Anticipating GRRM's A Dance With Dragons [HERE BE SPOILERS]

About time for this, right? I'm bummed that this comes out one day after I have to fly to China. Guess I'll have to read something else on the way out.

:D

Got my Amazon ship notice - should have it tomorrow.

I was much more excited before I reread the series (finished yesterday!) and was reminded of the hugely boring letdown of A Feast For Crows. The drop in quality between books 3 & 4 is HUGE.

I'm hoping it's the anti-Trek and that every odd-numbered book is good.

reviewer on Salon said it was awesome

Did he/she like the last one? That got okay reviews from what I remember but in retrospect is a neverending slog.

yeah i got a review copy today and raced through like half of it - think its greatly helped by focusing on more interesting characters than a feast for crows was but its also feels more focused and purposeful

You guys are making me happy...

one of the big contrasts is that 250+ pages in and theres only been one new character pov

biggest annoyance is recycling two chapters from the last book (or book three?)

actually thinking about it maybe those were teaser chapters haha

i'm rereading feast for crows right now and ... eesh, some of the iron islands stuff is boring. actually, the whole book is boring and sloglike and (unfortu) i can't skip it b/c i don't remember it well enough from 6 years ago or whatever

I had remembered all the big beats but not their context. Sadly, the context wasn't worth the reread.

one of the big contrasts is that 250+ pages in and theres only been one new character pov

glad of this, i think

i was about to start this thread since mine has shipped apparently, oh well

Right, i'm off to buy this

It's late. I'm in Taiwan, after four scotches. It's time for some DofD.

I bought this at 1:00 AM last night on my Nook and started reading it; maybe I should have slept instead

the library doesnt have it!!! nooo now i have to buy it :(

DUDE AT WORK JUST WALKED IN WITH A COPY AND I SHANKED HIS ASS AND STOLE IT!!!

That's the spirit!

did you slide a dirk under his breastplate, and feel his warm life dripping onto your hands?

Did he/she like the last one? That got okay reviews from what I remember but in retrospect is a neverending slog.

― EZ Snappin, Tuesday, July 12, 2011 1:45 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark

they were very disappointed in the last one.

i'm rereading feast for crows right now and ... eesh, some of the iron islands stuff is boring. actually, the whole book is boring and sloglike and (unfortu) i can't skip it b/c i don't remember it well enough from 6 years ago or whatever

― remy bean, Tuesday, 12 July 2011 01:56 (13 hours ago)

all that's good so far: Jaime, Pod, Lady Merryweather

this book is so long!!!

My wife woke up at 5 to make sure it had downloaded onto her Kindle. We're under strict instructions not to bug her for the next couple of days about anything less than nuclear war.

bought this at 1:00 AM last night on my Nook and started reading it; maybe I should have slept instead

LOL, why I am not surprised?

I have just started into the books so am not caught up enough to start reading the new one yet -- from the looks of this thread, Feast for Crows is going to be a bear to get through.

It's not as bad as everyone sez. It's just very disappointing in the context of the previous book and because it took so long for the next one to come out.

^^^ OTM

it isn't... really... but its got a very very slow start. once it gets to about 50% it improves; there's a plot amongst the meandering.

I don't remember the beginning so much. The Dorne parts definitely take a while to get going, but they have a good payoff. Agree the Iron Islands stuff is mostly dull. As is Sam. But the rest is good esp. if you like Cersei and Arya and Brianne as characters.

Cersei sections are just the same damn thing over and over and over ("I'm Tywin's real son!" "I'm Tywin's real son!" Might as well be a crow saying, "Corn!"). One dimensional character repeats behavior with a wide variety of uninteresting people. Dorne didn't bug me - at least it's a new cultural pastiche - Iron Islands hella dull, as is Sam in this book. Jaime sections work well though.

Main thing is it is just too long for the amount of plot & character development.

the brienne bits are just kinda meandering though, you don't really learn much that's new about her and nothing noteworthy happens to her until the end of the book. getting the first-hand view of cersei's downward spiral of paranoia is somewhat interesting. plus the continuation of jaime's quest for redemption i guess but he's already become likeable by the end of book 3.

also i had completely forgot about davos getting beheaded mentioned as just an aside, wtf was that. he's like the one true 'good guy' in the series, you'd think that would happen on-screen if it really happened.

anyway i assume this thread is spoiler-bound so i should probably vacate until i've finished the new book

i went to barnes & noble at lunch! this jawn is MINE :) : ) :)

(though i'm such a good husband i'm gonna let the missus read it first)

UPS finally got here. See everyone in a few days.

ok picked it up on my way home from work, am now in internet exile until it's done (or at least message board/facebook/twitter exile)

considering ole george set this up as a companion piece to 'feast for crows' has anyone else been struck by the similarities btw the main pov chapters? like:

daenrys = cersei
jon = brienne
reek = alyse
tyrion = jaime
bran = arya

also i had completely forgot about davos getting beheaded mentioned as just an aside, wtf was that. he's like the one true 'good guy' in the series, you'd think that would happen on-screen if it really happened.

he's pov in the new one, it's part of the whole 'and now we see what the other half did'

it's a bit like shining force three scenario two

lol

p43: first mention of olives

haha thom within the first like 20 pages there is some ridic description of a meal--tyrion at illyrio's place i think?--but NO OLIVES

are we allowed to do spoilers yet? im ~400 pages in, enjoying it more than feast of crows tho a couple things are really bugging me

Page 515... I'm having trouble keeping track of everyone.

