couldn't make my list.

[Bub, Andrew]

I know, I have a kid. I pulled it out of an old box, was flooded with memories, and proudly sent my daughter on that journey with the G man. There's another good one where Grover visits a museum, but I won't ruin that one by talking about it too much.

[graller]

Crypt seeing as you are in Ireland this is a viable option. Go out and buy the book called Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson. This guy is only published in the UK, not in US. I would not call his writing "high fantasy", more like Glen Cook's Black Company stuff....gritty nasty war stories in a fantasy realm with a unique back story and some of the coolest characters you have ever seen. Gardens is the first book in a 10 book series he calls "Tales of the Malazan - Books of the Fallen". He is NOT stretching the story for money. He has published 4 books and has already published the titles of all 10.

Gardens
Deadhouse Gates
Memories of Ice
House of Chains - Dec 5 published
Midnight Tides - next up

[Ergo]

Graller--

I concur. I posted something about Erikson earlier in this thread. Great stuff. His characterizations are particularly good--no real "good" or "bad" guys, just shades of grey. I just got House of Chains in the mail.

I have no idea why these books haven't been published in the US.

[Sharpe]

I tried to read a couple of chapters of the first one, but what stopped me absolutely dead (and what stops me in most fantasy) was how poor the writing seemed to me. I was completely unwilling to trudge through 2700 pages of such awfully written dreck, no matter how exciting the subject matter.

Still, my impression of A Game of Thrones' writing sticks to the back of my throat even now. Does the writing actually get better as it goes along, or is the first few chapters indicative of the writing quality of the rest of the book? As a disclaimer, I've read Martin's short stories and didn't find them half-bad, so I wasn't totally prejudiced against him.

I actually consider Martin a very GOOD writer so I am curious what aspect of AGoT seemed poorly written? I do believe the writing improves throughout the books - I felt the latter half of AGoT was stronger than the first half and the entire ASoS was just outstanding. There are passages in the series (Ned's dream of the Tower of Joy, the Red Wedding, the White Book, Tyrions conversation with Tywin at the end of ASoS, Dany and the pyre, the Red Viper duel, etc etc) that are some of the best writing I've read in years.

I can see two possible explanations for not liking the beginning of AGoT: first the beginning is quite conventional for a fantasy and you don't really see the depth, the politics and the longterm threads in action until about halfway into AGoT. So if you only read the first few chapters, I would suggest giving AGoT another try, up until the a couple chapters into King's Landing. If you don't like it by then, then you will not like the series. The other possible explanation is that Martin chose several VERY young characters to focus on in AGoT, and since he's writing Point of View this means the early chapters can be quite childlike. This does improve through the series: Martin introduces some more adults as PoVs in later books, and the children do begin to grow up.

Bottom line, I believe if you give this book another try, you may well find yourself pleasantly surprised.

Dan

[DrCrypt]

I actually consider Martin a very GOOD writer so I am curious what aspect of AGoT seemed poorly written?
Sorry, I couldn't say - I just don't remember. I remember something about werewolves and horses in the woods? If I'd known how popular the series was when I read it, I might have bothered to gather my thoughts together and figure out exactly what it was stylistically that bothered me so. As it was, I threw it to one side.

All of the things you mentioned sound like plausible excuses as to why I didn't like it, though. Fantasy cliches + childish narration + characters thinking entire soliloquies in italics = Salvation Army Used Book Bin.

Still, maybe when I'm done reading my way through Burroughs' Mars series (all absolute dreck, "Best swordsman on two planets, John Carter, Ex-Captain for the Confederacy and Virginian Plantation Boss, brings together all of the many-colored peoples of Mars in racial harmony." God, I'm loving it) I'll sit down at the bookstore and read a couple of chapters. Thanks for the feedback.

[Russ]

Feast of Crows is delayed. Martin's own site (http://www.georgerrmartin.com) refers to it not making the April release. Yes, he really looks like that. Ahem. I checked Amazon (http://www.amazon.com). They are now carrying it for October release.

Dr. Crypt: Martin's writing style has nothing to do with why these books are so compelling. It's the plot and the characters. Especially the characters and the truly awful things that happen to some of them.

[DrCrypt]

Russ, so - hypothetically speaking and for the sake of argument - you are granting me that the writing itself is terrible, a Big Gulp Slurpee of ice cold fantasy cliches and sticky, saccharine prose. But I should suck it up, stoically wince down the resulting brain freeze migraine, because of the sugar-induced hallucinations of "cool characters who have bad things happen to them" parading around in my mind.

See, this is what I can't stand about most fantasy. I don't mind if novels are merely competently written if the ideas are original and the author executes the talent he does have well, molding the story to his own strengths and weaknesses. But most fantasy is written by hacks who can barely string a sentence together, who write entire chapters based on nothing but modular literary aphorisms and interchangeable neo-Tolkein stereotypes, and who overcompensate for terrible melodramas and unoriginal ideas by ballasting their pitiful works into twelve thousand page epics.

And even if the ideas are good, how can you say that the writing style doesn't matter? Style is precisely how an author makes his points and illuminates his ideas. Flinging at least a competent style out the window, writers have nothing. But most of these authors don't even care about writing competently. They are just smashing their keyboards with a cliche-headed sledgehammer, trying to ring the "Thirty Pages A Day" bell. And they are right to: their fans don't care either. Fantasy novels are the all you can eat buffets you can find on the borders of every state - completely ungratifying slop served by the trough for a $7.99 admission.

Does this apply to Martin? Maybe not. But since my problem with Martin (possibly erroneously) is with his style, being told to "ignore it" (while still affirming that Martin is the cream-of-the-crop) makes me just think that my original judgment was totally spot-on, and that the prerequisite for enjoying any of these novels is a complete lack of literary discrimination. Which is a shame, because there is no reason fantasy has to be written with such inept garishness as seems to be expected of it.

That all said, I'm still not swearing Martin off, and I may take the first book out of the library over the weeken to trawl through.

[Tyjenks]

Feast of Crows is delayed. Martin's own site (http://www.georgerrmartin.com) refers to it not making the April release. Yes, he really looks like that. Ahem. I checked Amazon (http://www.amazon.com). They are now carrying it for October release.
Boooo! Hisss! And I waited all that time, paced myself, and finished up SoS for the March release of Feast. Crapola.

Dr. Crypt: Martin's writing style has nothing to do with why these books are so compelling. It's the plot and the characters. Especially the characters and the truly awful things that happen to some of them.

There's no convincing that cranky Crypt bastard. :wink: I gave up.

However, I will say one (or two) things more. While some of the plot lines may start out cliched and/or hackneyed, they certainly do not wind up in those predictable fantasy-themed places. There is almost no magic or mythological type creatures (which I find refreshing). Good and Bad guys alike are axed when you never expect it. Plot twists abound without becoming too confusing or forced, surprisingly. Martin's "point of view" writing style allows a little sympathy creep in for even the most dastardly of characters. That is until they wring the necks of some kitty cats or something.

I could go on, but I thought I said I gave up. Jeez, I have never enjoyed a series this much and am irritated at my inability to explain why you should give him one final try or convince you of Martin's worth. Now I am done and give up. :)

[Anonymous]

Russ, so - hypothetically speaking and for the sake of argument - you are granting me that the writing itself is terrible, a Big Gulp Slurpee of ice cold fantasy cliches and sticky, saccharine prose. But I should suck it up, stoically wince down the resulting brain freeze migraine, because of the sugar-induced hallucinations of "cool characters who have bad things happen to them" parading around in my mind.

See, this is what I can't stand about most fantasy. I don't mind if novels are merely competently written if the ideas are original and the author executes the talent he does have well, molding the story to his own strengths and weaknesses. But most fantasy is written by hacks who can barely string a sentence together, who write entire chapters based on nothing but modular literary aphorisms and interchangeable neo-Tolkein stereotypes, and who overcompensate for terrible melodramas and unoriginal ideas by ballasting their pitiful works into twelve thousand page epics.

And even if the ideas are good, how can you say that the writing style doesn't matter? Style is precisely how an author makes his points and illuminates his ideas. Flinging at least a competent style out the window, writers have nothing. But most of these authors don't even care about writing competently. They are just smashing their keyboards with a cliche-headed sledgehammer, trying to ring the "Thirty Pages A Day" bell. And they are right to: their fans don't care either. Fantasy novels are the all you can eat buffets you can find on the borders of every state - completely ungratifying slop served by the trough for a $7.99 admission.

Does this apply to Martin? Maybe not. But since my problem with Martin (possibly erroneously) is with his style, being told to "ignore it" (while still affirming that Martin is the cream-of-the-crop) makes me just think that my original judgment was totally spot-on, and that the prerequisite for enjoying any of these novels is a complete lack of literary discrimination. Which is a shame, because there is no reason fantasy has to be written with such inept garishness as seems to be expected of it.

That all said, I'm still not swearing Martin off, and I may take the first book out of the library over the weeken to trawl through.

You are one high-brow motherfucker, and this is coming from a guy who almost read Blake in the nude with the local librarian.

[Tyjenks]

one high-brow motherfucker

I think his car has that on a bumper sticker.

[Russ]

Somebody warn me next time.

[graller]

Hardest thing to take about Crypt is that he comes off that way while the man is smoking a pipe and chugging Guiness.

[Drunkagain]

You are one high-brow motherfucker...

LMAO! :lol:

One thing you can say for DrCrypt, when he likes or dosen't like something he usually has a nice long eloquent explanation for it. :)

[DrCrypt]

I wish someone had posted some more inane blithering about how bitchin' cool Jon Snow was, or how they loved it when bad things happened to cool people like Viserys, or how revolutionary Martin's spelling of the word "Sir" with an incorrect vowel was. Instead, the last comment here is about how eloquent and well-thought out my hatred for Game of Thrones is. Because now I'm going to reluctantly take it all back and say that I've really dug the first book so far.

