A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones Spoiler-Filled Discussion

[Kegg]

Is there any long running fantasy series that maintains the pace of its first two or three books?

I can't really think of one off-hand.

I'd want to say Discworld, but since each book is a self-contained story (albeit with often quite strong continuity to earlier books) it doesn't seem fair to compare it to something like ASOIAF, which clearly has an overarching narrative.

This said:

How can any series with over a dozen POV characters and hundreds of other characters be expected to move as lightly and freely as it did at the beginning?

Oh, that's simple.

By having several plots moving simultaneously.

This is sort of the point of having many POV characters, isn't it? The problem with ADWD is less having so many POV characters and often not simply knowing when to give them a chapter or not. Bran has two or three chapters that advance his story enormously, Tyrion has a dozen and almost all of them are just there to kill time (with the exception of him meeting Aegon Targaryen, I can't help but feel you could cut every single one of his chapters and pick up his story in the next book and the reader would be up to speed with him by the end of his first chapter). Victarion spends his chapters en route to a destination he still doesn't reach - he could have used one chapter, at most. Generally when a POV character doesn't have anything worthwhile to add, best to keep them out of the reader's eye, and so on.

 

[Yoda]

For some reason a book series that disposes of its cast with each new entry sounds very appealing right now

 

[Kegg]

For some reason a book series that disposes of its cast with each new entry sounds very appealing right now

Oh I agree. I'm currently reading China Mieville's Bas-Lag 'series' (on the second book, The Scar), and it's nice to indulge in series with lots and lots of bizarre fantastical world building with the knowledge that the plot is actually going somewhere and the next book will be about unrelated characters and problems.

Eh. I hope Martin tightens his belt, narrative-wise, for the last two books. I don't mind them each being as long or longer than ADWD, but tons and tons of stuff had better happen.

 

[Klaus]

For some reason a book series that disposes of its cast with each new entry sounds very appealing right now

Eh. I hope Martin tightens his belt, narrative-wise, for the last two books. I don't mind them each being as long or longer than ADWD, but tons and tons of stuff had better happen.

Aren't there rumors of three more books instead? Even so, he's almost going to have to do this much more quickly given the number of threads he has to bring together to wrap it all up... it's going to take a long time to get us to the point where Dany's dragons can beat back the hordes from the north!

 

[superdeluxe]

Season 2 start day has been announced!

4/1/12!

http://winteriscoming.net/2012/01/game-of-thrones-season-two-to-debut-april-1st/

HBO has set April 1 as the date for the 10-episode second-season premiere of ”Game of Thrones.”
Fantasy drama was a huge ratings winner for the pay cabler in its debut last year, as well as a massive profit center for the net since HBO produces the series as well. In addition to be a domestic hit, ”Thrones” drew millions of viewers around the world.
​

 

[superdeluxe]

Alternate Cover at Best Buy, you also get a free stark key chain if you pre-order:

 

[JD]

I saw those. They are pretty sweet. I just wish BB wasn't so damn expensive.

 

[Kemaiku]

I've been asked twice about being an extra while wandering around Belfast, because of my "appearance", with season 2 coming back here and jobs prospects being poor at the moment, I might look into it.

 

[JD]

Very cool. Be sure to let us know if you do it.

 

[Kemaiku]

I will, but I've never watched the show or read the books, just got "spotted" while in the city last year.

 

[CaptainCanada]

I finished ADWD tonight, so I'm all caught up and waiting with everyone else.

I thought the stuff set in the North was all very good, and most of the rest of the Westeros stuff was also good. However, Meereen is a giant narrative drag; I just don't give a rat's ass about that place.

 

[Lonemagpie]

I see Peter Dinklage got the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe last night for playing Tyrion Lannister... yay!

 

[Hyperspace05]

I finished ADWD tonight, so I'm all caught up and waiting with everyone else.

I thought the stuff set in the North was all very good, and most of the rest of the Westeros stuff was also good. However, Meereen is a giant narrative drag; I just don't give a rat's ass about that place.