Page 40 help

There are ridiculous amount of food descriptions in this book, even more so than normal

I've finished it and i was a little disappointed tbh

max i rather enjoyed that feast, it was sort of cod-medieval fusion cuisine but that sort of makes sense with what he's set the free cities/pentos/illyrio up as; in general it does seem like (though this does sort of mean expanding what i'm saying about the book into spheres wider than the culinary, which i am loathe to do) he's put a little more effort into working out how these places work, rather than having westeros fully-realised and the others just sort of .. there

People eat a lot of "neeps" in this book

and tatties?

Not that i recall

no spoilers yet, plz, i'm moving more slowly through this one than the last four

i enjoy this post and its accompanying diagrams

i thought snow might be another undead player? tho tbh i'm not sure that's any more interesting, a second time, than a 'and he's not really dead!!' reveal

As long as Dolorous Edd comes out ok, I couldn't give two whits about Jon.

BTW, GRRM put up a chapter for the new one, of course being a spoilerphobe I have stayed well away from it.

i actually liked penny.

going to engrave this on your tomb

There aren't many spoilers in the sample chapter, it's pretty good though

i actually liked AFFC more

me too, although i was also surprised by much of a companion piece this one was to affc and how often they seemed to mirror and i guess inform each other

going to engrave this on your tomb

― max, Monday, January 2, 2012 3:27 PM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol. i thought her dynamic w/tyrion was gold - the mix of guilt/repulsion/attraction w/which he regards her, the way he despises her for scraping and bowing through life, a fate that he was spared because of his noble birth, the ~hint of romance~ between them. there's a lot of potential there!

his chapters did drag a lot more once she came into the picture though

you didnt think it was too forced and obvious? like i agree with everything youve written but all that ended up seeming mechanical, like it lacked the charm and mystery of good fiction

yeah, no, that's totally fair. one reason it may have been effective for me is that tyrion had spent the previous 500 pages muttering to himself that all women are whores, so the change of focus was refreshing.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/these-last-two-are-gonna-be-real-turds-george-rr-m,26934/

I loved GRRM's crazy post on which nfl teams the seven kingdoms support:

http://grrm.livejournal.com/258190.html

lol that's awesome

One commonality unites all the Seven Kingdoms, and the lands beyond. Everyone everywhere hates the Patriots, and Evil Little Bill.

Oh great, now I have to stop reading these books because he's dissing the Pats.

I like to think he would've said the Cowboys, if only the did not choke (Tony Lolmo).

excerpt from winds of winter fyi

glad to see george is still ridin hard for the unreadable geocities aesthetic

haa i was saying the same thing to someone else

also his blog is on a livejournal

I think the section of society for whom livejournal is automatically embarrassing is actually quite small, is the thing (I mean obv it's the same section as 'people who had livejournals and now don't') (*checks to see if livejournal still exists*)

As a format it had a lot of advantages: still handles 'friends' and 'comments' better than do any of the srs blogging platforms, I think

just to make it clear when i *did this* i was making a joke about livejournal writing styles, you see

*nods in assent*

/derail

haha although now i kinda want to say s.thing abt how grim's garish late 90s online presence is a metaphor for his relaish w/contemp fantasy and his baggy ad hoc structures but i guess i should just ::pantomimes shooting self with invisible gun::

i think derailing is fair, there's not going to be anything relevant to talk about on this thread until i'm in my thirties

*hangs self*

thirties? I'm hoping before my fifties.

'/derail' was just me making another lol old skool internet joke :/

i would happily talk abt HTML-2 all day

personally i just want to talk about x-com

we could always use this to laugh at people making predictions in the tv show thread

mood: annoyed

can't think of a 'current music' gag

current music: olives

*applauds*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X66PDW1Mjf8

So wait, did I see Mountain vs. Viper at the end?

no, you didnt

quit pooping up our thread about poopy novels with your poopy tv show

you poop

Sorry, I should've pooped in the ASOS thread?

how many characters encountered the biggest breasts they'd ever seen in this book

usually just the one, over and over again

character i mean

just finished this... i def feel the same way everyone on this thread did. except for one thing. why the hell did everyone say the theon chapters were great? they sucked and i hated the whole "reek, reek, it rhymes with xxx". that's def one of the things i hated about this, the whole reek, reek thing, tyrion's where do whores go (which he luckily dropped alfway through cos that shit was weak (rhymes with reek)). was he trying to give everyone a catch phrase or something? also,those wordcount graphs upthread reminded me of something i realised during this one which is that sometimes grrm finds an expression he enjoys and then you see it appear every other page (as useless as nipples on a breastplate, worth half a groat etc).