Don't get me wrong. No living author, no matter how fat, should be allowed to consistently describe characters as dressed in "resplendent black". No well written book should make characterization as pithy as having each character monotonously repeat the same motto over and over again. The 700 pages I've read so far could have been captured in half as many more effectively.

That said, I've had a lot of fun with the book, and though I feel I'm not really getting anywhere in it, I have found the setting, the politics, the characters/cariactures and the adventure to be really fun trash reading. I'm even intending on making Book 2 my plane reading on the way to Thailand on Saturday. I also take back when I called this "neo-Tolkein pap" - if anything, it is neo-Peake pap, which is a hell of a lot better. So you guys have all earned a moritorium from my sneers on this one, and all I can say is that I think I probably never read past the first few chapters when my initial impression was formed. Thanks for talking me into reading it, guys.

[Woolen Horde]

Jeezus, you mean you've been bitching us out about this series and you hadn't even read it yet?

Now that's just mean.

Hah, 700 pages in? Have you even gotten to Lord Eddard's big moment yet?

Book 1 is nothin'. Wait till you read Book 2 and find out just how much we love The Imp. Then Book 3, when characters are like flies and Martin has the Flyswatter From Hell!

[DrCrypt]

Hah, 700 pages in? Have you even gotten to Lord Eddard's big moment yet?
You mean when he's fucking Tyrion Lannister and, just at the peak of orgasm, moans "Winter is coming"? Yeah, been there, done that.

[Tyjenks]

AHA! I knew it! All that tomato throwing and all of those disparaging remarks only to come slinking back and admit that it is a decent read. I am afraid I have lost all respect for you. You should have read it, secretly enjoyed it, and then come back here and call it complete shite as you downloaded the second book.

[Kitsune]

Though I thought George R. R. Martin's stuff was better than most, I really can't stand most of fantasy books because they all tend to sound like this:

"Nicol stopped at the edge of the forest, heart beating, as the Kuprakahni stealthily hunted the night. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck. It was as if all the fairy tales had come to life. The Kuprakahni were a child's story, what were they doing in Fairsfield and why did they seem to be attracted to his golden pendant? Suddenly, all that had been Nicol's world crashed down into the darkness of the night. Silently, he cursed Nar, God of the Sea for his ill luck and rushed onward through the brush. He didn't know how much more he could take of this, his lungs were full to bursting with the effort of running away. Running away. Is that all he ever did when things came down to the quick? Was he a coward? He tried to think of anyway he could have saved poor Mycek, but the image of his dear friend's mauled, bloody face only surged up again, a dark and painful reminder of what happened to those who defied Lord Shickleblat."

I'm not sure whether the style makes for compelling English writing, but I really don't like it.

A lot of people say The Lord of the Rings boring, but honestly, I thought it was a thousand times better than what I've read since then. At least A Game of Thrones had (these are spoilers, so be careful! :)) that great scene where that bitch's spoiled brat sucked her breast and demanded that his aunt fly off the balcony. I make it sound petty, but it was really well done. That and the fact that they killed You-Know-Who made me stand up in bed and demand that it was a dream, because I didn't just read 600 pages to have the good guys get beaten, its not supposed to happen, dammit! And that's when you know the author has something going on.

Honestly, the fantasy books I've enjoyed most have all been children's books, like Harry Potter, which I find have more delightful premises and better characters and more memorable stories.

Of course, you've got to be pretty careful with what you choose when the books cost 1500 to 2500 yen in paperback.

Anyone know of a place where one can synopses or refresher outlines of what happens in Game of Thrones and Clash of Kings, so I can go on with Storm of Swords? I think it just came out here...I at least like reading about Sansa more than Malta or Kyle Haven who make me want to HIT THEM WITH EVERY WORD THEY SAY. I like reading about Arya, and in fact, most of the child characters are my favorites and who I enjoy reading about the most, especially Jon and Bran, I think its because I'm closer to their age than I am to adults anyway.

-Kitsune

[Sharpe]

To the Good Doctor: what did I tell you? :)

I agree that Martin is writing these books in an overly-long fashion. If he had stuck to his original plan of 3 books and moved events along, the whole narrative would be better.

That said, there is some VERY good writing, story, plot and dialogue in the series. If you like Jon Snow, you will like A Clash of Kings even more than Game of Thrones, and you will positively LOVE A Storm of Swords ("I may know nothing, but I know this...").

If you liked what befell Viserys, then you have to read the end of Game of Thrones, and you will quite enjoy A Clash of Kings. However, Storm of Swords will be your meat and mead - it has some sequences that make the crowning of Viserys look like a slap on the wrist.

This is what's odd about the series: unlike most series that start out strong and eek along to an ultimately unsatisfying conclusion, I felt this series got BETTER with each book, which is a tall order.

Also I think the writing improves in each book: the characters age and lose some of their annoying child-schlock, many of the cutesy or conventional settings are replaced with more hard-case scenarios, and in general Martin finds a more consistent and less overblown voice. I think in Game of Thrones Martin was trying to begin The Great High Fantasy Epic - by ASOS he's really writing in his own voice, and although hes still writng a great fantasy epic its not generic, cliched or conventional in any way.

Dan

[Tyjenks]

Anyone know of a place where one can synopses or refresher outlines of what happens in Game of Thrones and Clash of Kings, so I can go on with Storm of Swords? -Kitsune

You can find a lot of info from the links on his site:

www.georgerrmartin.com

I have only visited a couple of the fan sites linked there, but most are fairly well done. For the most part, fansites cover waaaaayy more than I want to know so it may take a little searching. Any section entitled "Fan Fiction" for a dedicated book or game site I avoid like the plague.

[Dirt]

You all make this series sound like the War and Peace of fantasy.

I long burned out on fantasy epics. Just looking at the shelves at the book store makes me cringe. But I've heard nothing but good things. I'm having a hard time resisting.

[Tyjenks]

You all make this series sound like the War and Peace of fantasy.

I long burned out on fantasy epics. Just looking at the shelves at the book store makes me cringe. But I've heard nothing but good things. I'm having a hard time resisting.

Cross over children...all are welcome....come into the light......

[Smaugbelly]

It's not Tolkien, but it's roughly a bazillion times better than Robert Jordan's Wheel of Waste of Time series which seems to clutter up the fantasy shelves in every bookstore in existence.

[Andrew Mayer]

I found these books by accident when doing some research for a fantasy based product.

They are, in a word, fantastic.

I'm still amazed at how I never lost track of who was who, even amongst a cast of dozens.

He also doesn't fall into easy characterizations. Their motivations take some of them from villain to hero and back again.

His use of magic is masterful. Just a taste, a promise, and a longing for more.

And it's just getting warmed up.

[mtkafka]

Yeah, I'm near the end of book two of this series. Wow. Pretty cool. The writing is very sharp. One thing with fantasy writing that is upmost importance to me is description and believability of its universe... Martin has it down pat imo. I've read my share of fantasy/sci fi fantasy and this is pretty good. I like the character portrayals (not too cliche and not overwrought) and the every once in awhile dose of a harsh medieval reality (though its not as dark as some have led me to believe-based on reviews and word of mouth).

Oh yeah, I'm not done yet, but the books are addicting now... but theres something about them that doesnt get to the mysterious (myabe in the last four books?). There's maybe TOO much description that leaves away the mystery (except maybe the mystery of dragons, the northern lands beyond the wall, magic use, the coming winter)... all in all so far really cool. Only thing is once I finsih book three, the stories not done, the last book probably wont be done til 2010!!!! that sucks! At least Martin wont rush it.

oh btw, sorry im late.

etc

[mtkafka]

Russ, so - hypothetically speaking and for the sake of argument - you are granting me that the writing itself is terrible, a Big Gulp Slurpee of ice cold fantasy cliches and sticky, saccharine prose. But I should suck it up, stoically wince down the resulting brain freeze migraine, because of the sugar-induced hallucinations of "cool characters who have bad things happen to them" parading around in my mind.

See, this is what I can't stand about most fantasy. I don't mind if novels are merely competently written if the ideas are original and the author executes the talent he does have well, molding the story to his own strengths and weaknesses. But most fantasy is written by hacks who can barely string a sentence together, who write entire chapters based on nothing but modular literary aphorisms and interchangeable neo-Tolkein stereotypes, and who overcompensate for terrible melodramas and unoriginal ideas by ballasting their pitiful works into twelve thousand page epics.

And even if the ideas are good, how can you say that the writing style doesn't matter? Style is precisely how an author makes his points and illuminates his ideas. Flinging at least a competent style out the window, writers have nothing. But most of these authors don't even care about writing competently. They are just smashing their keyboards with a cliche-headed sledgehammer, trying to ring the "Thirty Pages A Day" bell. And they are right to: their fans don't care either. Fantasy novels are the all you can eat buffets you can find on the borders of every state - completely ungratifying slop served by the trough for a $7.99 admission.

Does this apply to Martin? Maybe not. But since my problem with Martin (possibly erroneously) is with his style, being told to "ignore it" (while still affirming that Martin is the cream-of-the-crop) makes me just think that my original judgment was totally spot-on, and that the prerequisite for enjoying any of these novels is a complete lack of literary discrimination. Which is a shame, because there is no reason fantasy has to be written with such inept garishness as seems to be expected of it.