Mereen was a bit of a drag, yes, but otherwise my favorite part of ADWD was the plot that took place in Essos. At the moment I'm kind of "Westeros-ed" out... We've "visited" all the cool places there, it seems, whereas Essos is a grand unexplored continent.

The massive world building/history on display in Tyrion's journey is my favorite kind of fantasy writing. Really excellent stuff. And the Valyrian history is so interesting - I'm sure GRRM will reveal more in the last two books.

 

[Nerd unRage]

Alternate Cover at Best Buy, you also get a free stark key chain if you pre-order:

I hate Best Buty with a passion but those covers and the Stark keychain are almost, almost enough to make me want to cancel my pre-order with Amazon.

Are those for the DVD or the Blu-Ray editions?

 

[Colonel Midnight]

For some reason a book series that disposes of its cast with each new entry sounds very appealing right now

Eh. I hope Martin tightens his belt, narrative-wise, for the last two books. I don't mind them each being as long or longer than ADWD, but tons and tons of stuff had better happen.

Aren't there rumors of three more books instead? Even so, he's almost going to have to do this much more quickly given the number of threads he has to bring together to wrap it all up... it's going to take a long time to get us to the point where Dany's dragons can beat back the hordes from the north!

I personally haven't heard anything about 3 new books, just two (The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring), but I wouldn't be surprised like you said... Heck, winter has barely started by the end of ADWD. Given the strange length of seasons in Westeros (and the number of plot threads), there's enough meat there for 4 more books, easily. *oy*

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[sidious618]

I sincerely doubt Martin will go for three more books. It'll be two if only so he doesn't have to worry about the HBO series catching up to him.

On another note, in all the talk about A Dance of Dragons I think it's gone undiscussed that Martin's prose is exquisite.

 

[The Green Mushroom]

The massive world building/history on display in Tyrion's journey is my favorite kind of fantasy writing. Really excellent stuff. And the Valyrian history is so interesting - I'm sure GRRM will reveal more in the last two books.

I like world building as well, sometimes even more than the actual plot of the book. As a random example, I just picked up On Basilisk Station and definitely liked the sections explaining society better than most of the plot--although the patrol ship in space plotline did have its merits for me. I also am a fan of 'For Want of a Nail" which is written as a history book from a world where England put down the American Revolution. There is no plot there, it is all world building.

I also chewed through a Dance With Dragons in two or three days at most. It only took me that long when because real world forced me to put it down once or twice and because I knew that once I finished it I would have to wait a while before any more of the series came out.

That being said, Martin's world building is now coming at the expense of the plot. I got into this series when I heard it described as "The War of the Roses" with the serial numbers filed off. Then it got better. Then the plot stopped for some reason.

I don't really care about 400 pages of world building when those 400 pages stretch out what should have been five chapters. I was able to forgive AFFC because it was essentially the backstory of the second trilogy, at least in the original plan, for not having a plot. Now that Dragons doesn't have a plot I have grave doubts about this series.

Personally I am looking forward to TWOW and hope that it basically sets off a hard run of two or three books as tighly plotted as the first three to end the series. But I am afraid that world building will again get in the way.

 

[Anwar]

Well, didn't Martin say that ADWD is just supposed to be the second part of AFFC and he split them in two because he realized the single volume was just too long? ADWD is mainly supposed to just explain what happened to other POV characters that weren't featured in AFFC, so this book is just as much set-up as AFFC was.

 

[The Green Mushroom]

Well, didn't Martin say that ADWD is just supposed to be the second part of AFFC and he split them in two because he realized the single volume was just too long? ADWD is mainly supposed to just explain what happened to other POV characters that weren't featured in AFFC, so this book is just as much set-up as AFFC was.

True and I really do hope that is how it turns out.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Yeah, what happened was that Martin originally planned for there to be a five-year jump between book three and book four, but he found that impractical as he began writing it because it involved too many flashbacks. So he started writing what was essentially a bridging book, which ended up being split into two bridging books because there was so much material (though the span of years ended up not being nearly as long; there's a Littlefinger line in Feast about how he was planning to have four or five years before Cersei had finished unravelling the realm to lay his plans that seems like metacommentary).