^^^ otm, esp this:

why the hell did everyone say the theon chapters were great? they sucked and i hated the whole "reek, reek, it rhymes with xxx".

For whatever reason, I keep expecting the ASOIAF fandom to not be composed of tasteless mouthbreathers, and they always prove me wrong.

Nnnnggggg my dealer just canceled for tonight, so now I won't get any GoT until next week!

Leee ._.

I guess there's nothing wrong with being a tasteless mouthbreather?

(To be a little more specific, the Theon chapters read like rotely conventional redemption narratives to me, maybe with more sexual degradation.)

I was surprised how much I liked this, having heard bad things about it, though the six-year wait must have been a factor.

I bitched about all the Iron content last time but I was actually left vaguely satisfied by the end and find myself looking forward to where that goes.

Jon Snooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh wait he's probably not dead because reasons.

Finally, some movement on the Meereen story & the dragons.

I wasn't mad on the Theon chapters either, but I did have some sympathy for his character.

VARYS! My God, what an epilogue!

And "much and more" needs including on the wordgraphs.

A lot of people complained about the butchering of Tyrion's character, but I felt like the criticism was partly to do with him being much more sympathetic in the show.

Yeah even though books 4 & 5 both could have used a lot more streamlining (and really should have been one book) I still enjoyed reading them.

i read this again. it was actually a lot better the second time, i guess with aggravating plot turns and digressions being faits accomplis instead of fresh disappointments. still, the overall impression is that grrm found himself with a book and a half while working on feast for crows, leaving him with a few options, and he chose the worst one. the writing is getting lazier too, with grrm clutching many and more of the same tired stock phrases to his small, pale breasts. i guess if it takes that long to write, it is a lot to ask for any rewrites. but, like i said before i started complaining again, i found the book a lot more enjoyable this time round.

tyrion arc is actually great up until penny arrives on the scene. she is such a dreadful addition. i am not sure if she is going to serve some greater purpose, or if grrm threw her in there to illuminate tyrion from a different angle and now she is dead weight that he doesn’t know what to do with (hint: it is the latter). tyrion chapters manage to have enough to them to avoid the pacing malaise that crops up almost everywhere else. jon’s chapters are maybe the worst for this. i guess grrm felt he really had to sell jon getting attacked at the end, so we get those endless variations of tough at the top and the wilding/old skool watch tensions.

the rest of the stuff in the north might be the strongest parts of the book though. davos going to white harbour was great and any time with the boltons is well spent, even if grrm went ott with ramsay. when we get the banners inside winterfell waiting for stannis, the stately pacing finally fits and works perfectly, although i am sure this is a case of the broken clock being right twice a day. and bran north of the wall is okay, although i would have liked more. the set up there with him becoming the next man tree psychic whatever is cool, i can def get behind that. surely he won’t stay there tho. probably gonna got he way of luke leaving dagobah before his training is complete. bran is basically going to be the wizardy character when the old gang gets back together.

mereen…who cares? dany’s story gets progressively less interesting with every outing. it is telling that the only mereen bits i really enjoyed were the couple barristan chapters after she flies off. and the whole quentyn martell story was just thin and awful. maybe it is different if the very mention of dragons does it for you but i would be happier without them. i guess there will eventually be some worthwhile pay off in book 12, dragons vs others, but the going is slow in the meantime.

otherwise there were a lot of bit parts and cameos with variable success. i actually like the iron island stuff and victarion’s couple of chapters were cool, but not strictly necessary. he could’ve just turned up in mereen with the horn, it would have seemed no less tacked on. there is just the one jamie chapter i think, which is a nice window into how new jamie is developing as a person but stuck out oddly otherwise, and ended abruptly with his unsatisfying disappearance with brienne. however, there is an equally brief check in with dorne, but that actually felt important to the flow of the other things happening elsewhere. arya barely shows up but i guess we are supposed to get the impression of time passing while she is at ninja academy. an arya chapter is always a pleasure, anyway. and then there are the couple chapters with cersei, which were excellent, in a way challenging you to enjoy the ugly comeuppance of a character who you’ve been waiting to get theirs. i think that grrm wanted clearly westeros to be in a particularly fucked up state and cersei was his tool to accomplish that, but he couldn’t resist fucking her over, or his own drawn out timeline forced his hand, and that is essentially why he had to kill of kevan at the end, exactly as varys tells it, to stop him from unfucking things up.