That all said, I'm still not swearing Martin off, and I may take the first book out of the library over the weeken to trawl through.

you haven't even read the first book and are ridiculing his writing style... if anything I think martin's prose is head and shoulders above alot of fantasy writing... better than stuff from Jordan, Brooks, Eddings, or even some popular writers ... when it comes to fantasy (or any writing), I like well written prose... I even liked Savatore's Icewind Dale and Dark Elf stuff for that reason alone, easy imaginative reads. same with the early Dragonlance stuff. Then that DnD Huma Dragonlance book (great descriptions). anyway, Martin writes sharplyand sometimes beautifully, especially for a 'fantasy' writer. I really like the first chapter book 1 omen, its poetic. His prose is clean and never wordy or never too sparse. Even the padding of character pov's is interesting so far (I'm at the end of book 2 btw).

etc

[DrCrypt]

mt, somewhere else I slightly revised my opinion about the series. I still think the entire "the books are great because cool things happen to people!" party line that the Martintelligentsia around here seem to use to try to convert the proletariat is complete nonsense. And I still think the writing is pretty dreadful. And you know what's even more dreadful? The fact that everyone here keeps on saying "Martin's writing is pretty good... you know, by fantasy standards!" Isn't this a bit like saying that Saddam Hussein's sense of morality was pretty good by Nazi standards?

That said, Martin's writing style is marginally better than most fantasy writers - his failings aren't so much in the way he writes, which is pretty non-imposing, but in his absolute insistence on adhering to all the fantasy stylistic cliches (internal monologues, catch phrases eternally uttered as a stand-in for characterization/motivation, phrases like "resplendent black", etc.).

When I was in Thailand, I ended up rereading the series and honestly, I did enjoy it, but by the end of the third book, I'd really lost interest. Part of the problem (as usual for fantasy writers) is that Martin is attempting to tell a story in 10,000 pages that could probably be done better in less than a tenth of that. The second book is by far the best of the series so far, and that is mostly because it concentrates on a protagonist (Tyrion Lannister) at a moment of his life (being the Hand of the King at a time of civil war) that is actually worth telling a story about. The rest of these bozos are uninteresting characters at best, and it is tedious having to march through hundreds of pages about Sansa or Arya or Jon Snow or Danny. You should build a novel around an interesting character, not a vast swathe of history (real or imaginary) populated by louts, imbeciles and lobotomized cliches. Tyrion is a great character, and shouldn't have to share the spotlight with so many absolutely juvenille creations.

I'll probably read the fourth novel when it comes out, but I kind of suspect it is all downhill from here.

[Tyjenks]

Part of the problem (as usual for fantasy writers) is that Martin is attempting to tell a story in 10,000 pages that could probably be done better in less than a tenth of that.

Summation of Crypt's Song of Fire and Ice views.

They kinda suck, but they could be worse. The next one will suck, I will read it, and yes, it will suck.

There. I said in 22 words what it took (and usually takes) Crypt to say in ~220 words.

[Thierry Nguyen]

There. I said in 22 words what it took (and usually takes) Crypt to say in ~220 words.

Dude, Tools | Word Count in Microsoft Word sez 361 for that Crypt post. You were off by about 140!

[Tyrion Lannister]

There. I said in 22 words what it took (and usually takes) Crypt to say in ~220 words.

Dude, Tools | Word Count in Microsoft Word sez 361 for that Crypt post. You were off by about 140!

Doesn't make his flame any less funny :)

Industry Dwarf

[Tyjenks]

There. I said in 22 words what it took (and usually takes) Crypt to say in ~220 words.

Dude, Tools | Word Count in Microsoft Word sez 361 for that Crypt post. You were off by about 140!

Doesn't make his flame any less funny :)

Industry Dwarf

The good doctor had said "a tenth of that" and I did not feel like doing the whole word count thing so, I did the math and hoped it was close. Thankfully, Thierry came along to show just how wordy Crypt really is. I love his posts, but to criticize an author for being wordy.....well, wait I just did a more subtle version of this joke.

[Woolen Horde]

Don't worry, cause in addition to bashing the "shitty" writing of Martin and company, Crypty spent his time in Thailand readying his supremo fantasy novel that will show the world how high fantasy is supposed to be written. I hear it's called "Grimoire."

[Mark Asher]

Crypt, I think of Martin as an excellent pro. There's nothing about his style that stands out, good or bad, but it's easy to read and does a good job of telling the story. More often than not this is a good thing. I don't like to be stopped by a sentence or paragraph and think about the author behind the writing.

Where I think Martin stands out is in his characterization. He imagines his characters well and conveys to the reader a sense of who they are well. Villains become less villainous and more complex, noble characters can be both noble and nasty, and he doesn't allow the reader to harbor any expectations about his characters. In his hands, half of the Fellowship of the Ring would have been dead by the middle of book two. More would have died later. In a way, I think this is just Martin's version of a cheap writer's trick, but it works for me -- probably because I see it so seldom.

It's for these things, and his interesting, ongoing story, that I value him.

[Ben]

Crypt makes a good point about how by having so many POVs Martin really is wasting his time. That, in fact, should be his guideline about which POV he should allow. Would anyone have bought the collected POV-chapters of Sansa? Tyrion and Jon are the only characters who are really worth writing books about, and Jon's book isn't really focused enough, he only now appears to have finally acquired the central foe of his "book". Characters like Ned and Cat provide vital exposition, but neither could carry a novel.

Crypt's other complaints are off base. Martin's greatest strength may be his effective prose style, he does a great job of incorporating the cliches of the genre without becoming Eddings style crap.

His characters are impressively nuanced, but his sense of plot is lacking. "Uhh, shit, no ideas. I know, I'll kill off a major character!" Also, get on with it, George. 3 books in, who is the bad guy? What character do we want to fail, and what character do we want to succeed?

Why has he wasted so many pages writing an entirely different book in the Danerys(sp?) chapters? I've always felt that that the Jordan books would've worked better as a larger series of smaller, single POV books. Martin should keep the Westeros as a single multi-POV volume, but Danerys should be a seperate section. Then have a badass crossover novel after a trilogy apiece. I can deal with her not having any contact with the major characters through the first half of the first book, but it we are going for at least book 4 before any other POV character becomes more than dimly aware of her existance. There is a single minor character of overlap. This is three books in!


He's a much better writer than Jordan, but I'm beginning to see some of the same flaws in both. Like rule number 1 is that you cannot bring more than one character back from the dead. Once bringing back from the dead is planted in the reader's mind as a possibility, future deaths will have no emotional impact. You get that card to play once, and it's an admission you are totally out of ideas.

He's also getting character heavy, even with the high attrition rate. He's done a good job of making them easy for the reader to keep straight(unlike Jordan's Mxxxx character name generation scheme), but there are too many characters that are only in one POV. We go 400 pages without a mention and then suddenly they are a major character again.


Martin is the absolute best job that you can do with a fundamentally flawed core. Epic, multi-POV, 5,000+ page fantasy is not going to be good writing the whole way through. the first Dragonlance trilogy is pretty bad , but in a space of a single Martin/Jordan novel it follows a band of adventurers through a number of neatly wrapped up subplots and then ends a war. Weis and Hickman have what, 11 canon books? Outline those and you get like 4 successfully defeated threats to the universe. After Martin's next book he'll be nearing the same page count as the entire Dragonlance saga, which has covered decades of the struggles of an entire world. Martin has covered a handful of years(it's tough to figure how much time is skipped because of his weird season thing) of a single nation's history.

[mtkafka]

Crypt, I think of Martin as an excellent pro. There's nothing about his style that stands out, good or bad, but it's easy to read and does a good job of telling the story. More often than not this is a good thing. I don't like to be stopped by a sentence or paragraph and think about the author behind the writing.

Where I think Martin stands out is in his characterization. He imagines his characters well and conveys to the reader a sense of who they are well. Villains become less villainous and more complex, noble characters can be both noble and nasty, and he doesn't allow the reader to harbor any expectations about his characters. In his hands, half of the Fellowship of the Ring would have been dead by the middle of book two. More would have died later. In a way, I think this is just Martin's version of a cheap writer's trick, but it works for me -- probably because I see it so seldom.

It's for these things, and his interesting, ongoing story, that I value him.

I agree. His writing style serves his quasi historical fantasy narrative well. Its VERY clean and professional (prolly lots of revisions, no wonder its taking him long to finish the Crows book). Also Martin's style in these books doesn't try to WOW you or be ironic or stylistically clever, he sticks to the genre and creates a credible world with credible characters telling a cool story!~

etc

[DrCrypt]

Crypt, I think of Martin as an excellent pro. There's nothing about his style that stands out, good or bad, but it's easy to read and does a good job of telling the story. More often than not this is a good thing. I don't like to be stopped by a sentence or paragraph and think about the author behind the writing.
I'm going to duck under the Kumbaya ring of clasped sweaty hands sprinkled with fluorescent Cheetos pixy dust which the entire QT3-based George R.R. Martin fan base has formed around me, in order to answer the sane guy screaming over them.

I honestly don't have a problem with Martin's prose style now that I've read the series, Mark. It fails sometimes, but like you said, it isn't imposing either way. My impression before was off-base - I'd only read the first few chapters, and prosaically these are the worst. . People read fantasy for a series of adventures, not any Nabokovian wordplay or Joycian stream-of-consciousness stylings. So ultimately, I don't have any problem anymore with Martin's completely indistinct-in-every-way prose.

But as I said last post, where I think Martin is a kinda unimpressive writer is for the very reason fantasy fans approach him with a sort of deific reverence - I don't think he is good at characterization. With one exception, I find every single one of his characters to be a mere literary pack mule for yet another tired platitude, fantasy cliche or one-dimensional emotional psychosis. Yes, Christ, I get it already: Daenerys is the daughter of the dragon! Jon Snow is just a no-good bastard! Arya must be swift like the wind! Piggy is just a fat coward! Is the endless, italicized repetition of the character note an author wrote on a 3x5 card underneath the name of his novel's characters really what passes as great characterization for fantasy writers?

Ben, in a shocking rebound from the all-around weirdness of his "Gang rapists are the heroes of 28 Days Later" argument, has kung-fu chopped the telephone-book width series right in half and gotten to the heart of the issue: is there a single character (outside of Tyrion Lannister) in Martin's novels that would be even remotely interesting to a reader outside of this gigantic strife going on? If you answer "no", then George R.R. Martin is not a good writer of characters, he's just a good writer of gruesome things happening to characters. And honestly, who cares about characters like Sansa Stark, or whatever the mother's name was, or "Piggy" - even within the adventures Martin has flung them into? You're all just skimming through them until you see Tyrion's name bolded across the header of the next chapter. But, in the end, these bozos and their mundane thoughts account for 75% of the series length.

