The A DANCE WITH DRAGONS Spoiler Thread

[Brendan Moody]

People in the spoiler-filled A Song of Ice and Fire thread seemed to think it would be a good idea to have a separate spoiler thread for the new book, so those who haven't finished it yet won't have to skim through spoilers while discussing events in the first four books, casting for the second season of the TV series, etc. Well, the book is out now in some parts of the world, and nearly out in others, so here's the thread. I imagine it'll be silent for a while as everyone works their way through all 1,000 pages, though.

 

[Shurik]

So, what's the spoiler policy for this thread? Everything goes or shall we wait for a few days before posting spoilers openly (and spoiler-code them before that)?

 

[superdeluxe]

So, what's the spoiler policy for this thread? Everything goes or shall we wait for a few days before posting spoilers openly (and spoiler-code them before that)?

Quite curious about this as well

 

[timothy]

get paid tommarrow picking it up for my nook and then read all five books. one after the other.

 

[Shurik]

get paid tommarrow picking it up for my nook and then read all five books. one after the other.

If you haven't read the books or haven't seen the HBO show, I suggest you to get as far from this and the other spoiler-filled topics as possible. Trust me, you don't want to be spoiled about anything in those books. Those books are best experienced completely unspoiled.

 

[Brendan Moody]

So, what's the spoiler policy for this thread? Everything goes or shall we wait for a few days before posting spoilers openly (and spoiler-code them before that)?

I can see the argument for doing it either way, and would be happy with whatever other people want, but personally I'd lean toward everything goes. It's a difficult book to discuss at all without getting into some of the bigger spoilers, and I don't think a thread that's a mass of spoiler boxes does anybody much good.

 

[Shurik]

Personally, I don't mind spoilers. I think that knowing what happened without knowing the details of how and why isn't that big of a deal. I know the major spoilers of this book, but I'll refrain from discussing them until I know why and how all of this happened.

 

[sonn]

And my favourite character bites the dust.. for now at least.

 

[Shurik]

Janos Slynt is dead, died like coward and oathbreaker. I cheered.

 

[Anwar]

Isn't it kind of an ass-pull that Martin revealed that Rhaegar's son Aegon was alive all along and in hiding? There was no foreshadowing or ANYTHING that hinted at this until now.

 

[Brendan Moody]

There was one tiny hint of it, in A Clash of Kings, but not really enough to set up a revelation like that. Which is why I'm reasonably sure that he's not really Aegon, but a lookalike raised by Varys and Illyrio for their own ends. That bit from A Clash of Kings suggests he's a fake as well.

 

[Dream]

Is this book way better than the crappy A Feast for Crows? Absolutely hated that book.

 

[Brendan Moody]

If you absolutely hated A Feast for Crows, I don't know that you'll like this one much better. It has more narrative momentum, but the bulk of it is paced the same as Feast, and it ends when things are just on the verge of really picking up.

 

[Dream]

If you absolutely hated A Feast for Crows, I don't know that you'll like this one much better. It has more narrative momentum, but the bulk of it is paced the same as Feast, and it ends when things are just on the verge of really picking up.

Reading some of the very negative reviews on Amazon, looks like consensus is that nothing much happens and the book ends with a bunch of cliffhangers AGAIN like AFFC.

This review at Amazon caught my eye:

Martin's fallen into Jordan's trap

By Karl Fiebiger

Decent enough book, but I feel like Martin has walked into the same trap Jordan did with the Wheel of Time. To many new characters, not enough resolution. And once again some major cliffhangers. Cliffhangers are fine when they still complete arcs, not when they leave them unfinished as some have been.

 

[Brendan Moody]

I think some of the negative Amazon reviewers, infected by the cynicism that seems to be fashionable these days among epic fantasy readers, are too harsh-- a lot happens, but gradually, like in A Game of Thrones. The overall story certainly moves forward more than in any two "middle" volumes of The Wheel of Time. But I do agree the book has too many cliffhangers. Apparently the author wanted to write more material, two story sequences that would have resolved some of those cliffhangers, but his editor convinced him to publish the book as is. I think that was a mistake, that doing some slightly more aggressive cutting and producing something of this length with those two sequences included, would have produced a noticeably better book, even if it would have taken another year to complete.

 

[superdeluxe]

Isn't it kind of an ass-pull that Martin revealed that Rhaegar's son Aegon was alive all along and in hiding? There was no foreshadowing or ANYTHING that hinted at this until now.

I'm not convinced that Aegon is truly a Targeryan

 

[Shurik]

I got to around 1/4 of a book. So far things look very grim for Dany (her whole Meereenese thing turns out to be a complete and utter epic fail) and Jon (navigating between Stannis and the desire to keep his vows to the watch). Looks like Stannis is not as smart as I thought him to be. He and his knights don't understand the North or the wildlings (for example, his insistence on calling Val a princess and thinking that marrying her to some nothern lord will automatically give him the support of the wildlings, or his insane plan to attack Dreadfort) and looks like it will not end well for him ...

This is a definitely very grim book.

 

[Capt. Vulcan]

Sorry, can't read this thread till I'm actually done.

"The scale of the dragon that burned you" Ugh. I just detest lazy fantasy/sci-fi writing like this. GRRM seems to have done a good job of avoiding too much this kind of stuff so far so I give him a pass. Aside from that, and maybe a few too many call backs to previous books, I like this one more than book 4 so far.

Just got to the part with Jon and Janos Slynt. That was pretty fucking awesome.

 

[Biffette]

Finished the book on Wednesday (I spent all of both days reading it.)

Too many cop-outs. How many times are they going to bring "dead" people back to life? They've obviously set that up with Jon via the prologue. Although, I suppose we are seeing the other side of it with Bran who is very much alive to the reader although he is "dead" to the people in-universe. And this is, I think, the third "useless as nipples on a breastplate" colloquialism he's used in this series. And why all the gay-hate? Really, come on dude. The only plot movement I've seen is the Bran stuff and Dany finally getting out of Meereen. Does anyone have any idea which part was the "sword hacking away at the Mereenese knot" that Mr. Martin was referring to? I enjoy world-building, but it would have been helpful to the story for him to leave all this graft out and just publish it as an ancilliary later on. Feast and Dance could easily have been a single book, but on the other hand I am very glad that I didn't have to wait 11+ years between books! Overall I enjoyed the book and thought it was very well-written, although it could have used a bit of editorial tweaking here and there.

ETA: And I particularly enjoyed learning more about the Greyscale disease.

 

[Brendan Moody]

Does anyone have any idea which part was the "sword hacking away at the Mereenese knot" that Mr. Martin was referring to?

He had trouble working out (1) the order in which various characters (Aegon, Tyrion, Quentyn, Victarion) would or wouldn't reach Slaver's Bay, and when other events related to those arrivals would happen; and (2) how best to tell the story in Meereen after Daenerys disappeared (finally deciding to add Barristan Selmy as a POV after trying to get by with only Quentyn and Tyrion).