Tyrion Lannister is the only character in the books that could possibly stand up as a focus of interest outside of the war happening around him. He appears to be the only character that Martin has put any thought into, as opposed to just being a mindless vehicle for the next big action scene. The second book is a great read, basically only because Tyrion is the focus of it. In short, I think he is the only really excellent character among the entire herd of literary bovines Martin is milking his word count from. Which makes it all the more explicable that after 4,000 pages or so, less than a tenth of that has been spent focussing on the dwarf - a good writer, a good characterizer, would seperate the whey from the curd.

This sounds a tad more harsh than I mean it to be. As escapist pulp, I thought the series is pretty fun, and the second novel is actually good outside of the gravity defying bell curve which is the only thing that saves most "great" fantasy dreck from the depths of complete literary irrelevance. But there is no doubt in my mind that the accolades of Martin's gift for characterization are way out of whack. As you said, Mark, the real appeal is just a sadistic one: "In [Martin's] hands, half of the Fellowship of the Ring would have been dead by the middle of book two."

I'll leave you all listening to the soothing staccato of the following series of keypresses as Tyjenks readies his next eviscerating retort: <clicks on Microsoft Word Icon>. Control C! Control V! Alt-T! Alt-W! Tyjenks: Booyeah! 750 words!

[Tyjenks]

See.

[Toddy]

**COUPLE OF SPOILERS BELOW**

I really disagree with this. I found almost all of the characters to have depth beyond their initial stereotypes. All have moved beyond what they were when the story began--the Stark children, particularly, in response to the execution of their father and the ensuing civil war. There don't seem to be any straightforward heroes or villians here, aside from Ned Stark, and his early death indicates that Martin isn't writing traditional white-hat vs. black-hat fantasy.

Killing the hero before the end of book one sort of sums up the entire story, in that you really can't make any predictions about how characters are going to act. Come on, Crypt. You can make fair criticisms about the pacing and the episodic narration, but there's no way that Martin's characters are fantasy archetypes. If they were, then the story would be predictable. And this story is anything but predictable. Nor is it salacious or sadistic. Yeah, major characters die. So what? A civil war is going on. That sort of thing is gonna happen. There's nothing sensational in the way that Martin kills people off. It's always fairly sudden and brutal, and sometimes it even happens offstage. It seems very realistic to me, and carries with it a lot of emotional impact.

I'm glad that you've come to appreciate the Song of Ice and Fire series to some extent, though I don't understand why you have to qualify it with labels. It's like you feel guilty for enjoying the books, and have to trash them afterwards to maintain some sort of self-respect. You act a bit like I did years ago when I was finishing university, all hopped up on Literature to the point that I deemed anything with any sort of mass appeal to be pulp crap. Though even I never got so pretentious that I was raving about "Nabokovian wordplay" and "Joycian steam-of-consciousness stylings" on a message board dedicated to computer games and predictions of racial holocausts. Of course, Al Gore had yet to invent the Internet, so I didn't have the option...

[DrCrypt]

Brett, I'm not entirely sure how you interpreted my saying that Martin should not use a style like Nabokov or Joyce to be a "raving" pontification for exactly the opposite, but whatever allows you to continue to comfortably fling all literary discrimination out the window the second you pick up a fantasy novel where "cool things happen to awesome characters"!

And if you think it is pretentious of me to qualify my enjoyment of a Martin by saying "but ultimately, it is just a slight cut above typical fantasy standards", I'm not sure how that is really any different than you saying Martin is "great by fantasy standards". Yeah, but I think we can both agree - those standards suck.

If you guys want me to just pump my fist in synchronicity with you and drool "George R.R. Martin rools!" all over the glow-in-the-dark dragon t-shirt I bought at the comic store, soddy. I already said that I enjoyed the books and thought they were fun, because it is fun to watch "cool things happen" in a fantasy setting. But I'm certainly not trying to justify my enjoyment of the books by claiming that George R.R. Martin is anything besides just a passable author, and I'm not going to pretend anything besides the fact that I think the books are fun in spite of Martin's sloppy execution, glacial pacing and half-baked characters.

You can dismiss all that with a wave of your foam-and-tin-foil jousting swords, if you want, as the pretentiousness of some mochaccino snorting literature major. But I don't think writing fantasy and having a tightly-knit prose style, a distinctive voice, a complete cast of intriguing, three-dimensional characters and excellent pacing are mutually exclusive. Literature, after all, isn't a genre in itself. And, sorry, I don't think Martin achieves any of what I just listed... yet these are all the markings of a good book. To be honest, the only one any of you guys are even attempting to take issue with me on is the characterization point. So I'll give it to you, which still makes Martin's trilogy a series of averagely written, badly paced novels that happen to be really fun and exciting at certain parts in its three thousand pages.

Anyway, we agree - the books are entertaining. I'm pretty happy to leave my opinion at that.

[Tyjenks]

Brett - you might want to go in and throw a little spoler alert in before your post. For anyone who may start reading this thread and has not read the books, that little nugget you dropped in the first paragraph was one of those you kinda don't (or simple-minded me didn't) see coming.

Sorry if this comes across as a thread monitor post. Just doing my crossing guard duties as a sweaty-handed Martin lover.

If you guys want me to just pump my fist in synchronicity with you and drool "George R.R. Martin rools!" all over the glow-in-the-dark dragon t-shirt I bought at the comic store, soddy.

That is precisely what I would like. My scenario had you purchasing a "Winter is Coming" shirt from the www.GeorgeRRMartin.com website, but your version will do fine.

http://www.georgerrmartin.com/images/hernescottage.jpg

[DrCrypt]

Okay, that picture wins the debate. I'll go buy the t-shirt and see you all for the Game of Thrones card game in Tyler's mom's basement.

[Tyjenks]

Okay, that picture wins the debate. I'll go buy the t-shirt and see you all for the Game of Thrones card game in Tyler's mom's basement.

I do her nails on Wednesday nights, so any day but that one is good for me.

[Angie Gallant]

I'm in the middle of the second book and I'm really enjoying it, but then something like this pops up
Pycelle shrieked and wet the bed, urine spraying in all directions as he tried to scramble back out of reach.
and I find myself ashamed to be reading it.

[Russ]

Well, I guess that will eliminate it from consideration as an after school special.

[Toddy]

Brett, I'm not entirely sure how you interpreted my saying that Martin should not use a style like Nabokov or Joyce to be a "raving" pontification for exactly the opposite, but whatever allows you to continue to comfortably fling all literary discrimination out the window the second you pick up a fantasy novel where "cool things happen to awesome characters"!

I don't fling my snobbishness out the window at all where Martin is concerned. I pretty much hate all genre stuff, with a passion. I haven't been able to stomach any fantasy, sci-fi, or horror since I hit Grade 11 or so, aside for the occasional turn-the-mind-off bathtub read. I don't find that Martin's Ice and Fire is great by some Robin Hobb-wielded measuring stick (note: I only know that Robin Hobb is some kind of fantasy author because of threads on this board); I find it great by just about any measuring stick. There's a purity there, and a sense of cunning and inventive storytelling that wins me over.

I suppose I could pick apart individual sentences, hack up the dialogue and plotting and characters and motivations until they look foolish. But I could do that with any work of fiction that you'd care to name, from Ada to Buddenbrooks to Crime and Punishment. Those sorts of autopsies always reveal more about the critic than the work being criticized.

Anyhow, don't think that I don't appreciate your posts. Even though I'm the one currently defending swords and sorcery as some sort of high literature, I'm just as much of a cultural snot in my own way. ;-)

[Woolen Horde]

Concur. 99.99 percent of the fantasy novels out there are schlock. I can't even get past the first chapter of most of them, and I've tried. But GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire is just one wickedly well told story, and it's got me and anyone who I recommend it to absolutely hooked.

I could never read most fantasy stuff prior to reading Martin. It's just so contrived. And after reading Martin, the genre has been destroyed for me. There really is very little in the genre that can measure up to his stuff.

[Mark Asher]

Concur. 99.99 percent of the fantasy novels out there are schlock. I can't even get past the first chapter of most of them, and I've tried. But GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire is just one wickedly well told story, and it's got me and anyone who I recommend it to absolutely hooked.

I could never read most fantasy stuff prior to reading Martin. It's just so contrived. And after reading Martin, the genre has been destroyed for me. There really is very little in the genre that can measure up to his stuff.

Have you ever read Robert E. Howard's Conan stories? Those are so lean and get so quickly to the action that I think it would be hard to label them "contrived."

[Super_D]

Score! After paging through the first few chapters of AGoT (after hearing about this book on Slashdot) I got hooked and started scouring the local bookstores. At a comic/gaming/used bookstore I found AGoT for $3.76. Now if I can only find the others...

[Woolen Horde]

Score! After paging through the first few chapters of AGoT (after hearing about this book on Slashdot) I got hooked and started scouring the local bookstores. At a comic/gaming/used bookstore I found AGoT for $3.76. Now if I can only find the others...

Uhhhh.... you can find the others at most local bookstores, and at vitually every major bookseller, like B&N.

[Super_D]

Score! After paging through the first few chapters of AGoT (after hearing about this book on Slashdot) I got hooked and started scouring the local bookstores. At a comic/gaming/used bookstore I found AGoT for $3.76. Now if I can only find the others...

Uhhhh.... you can find the others at most local bookstores, and at vitually every major bookseller, like B&N.

Well the fact I found it for $3.76 rather than $8.99 is what I was kind of excited about. Guess it's my uh "thrifty" nature showing through.

[John Reynolds]

Slight spoiler for those who haven't finished the first three books.

So who poisoned Joffrey? I have my suspicions but would like to hear what other readers think.

[Woolen Horde]

Slight spoiler for those who haven't finished the first three books.

So who poisoned Joffrey? I have my suspicions but would like to hear what other readers think.

Don't worry about this; it is revealed who is responsible near the end of book 3.

[Tyjenks]

I would appreciate it if this thread lay dormant until news breaks regarding the imminent release of the next book. Every time it is bumped I get a little twinge of excitement that quickly turns to dissaponment.

Thanks,
Tyler

[Woolen Horde]

Don't worry about this; it is revealed who is responsible near the end of book 3.

OK, I've read the books twice and can't finger someone as a definite.

SPOILER BELOW....












Littlefinger tells Sansa that it was the Queen of Thorns who poisoned the chalice. The poison was hidden as one of the black stones in Sansa's silver hair net, which Ser Dontos gave her at the end of Book 2 saying it was magical and the key for her to escape the Lannisters.

Ser Dontos told her to wear the hair net to the wedding feast, and when they're making the greeting rounds, the Queen of Thorns remarks that the wind has messed her hair up, so she tugs at the hair and the hair net to straiten it out. That's when the QoT removes the poison.

After Sansa fled the Throne Room, she realizes that one of the black stones in her hair net had fallen out.

So it was the QoT, in conjunction with Littlefinger, who poisoned Joffrey. As for motivation, Littlefinger explains why near the end of Book 3. The QoT knew that Joffrey was a monster (which was confirmed when she invited Sansa to have dinner at the beginning of Book 3), and that having Joffrey, Margery, and her devoted and lethal brother Ser Loras in close proximity meant that Joffrey would beat Margery, and then Ser Loras would slay the king, and that would be bad news for House Tyrell. But Margery can still be Queen if she marries Tommen instead. And Tommen can become King if Joffrey dies....

Did you not see that chapter at all?

[Woolen Horde]

Totally weird. I replied to the last query, and my reply ended up being posted about 3 messages prior to the message I was replying to. But it's up there.

[Xaroc]

I would appreciate it if this thread lay dormant until news breaks regarding the imminent release of the next book. Every time it is bumped I get a little twinge of excitement that quickly turns to dissaponment.

Thanks,
Tyler

bump!

Oops sorry I slipped. :twisted:

-- Xaroc

[John Reynolds]

Don't worry about this; it is revealed who is responsible near the end of book 3.

OK, I've read the books twice and can't finger someone as a definite.

[ElRavager]

You know who is really running a series into the ground? Terry Goodkind. That is a guy who doesn't know how to write. He spends more time than anyone on pure, pointless descriptions.

Oh geez, I picked up the first book in the Sword of Truth series, and boy this book is flat out painful to read. Arrrrggg. Assgoblinery of the highest order. :?

[Woolen Horde]

I posted this earlier, but because of the wacky Time Wackiness that went on with the message board server, it got posted amongst last week's posts. SO here we go again.

Don't worry about this; it is revealed who is responsible near the end of book 3.

OK, I've read the books twice and can't finger someone as a definite.

SPOILER BELOW....












Littlefinger tells Sansa that it was the Queen of Thorns who poisoned the chalice. The poison was hidden as one of the black stones in Sansa's silver hair net, which Ser Dontos gave her at the end of Book 2 saying it was magical and the key for her to escape the Lannisters.

Ser Dontos told her to wear the hair net to the wedding feast, and when they're making the greeting rounds, the Queen of Thorns remarks that the wind has messed her hair up, so she tugs at the hair and the hair net to straiten it out. That's when the QoT removes the poison.

After Sansa fled the Throne Room, she realizes that one of the black stones in her hair net had fallen out.

So it was the QoT, in conjunction with Littlefinger, who poisoned Joffrey. As for motivation, Littlefinger explains why near the end of Book 3. The QoT knew that Joffrey was a monster (which was confirmed when she invited Sansa to have dinner at the beginning of Book 3), and that having Joffrey, Margery, and her devoted and lethal brother Ser Loras in close proximity meant that Joffrey would beat Margery, and then Ser Loras would slay the king, and that would be bad news for House Tyrell. But Margery can still be Queen if she marries Tommen instead. And Tommen can become King if Joffrey dies....

Did you not see that chapter at all?

[mtkafka]

Yeh, just finsihed the third book. man oh man its good! spoilers













the wedding scene damn, pretty sad. reading that chapter i did get a sense something was wrong. well written indeed.

and the end with Tyrion and finding out about Tysha, sad but made sense. and the obvious irony of Tywin sleeping with Tyrion's whore. that bitch! and will Sansa and Arya ever find there mom?!?

the only thing I'm worried about is how the next three books will tie this all together. you got Daenrys and her unsullied army, the undead Others (still pretty absent so far), Bran and the three-eyed crow, Arya/Sansa/Catelyn all seperate STILL (isn't it about time Martin let Arya or Sansa some peace already and find there mother?) Finally that dick Mountain Clegane looks to be dead (probably not, turn into some frankensteain), The Hound should be dead, and does this guy ever stop his 'tough guy' attitude? I always get the sense Martin does NOT want to cave in to sentimentality with certain characters, ie The Hound, Jaime, Tyrion (though there are instances), especially the males. Hehe, I'm glad Joffrey is dead, too bad for Robb (i knew he was gonna die sometime) and as much as Lord Walder is an evil sonufabitch with the wedding, he is hilarious heheh.

So why was the fourth book delayed?

etc

[Angie Gallant]

Spoilers, of course.




Guh, I would seriously worry about Sansa finding her undead mother right now. I don't think Arya's going to see her any time soon, since she's off to become a crazy face-changing assassin, making her the best damn character in the series.

I had guessed from the Queen of Thorns' rather relaxed reaction to Sansa's confession that she'd been planning to off Joffrey as soon as possible, and her fixing Sansa's hair only cemented it for me. I didn't expect Petyr to be involved with that plot though, and I really wish he hadn't been. I don't like him being the Uber Plotter. It will be very sweet when/if Sansa casually kills him.

[Woolen Horde]

So why was the fourth book delayed?

etc

Cause he's a bit of a perfectionist, and we admits he does revision after revision till he's happy with it. He's thrown away chapters and redone them before, and he's got a cast of literally hundreds to write about.

Martin is showing signs of book creep, but we're confident that he's not going to go into Jordan/Goodkind land with umpteen volumes.

Anyway, he originally planned to have Book 4 leap ahead 5 years with the story. You can see that at the end of Book 3, on how he sets all the characters on a course that will take years to complete (Bran goes North of The Wall, Arya goes to Braavos to become a Faceless Assassin, John Snow is Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, Sansa will be tutored by Littlefinger in the Game of Thrones, etc.

But then he realized that there was a very important story he needed to tell still, which he won't describe. He couldn't jump ahead 5 years anymore, so he rewrote the plan. Book 4 starts the day after Book 3 ended, and we'lll get two new POV's (Books 2 and 3 each introduced two new POV's to replace those who have been killed).

SPOILERS

Cersei has been confirmed as one of hte new POV's. It's a Cersei preview chapter at the end of the paperback Storm of Swords.

What fans are hoping for is that we'll finally get to meet Howland Reed, the Lord of Greywater Watch and the only surviving person from the events at the Tower of Joy, when Eddard Stark and his six companions took on 3 members of the Kingsguard at the end of the Civil War. Only Stark and Reed survived, and inside they found Eddard's sister dying (most likely from childbirth). But Howland can shed light on John's true parentage (although I think the Rhaeger Targaryen + Lianna Stark = John Snow theory is a bit obvious for Martin.)

There is another huge event that has was alluded to in Book 3 that Reed might be able to shed more light on. That beinjg the events at the great tourney at Harrenhall, which Jojen Reed told Bran a little about in a story. Rhaeger won the tourney, then gave the Crown of Beauty to Lianna Stark instead of his wife. There's more that went on, and Reed probably knows about it.

[mtkafka]

Spoilers







So Catelyn is undead? yeah, it would be funny to see how Arya and Sansa would react to seeing there mom in a mutilated form... but I don't think she is undead... an Other?

I like the foreshadowing before the wedding chapter with the rain and floods... I felt there was something ominous to happen, but then I was thjinking 'eh, the wedding is happening nothing will happen' then BAM! woooo what a mess! I like how there seems to be some divine justice starting to work in this world.. albeit its a dim light. So will Daenrys be the savior of the 7 kingdoms? Jon? maybe even Tyrion? I was thinking there would be some undead invasion in book 3, but instead its a barbarian invasion foiled by Stannis. Sort of a letdown... but I sense Martin wants to place Stannis as ultimately EVIL with good intentions. That sorceress must be something else... giving birth to shadows and whatnut.

I just read online that the series is going to be seven instead of six. Originally the fourth book was going to be five years after the third, but now it will be the bridge between the first and last three. I take it ALOT of the people in Seven Kingdoms will die in book 4. Jon will be overwhlemed by the Others, Bran will be some Druid boy, Catelyn will kill almost all Lannister/Frey. Arya will meet up with Daenrys. Tyrion will end up ... who the hell knows. Sansa will meet up with her mom. Damn, come out already!

So who is your favorite character so far? i actually like Arya's parts alot, I feel most for her situation being 11 or 12, and still being able to survive, she has balls. Also, I don't think Syrio (her trainer) died. He escaped and will be in book 4..

any other fantasy series this consistent with its characters and plots (and a bit more realistic)?

etc

[Angie Gallant]

Spoilers can be assumed.


Well, I'm assuming that Catlyn was raised by that Rhyllor's priesty dude. Her eyes aren't described as ice blue, and she retains her pre-death injuries much like the lordly dude riding with the priest, as well as post-death ones. So I don't think she is an Other.

Arya is my favorite. I have a feeling that once Sansa learns to scheme she'll be right up there with Arya, but right now I find her fairly boring most of the time. I think the Queen of Thorns is completely awesome as well.

Of the male characters I like Jon and Tyrion, but that seems to be expected, though Jon's starting to lose me. I'm fascinated by Bran's and his little following. I like Davos's insane loyalty to Stannis, even in the face of Stannis's growing evil. And call me crazy, but I think Jamie is going to end up, if not married to, then at least in the sack with Brienne. And that will cement the break between Cersei and Jamie that's brewing.

[mtkafka]

Brienne with Jaime?!?! yeah, I suppose that could happen. I think Jaime is looking for the 'goodness' in life. He's obviously been jaded, and Brienne is probably one of the few characters truly 'good' in the classical knight sense, that Jaime is surprised at her 'truth'.

In fact there are few truly 'goodhearted' sensible characters on the surface in this series (which gives its edge), but sometimes I think Martin pushes too much misanthropy. Probably the truly good people seem to be the servants like Brienne, Davos, Jon, Sam or even Ser Jorah. Tyrion is a romantic deep down, but ultimately finds the world dead (kills his DAD!). The characters are never truly painted good or evil... but I do get the sense that Martin knows the limits. characters like The Mountain or Joffrey are clearly painted 'evil'. The slavers are evil. So I guess the book isn't too misanthropic. Seems there DOES seem to be some deus ex moral justice at work....

Also, I was bothered at Catelyn's NEVER acknowledging Jon as a son. Kind of annoying. Also I think you're right. She probably was 'raised' by the rhyllor priest dude by the vagabond group.

Question is ... is this Rhyllor real? Does Martin ackowledge a God or Gods in these books? I really do think these themes will be central in the end. I remember there was mention of a peaceful God of harmony (monotheistic) near the end that sounded completely at odds with most of the mythology of the westeros. Maybe that will be the 'Christlike' messiah coming? For some reason I think Martin is doing something like that. There seems to be a tragic moral tale at work in these books. it really does add a dimension beyond most fantasy. And these books really do havea lot of prayers unanswered most of the time! kinda sad!

etc

[mtkafka]

btw, here's a cool site with some art from the books. nice stuff.

http://amoka.net/eng/gal/

http://amoka.net/eng/gal/wall/lannisters1024.JPG

etc

[John Reynolds]

So it was the QoT, in conjunction with Littlefinger, who poisoned Joffrey. As for motivation, Littlefinger explains why near the end of Book 3. The QoT knew that Joffrey was a monster (which was confirmed when she invited Sansa to have dinner at the beginning of Book 3), and that having Joffrey, Margery, and her devoted and lethal brother Ser Loras in close proximity meant that Joffrey would beat Margery, and then Ser Loras would slay the king, and that would be bad news for House Tyrell. But Margery can still be Queen if she marries Tommen instead. And Tommen can become King if Joffrey dies....

Did you not see that chapter at all?

QoT was my main suspect, though I have to admit to missing all the references to the stone and hairnet. I'll have to reread the wedding feast section.

[Bub, Andrew]

Looks kinda like all those people have the same face. Are they related or something?

[Thierry Nguyen]

I'm assuming the picture is the Lannister family.

[mtkafka]

Looks kinda like all those people have the same face. Are they related or something?

Yeah thats the Lannisters. I always forget they are blond haired when reading the book. For some reason I always imagined Cersei as a burnette.

etc

[snowcrash22]

I apologize for bumping old threads but I just finished "A Storm of Swords" this morning, so I can finally reread the thread without fear of spoliers.

But I'd like to share with everyone that Andy Dick's character (King in Medival Times) in "The Cable Guy" is wearing a golden lion on a crimson doublet. Obviously a Lannister. I'm going to have to work that one into an internet conversation somehow.

EDIT: Ok thanks, I've read the entire thread and would like to add a book to the "better than your average fantasy" reading list everyone would like to get a hold of.

Check out "The Dragon and the Unicorn" by A. A. Attanasio. Very unique and refreshing take on the King Arthur legend. This first book deals entirely with how Arthur's parents meet so the story was new to me. Angels and demons were formed out of the Big Bang, Dragonsong is the earth's magnetic signature. While there are some cliches such as the funky spelling of well known names (Arthor, the search for a sacred Graal, etc) and some may be put off by the libral heaping helpings of Norse, Celtic, quantam-physics-babble and Christian mythologies, I found it very entertaining. Very poetic writing style in the first book, second and third books come more down to earth and a bit harder to heap praise upon...but you know....

Any one else read this book?


On The Song of Fire and Ice:
What happened to Theon?

**Internet Psycic**
Daenerys and Stannis will join forces and the hilarity ensues.

Really enjoying this series!

[Woolen Horde]

On The Song of Fire and Ice:
What happened to Theon?

**Internet Psycic**
Daenerys and Stannis will join forces and the hilarity ensues.

Really enjoying this series!

Theon is up in the air. He was either killed when Reek Bolton sacked Winterfell, or he was captured. The general feeling at first was that he was killed, but that's slowly changed. There is a line that a Black Brother mentions to Jon that it is said that Bolton's Bastard is flaying Theon Greyjoy inch by inch for what he did to Winterfell. So it's quite possible he will reappear, although only after being heavily tortured.

Seeing that the entire Greyjoy clain will play a major role in Book 4, it's quite probably we'll see Theon come back. As he's technically the heir to House Greyjoy, his existence will throw a wrench into the plans of all the other Greyjoys trying to seize power.

Stannis is also a really big question mark. It's obvious he's being setup by Melisandre, but there are some who really believe Stannis will come through the series intact and alive. Though I tend to believe Donal Noyes opinion of Stannis. Donal was the blacksmith to House Baratheon, so he knew all the Baratheon children. Robert was the true steel who went to rust in peacetime, but Stannis was made of brittle iron.

But it's quite possible your theory will come about. For one, Dany has a dream about her dragon's attacking an army of Others and melting them away with their fire breath.

[balut]

Dany and Jon are gonna end up joining forces and taking over everything in the end.

[Woolen Horde]

Damnit, now take this
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/agotbg.html
and convert it into a PC game, and we'll all be happy.

As it is now, I plan on buying it. And if there are any Qt3/SoIaF fans in Seattle who want to play, we could get a group going or something.

[Tyjenks]

Damnit, now take this
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/agotbg.html
and convert it into a PC game, and we'll all be happy.

As it is now, I plan on buying it. And if there are any Qt3/SoIaF fans in Seattle who want to play, we could get a group going or something.

I have been watching that space and checking Funagain now and then for that "August" release. FFG's site did not have it for sale as of the last time I checked. I have a sister-in-law in Seattle. Next time we visit, I will give you a ring unless you are 'washing your hair' that night.

[John Reynolds]

Is it my imagination or is the board game using cards from the CCG? And speaking of the GoT CCG, I give up on keeping up with all the expansions and new sets FFG is releasing. AFoD hits and next thing you know they've have a new 240-card set. No thanks.

[Woolen Horde]

Woohoo.... I was hanging out at the University Bookstore and I saw a copy of the GRRM Rretrospective on the shelf. Which is surprising, because it was published by a speciality press and the print run was really small, and Barnes and Noble and Amazon don't have it at all in their computer systems. (I even called up my B&N on my cell phone and rattled off the ISBN number to the manager and she couldn't find it in their computers).

It's $40, but thanks to some connections, got it for $24. It's pretty damn cool. 1,250 pages of Martin's works, including 32 stories ranging from his early days writing for Analog to his short stories and novellas. As well as 2 of his Twilight Zone scripts when he worked in Hollywood. Illustrated, with introduction by Martin as well as his thoughts interspersed throughout the book.

By just flipping through it, you can just see some of Ice and Fire starting to form through. The Dragon and the Cross is a sci-fi story about Christian Church Knights/interstellar crusaders, but they have ranks like Lord Commander. And in another story, it's the return of Dragons that bring back winter.

Tres cool reading. If you're a Martin fan and if you can find it, it's a definate must buy. Get it fast, though. When I saw it early this week, they had at least 7, but I'm told by my contact who works at the bookstore that it's been going really, really fast.

[Tyjenks]

(I even called up my B&N on my cell phone and rattled off the ISBN number to the manager and she couldn't find it in their computers).

Does this mean bookstore employees are as inept as EB employees when it comes to finding products on the computer? :wink:

Thanks for the heads up. I'll go check my local chains today.

[Woolen Horde]

Dude, believe me. I know this. I checked it myself. This book is not being sold by B&N or Amazon or any major retailer. It's a Speciality Press book. It's not even on the radar of the major retailers.

And they aren't inept. B&N employees that is.

[Tyjenks]

OK, I guess I misunderstood (or more likely did not read closely enough) about it totally not being in major chains.

I really do not think the majority of bookstore employees are inept either. However, every time someone talks about asking an employee of any store to look something up in the computer, I immediately imagine the EB guy saying, "What was that name again? Kohan? We have a Konung over there, but I have never heard of Kohan." And many similair instances I have had.

I guess I could try our University bookstore dowtown, but last time I went their selection was woefully inadequate.

Was it just recently published?

[Mark Asher]

A lot of the EB guys only know console.

[Woolen Horde]

http://www.subterraneanpress.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=martin&Category_Code=B&Product_Count=58

[John Reynolds]

Just give me A Feast for Crows!

[Mark Asher]

With shipping that books is $50. I have interest in reading his teleplays or even his introductions, I don't know how much value there would be for me in this book.

[Dirt]

Great book. Only on page 200 of the first one. Reminds me a lot of Luo Guan Zhong's Romance of the 3 Kingdoms.

[balut]

Great book. Only on page 200 of the first one. Reminds me a lot of Luo Guan Zhong's Romance of the 3 Kingdoms.

So would the Starks be Shu-Han, Lannisters Wei, and hmm, who would be Wu? Stannis as Sun Jian? Tywin as Cao Cao? I nominate Daenaerys as a female Zhuge Liang.

[Woolen Horde]

George Martin Has Updated His Web Site!

And while he's still not done, he has given us a progress report on how many pages he has, roughly left, to finish.

AND...

He's given us part of a Dany chapter to shut us up
http://www.georgerrmartin.com/chapter.html

[Anders Hallin]

George Martin Has Updated His Web Site!

And while he's still not done, he has given us a progress report on how many pages he has, roughly left, to finish.

AND...

He's given us part of a Dany chapter to shut us up
http://www.georgerrmartin.com/chapter.html
That sort of thing is just a sham. I swear to any god you'd care to name, Katharine Kerr (who is writing the sort-of final book of her Deverry series) will put up enough excerpts to cover half the book before it gets released. (She has released three rather long excerpts to keep her fans at bay)

[Contrai]

George Martin Has Updated His Web Site!

And while he's still not done, he has given us a progress report on how many pages he has, roughly left, to finish.

AND...

He's given us part of a Dany chapter to shut us up
http://www.georgerrmartin.com/chapter.html

I never really liked any of Dany's chapters so I'm rather meh about it. Give me a Tyrion or Jon one and I'd shutup for awhile. :D

[Woolen Horde]

Heh, i read the Dany chapter and it seemed earily like what we're going through right now in Iraq. She won her war, but now she's got a nasty little insurgency she can't crush.

[Tyjenks]

So now it is going to be some TBA date after April 2004...poop!

I found a fansite that had an excerpt from one of the songs that is sung as a prelude to the beginning of the book:

Fire and Ice
You come on like a flame
Then you turn a cold shoulder
Fire and Ice
I wanna give you my love
But you'll just take a little piece of my heart

[EviLore]

My demand for A Feast For Crows remains frothing.



Ah well, at least it sounds like the book is going to be the longest in the series thus far.

[Qenan]

I'm still really looking forward to this book.

I hope Martin stays in good health and is able to complete the series, too -- he is not a young guy anymore. :roll:

[snowcrash22]

The Washington Post had the GRRM Retrospective in this week's book section.

At the other end of the literary spectrum -- in terms of sheer size and scope -- is George R. R. Martin, whose recent work (the multi-volume fantasy saga A Song of Ice and Fire) is characterized by its amplitude and by its unflagging narrative energy. In keeping with the scale of that ongoing epic, Martin's latest book, GRRM: A Retrospective (Subterranean, $40), is a massive overview of a varied, distinguished career. It may well be the most ambitious volume ever to come from an American specialty press.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6062-2003Oct23.html

But, I will probably just wait patiently for a Feast of Crows. I have only three books by the man....no need to dive into a retrospective just yet.

[Woolen Horde]

Just in time to miss Xmas is Legends II, the new version of the anthology that Silverberg edited about 7 years ago.

Anyways, I'm in the middle of George RR Martin's newest short story, The Sworn Sword, which picks up the tale of Dunk and Egg. And it's good. Really good. You can start to see where the overall Dunk and Egg story arc is going, and you get a ton of background into the Blackfyre Rebellion, which was when one of the Targaryen kings legitimized all his bastard children, setting off a nasty little civil war between the legitimate heirs and the bastard heirs.

But it also just whets your appetite for BOOK 4. It's incredible just how realized Martin's world is, and you just want more. Hurry up already GRRM!

[Woolen Horde]

And I just discovered that for an Xmas gift, GRRM has released a new sample of Feast for Crows on his website. And it's an Arya chapter!

[Tyjenks]

And I just discovered that for an Xmas gift, GRRM has released a new sample of Feast for Crows on his website. And it's an Arya chapter!

I have held off on reading either chapter. I want it all to me lemony fresh when it comes out in April.....June.......August......2005.

I read all three within the last year or so as I had just discovered Martin (from these boards I think). I am seriously thinking of reading all 3 again. Every time I go to read some other author, I stare over at those three books and long to dive back in.

[Toddy]

I did that for months, too, but finally took the plunge last week. Almost up to the midway point of Clash of Kings now, just before the siege of King's Landing. Started now in the hope that the fourth book would come out in the spring. Doesn't seem likely, judging by Martin's website. Dammit.

[Qenan]

It's frustrating, but like Tyjenks I am avoiding the spoilers... don't want to ruin the pleasure. I just hope that Martin stays in good health and is able to finish the series.

[Woolen Horde]

Almost there, but I'm getting the sinking feeling he won't make April, considering the time needed to edit and proof. Not to mention, printing press time.

YES, I'M STILL WORKING ON IT. HONEST.

Well, 2003 has come to an end... but sad to say, A FEAST FOR CROWS hasn't.

I'm getting closer, though, page by bloody page. Yesterday I finished another chapter, the forty-first (though I do move these chapters around as I write, so it probably won't be the forty-first when FEAST is finally published). It's a Davos chapter, his second in the volume.

I now have 911 manuscript pages in something very close to final draft form. I also have about eight additional chapters in fragmentary form, a couple of them fairly close to completion. But there's more that will be needed after that. I don't believe in saying, "Okay, I've got X number of pages, that's enough, I'll end the book." Each volume is a part of the overall story, but also needs its own beginning, middle, climax, and end to make for a satisfying read. As I have said here before, I am writing as fast as I can, but my first priority is to make the novel as good as it be.

The moment the book is done I will announce it here. The instant. The second. So if you visit this website, and this notice is still in place, it means I'm still writing. Various websites and bookshops have announced various publication dates, but until the book is actually finished and delivered, they are all pure guesswork.

No one really knows when A FEAST FOR CROWS will be finished, or when it will be published. Especially not me. When I do, know, I'll tell you here. For now, though, the only answer must remain, "As soon as possible."

Once again, I'd like to thank all my readers for their patience and support.


--George R.R. Martin, January 4, 2004

[graller]

Sigh

[EviLore]

*twiddles thumbs*

[Toddy]

SPOILERS AHOY!

Cool giveaway there, though, when Martin mentions the Davos chapter. Unless I missed something, I think the third book left off with something of a cliffhanger. Davos reads the letter from the Wall, asking for help with the wildling invasion, while Stannis draws his sword to execute him for freeing Edric Storm. Then he vanishes for the rest of the book, and there is mention of Melisandre burning a man to gain good results in the northern expedition. Hint hint. Of course, nobody ever dies off camera in these books and stays dead, do they? Even Catelyn's been brought back from the dead by Thoros.

[Woolen Horde]

I always figured that they burned someone other than Davos. Like the guy who was Stannis' Hand before Davos. Though I think they had already executed him. Anyway, Davos made Stannis see reason; secure his claim to the throne not by executing an innocent child, but by defending the realm like all good kings should.

[Toddy]

Yeah, but seeing as Stannis punishes bad behavior at the same time as he rewards good (the whole finger-chopping thing, even though Davos saved Stannis' life by bringing provisions during the siege), I thought it was possible that Stannis took his good counsel and then executed him for freeing Storm.

[Mike O'Malley]

Yeah, but seeing as Stannis punishes bad behavior at the same time as he rewards good (the whole finger-chopping thing, even though Davos saved Stannis' life by bringing provisions during the siege), I thought it was possible that Stannis took his good counsel and then executed him for freeing Storm.
Taking this a step further, maybe Stannis did this and then Melisandre
bought Davos back as a revenant/whatever, much like Dondarrion
and Catelyn. Now we'll get a back-from-the-dead Pet Sematary POV. :)

[Woolen Horde]

No, Book 4 ain't done yet (but he should be getting awfully close.)

Late last year, they started issuing the complete unabridged audio versions of the books. They were going to do it years earlier, but after Martin discovered they were going to be abridged, he called it off because they were gutting too much. The books have become hugely popular since then, and they finally bit the bullet and had them recorded unabridged.

You can order the casette versions on Amazon for around $60-$70 each. And the CD versions are available for around $80 each.

OR....

You can go to audible.com. They have a new membership deal where if you sign up for the premium membership ($20/month), you get the first month 50-percent off. And you get *two* free audio books.

So for the low price of $10 today, I got both Game of Thrones and Clash of Kings on audio. Storm of Swords isn't available on audible yet, though it is on bookshelves in audio form. Hopefully, it'll be on audible by next month, when I can download another two books. (In the meantime, I also get the daily subscriptions, like audio newspapers.)

The best part is that you can download them to your computer and they're yours forever. (As long as you don't delete the files.) You can also burn audio CD's of them. Plus, I can port hour-long segments to my PocketPC to listen on the bus.

Each book weighs in at more than 30 hours, which is hefty. The reader is Roy Doltrice, a Shakespearean-trained English actor who is a friend of Martin. He starred in the Beauty and the Beast TV series that Martin was a producer on. It takes a little bit to get used to his accent, but it's really cool to hear. I now know the correct pronounciations of all the names. (For example, apparently it's San-cha, not San-sa.)

I'm also currently making CD backups of the books, in case anything happens to my hard drive. I'm making audio CD's, so it's probably going to take about 28 CD's a book. I think I can also burn the raw data files to a CD as backup (a book is made up of four files weighing in at about 120 MB each, so they'd all fit in data form on a single CD), though I'm not sure. I believe they're in mp3 format, but audible does a weird modification to it.

I know this is pretty hard core, but I'm a pretty hard core fan. (Got the Game of Thrones board game sitting here on my desk.) I'm such a hard core fan that I'm probably responsible for creating a substantial number of fans in the Seattle area. For instance, I got a friend at Microsoft to read them. She just finsihed, and she was so excited that she told me she's re-reading them immediately. At least, as soon as she can get book 1 back. She's got a backlog of friends and coworkers who she promised to lend the book to.

[Woolen Horde]

The Hedge Knight graphic novel is now on shelves; picked up it at my local Borders. Basically compiles the five or six comic books into one bound volume. Nice little package though.

But the most intriguing thing about it is the full-page ad at the back for Feast for Crows:

"George R.R. Martin's beloved saga finally continues in November!"

Crossing fingers.

[John Reynolds]

The Hedge Knight graphic novel is now on shelves; picked up it at my local Borders. Basically compiles the five or six comic books into one bound volume. Nice little package though.

But the most intriguing thing about it is the full-page ad at the back for Feast for Crows:

"George R.R. Martin's beloved saga finally continues in November!"

Crossing fingers.

I just picked it up from Amazon too. Nice artwork throughout.

[Kalle]

After all the praise you guys have heaped on Martine I decided to take the plunge and read something by a new fantasy author, something I haven't done since Jordan drove me away from the entire genre. And, of course, when I got to the bookstore where I knew I could get A Game of Thrones in English as a paperback they were sold out. So I bought the new Terry Pratchett instead, wondered how long the man could continue to milk the Discworld for interesting stories, found out he's long past his prime, but still got my moneys worth and enough entertainment to get his next book. But I still want my Martin fix, dammit, and I've gotta wait a whole week. :(

[Sharpe]

Kalle, if you want some paperback fantasy, I recommend Greg Keyes The Briar King - hes doing a sort of Martin-esque fantasy, and its a fairly good read. Out in paper now.

If you don't mind paying for hardback, there's also Scott Bakker's The Darkness that Comes Before. Here's my review:

http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11936

Dan

[Toddy]

Ugh. I don't think November 2004 is very likely. The date on Amazon is now August 2005. Dammit. I know Amazon doesn't have a clue, but seeing as Martin hasn't finished the book yet, next summer is beginning to seem like the earliest we'll see it on shelves.

[Andrew Mayer]

I sometimes wish everyone would just stop posting in this topic until the announcement of the next book in the series.

Every time a new posting here I hope, just a little, that the new book will finally be finished. And then nothing...

I'm rereading the 2nd book now, and I'm starting to think I'm just torturing myself.

[Vic Davis]

I have to blame this thread for introducing just one more distraction to my life. I was taking a two week trip to Yellowstone to do principal photography for our next travelguide and I thought what the hell, I'll try this "A Game of Thrones" that was mentioned here. So I'm out in friggin of nowhere when I finish the damn book and the thought of not being able to read the next one right away was killing me. To make a long story short I drove 90 miles to Bozeman Montana and found a Barnes and Nobles. Problem solved.

Has anybody played the collectible card game by Fantasy Flight? It would be fun to see all the characters and use them in a game. The thought of yet one more thing to collect is scary though. Anybody know of any computer games being made with this franchise? This is going to definately be considered the J. R. R. Tolkein of our age. Finally what is the story with the R. R.? Is that by design or coincidence?

[John Reynolds]

Has anybody played the collectible card game by Fantasy Flight? It would be fun to see all the characters and use them in a game. The thought of yet one more thing to collect is scary though.

Heh, just sold mine on eBay last week. I had an almost complete Westeros set of cards (missing 3) that went for $250. I also had a complete Flight of Dragons expansion set that didn't sell at all (so I took an e-mail offer of $75 + shipping).

[Andrew Mayer]

I picked up the Hedge Night graphic novel at the Comicon. Very nice piece of work. I was also pleased to see that the dragons were exactly what I had pictured in my head...

It's really incredible how he well he knows his world...

I have to blame this thread for introducing just one more distraction to my life. I was taking a two week trip to Yellowstone to do principal photography for our next travelguide and I thought what the hell, I'll try this "A Game of Thrones" that was mentioned here. So I'm out in friggin of nowhere when I finish the damn book and the thought of not being able to read the next one right away was killing me. To make a long story short I drove 90 miles to Bozeman Montana and found a Barnes and Nobles. Problem solved.

Wait until you finish the 3rd one, because you can't possibly drive far enough to get your hands on the next one yet...

[Toddy]

Anyone played the board game? See the reviews at boardgamegeek.com are pretty good.

[Sharpe]

Anyone played the board game? See the reviews at boardgamegeek.com are pretty good.

I was just playing it tonight :). Sadly I did not win though. We've played it a few times recently with our board game group. Its a very very good boardgame, if you have 5 people and a good 5 hours to play. It has interesting mechanics which allow for a variety of strategies, and a lot of interesting choices, without bogging down in ridiculous minutia.

Its a no-dice system but with cards that introduce an element of unprectable. Also, cards control the basic phases of the game (like if you collect money or muster troops that turn) so there's an element of randomness in basic turn sequence, which introduces some pretty interesting elements.

Overall, a well designed game. My favorite of the current crop we've been playing (Age of Mythology boardgame, an oldie called Cold War, and some others).

Dan

[beecubed]

what a great series. i wish i had realized it wasn't complete before i started reading, though. nothing is worse than getting partway through a great series, then having to wait several years between each new installment.

of course, based on what i've read so far, i have a feeling that the final paragraph of the final book is going to say, "and the others broke through the wall and ate everyone that was left. the end."

[nixon66]

That sounds like more of a Neal Stephenson ending that a GRRM type ending.

[Woolen Horde]

what a great series. i wish i had realized it wasn't complete before i started reading, though. nothing is worse than getting partway through a great series, then having to wait several years between each new installment.


Dude, just consider yourself lucky you're picking up the series now. I finished Book #3 way back in the year 2000 and have been biting my nails since. The last update on his web site says that he's almost done with Book 4 (relatively). His last update regarding Book 4 is a month old, and he had 1,300 pages in final draft form, about another 100 pages in fragmentary form, and some extra chapters to write. He's really cracked down since the election. Says the writing helps him take his mind off of the reign of W.

Oh, and Martin says that he knows how it will all end, and that it will be "bittersweet." Of course, part of the fun is speculating as to who will make it.

[balut]

Yeah, just in the past few months' worth of anticipation for the eventual release of Book 4, I've reread the first 3 books twice over. I'm almost tempted to go for a third readthrough in as many months.

[John Reynolds]

Dude, just consider yourself lucky you're picking up the series now. I finished Book #3 way back in the year 2000 and have been biting my nails since.

I'm in the same boat. Actually, I waited years for the 2nd and 3rd books, starting back in '98.

Oh, and Martin says that he knows how it will all end, and that it will be "bittersweet." Of course, part of the fun is speculating as to who will make it.

I'm pulling for Tyrian. There are few books/movies that can elicit actual emotional responses from me, but if Martin kills the little guy I'm going to be quite upset. My heart's always gone out to the little bugger.

[Kalle]

SPOILER




While Tyrion does indeed have my sympathy, he hasn't had a break in his entire life afterall, I doubt Martin will let him have a happy ending precisely because of that.

Personally I'm very curious to see what happens to Arya, now that the Jaqen H'qar plotline finally moves on.

edited for spoilers

[Woolen Horde]

While Tyrion does indeed have my sympathy, he hasn't had a break in his entire life afterall, I doubt Martin will let him have a happy ending precisely because of that.

Personally I'm very curious to see what happens to Arya, now that the Jaqen H'qar plotline finally moves on.

Feeling like putting a SPOILER in place, because there are always new people checking out these threads and there are some awesome things to get spoiled in these books....

SPOILERS





Things going for Tyrion:

1. He's Martin's favorite character to write. (The delicious dialogue alone is amazing.)

2. He's easily one of the most popular characters.

Thing going against The Imp:

1. This is Martin we're talking about.

2. Perhaps the most ominous: Tyrion is a kinslayer now, and we know how the gods don't like kinslayers and guestslayers.

[Euri]

I hate you all. I clicked on this thread expecting that soembody would be joyously posting that the new one has a release date =(

[Kalle]

Hey Woolen, if you think my post is spoiling stuff you might want to put the spoiler alert above the quote. :wink:

[Andrew Mayer]

Spoilerish:






My guess is, that by the time we get to the end of the seires Tyrion will be the villain that we imagined Jamie would be in book 1.

[John Reynolds]

I hate you all. I clicked on this thread expecting that soembody would be joyously posting that the new one has a release date =(

Hehe, same here.

[Jamie Madigan]

Spoilerish:






My guess is, that by the time we get to the end of the seires Tyrion will be the villain that we imagined Jamie would be in book 1.
Bingo. I agree completely. Martin is definitely headed in this direction towards the end of the latest book. Jamie starts to redeem himself and take inspiration from Bareen (or whatever her name is). Tyrion decides he's tired of the short (ha ha) end of the stick and that all the noble "sticking up for the little guy" was getting him nothing but pain.

[Vic Davis]

I too was hoping a "Gone to the Printer" announcement when I saw this thread. Ah well. Anyway, I don't see the sea change in Tyrion's character or anything indicating he's headed for villainy.

Spoiler: Conjectures which might ruin stuff and other stuff too.

I have always had the suspicion that Tyrion will end up as one of the two consorts to Daenerys, with the other consort being Jon...the three would be the three heads of the dragon.

[balut]

I too was hoping a "Gone to the Printer" announcement when I saw this thread. Ah well. Anyway, I don't see the sea change in Tyrion's character or anything indicating he's headed for villainy.

Spoiler: Conjectures which might ruin stuff and other stuff too.

I have always had the suspicion that Tyrion will end up as one of the two consorts to Daenerys, with the other consort being Jon...the three would be the three heads of the dragon.

Ooooh. Good one. I already assumed that Jon would somehow join forces with Daenerys, likely to fight against the Others, but I forgot about the whole 3-heads of the dragon thing. Then again, Dany will likely suffer some future horrible tragedy by another betrayal (she only had 2 of her 3 so far, right?), and who knows if Martin will keep Jon alive long enough for this to happen.

For some reason, I can picture Bran facing off against Tyrion, in some weird, cruel parody of a duel - cripple against dwarf.

[balut]

Oh, and I'm still waiting for Sansa to learn TOO well from Littlefinger, and serve as his betrayer and destroyer.