[TV] Winter HAS COME! - A Game of Thrones

But can he beat Batman with prep time?
You're turning this into an emotional argument!

Also GRRM today stated that if he feels he cannot finish the books, he is comfortable having the previously established comet crash into the planet and kill everyone.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
But that's what makes him great. HE CAN pick his fights, so he's won before the fight ever begins.
Choosing to only enter fights you are clearly going to win is not the same as being the best fighter. By that logic, I'm the best olympic sprinter.
 
Nearing 300 pages in Dance. You know, Feast was boring as fuck and much of it was pointless, but at least it didn't have what I'd call bad writing. Lacking substance and purpose, sure, but not bad.

I just got through a Jon Snow chapter ...

Pages of pointless bickering and stilted dialogue between him and Stannis/the knights. Did no one read this scene and say "Hey George, you might want to trim this a little ... and make the dialogue better. I can tell he wanted this to feel like a political/strategic scene, but it strains under its own crap pile. Like he knew he wanted the chapter to be a certain length before getting to his point, so he just had them argue the same thing back and forth until he reached his word count, THEN had Jon mention the men in the mountains. Stannis also comes off as out of character.

I remember reading the first three books and having to make myself stop reading so I wouldn't finish them too fast. Now I have to force myself to pick up the book and get through it so I can go read something else.
 
Don't forget Daenarys being sad. That is also important.
And being stupid too.

When a character who was killed earlier in the show appears in the book because they weren't killed in the series, I already knew it was going to be pointless because of that death in the show. Amazing, I was right.

What is the over under on how many books Stephen King will publish before GRRM finishes his next?
I'm glad Stephen King has his son and wife to now call him on stuff when no one who works with him wants to point out that maybe one thing or another is a bad idea. GRRM doesn't seem to have anyone to call him on his bullshit. On another note, this one being a pointless comparison, King seems to write because he feels a need to do it. I can relate to that; if I never go anywhere with my writing, I need to keep doing it because I've seen what happens to me psychologically when I stop and it's not fun for anyone. GRRM doesn't seem to have that compulsion or obsession. At least not anymore. I don't know what his vision for A Song of Ice and Fire once was, but it's no longer just a series of novels--it's the Game of Thrones franchise, and he seems to like having a franchise much more than writing a couple books.
 
UUUGGHHH these Daenerys chapters are killing me.

"Here's a way to go to Westeros."
"No, everything sucks here and I like it."

"You're supposed to go to Westeros."
"But I am le tired."


Oh, and ...

Let the fucking dragons out or you'll never get them under control. And stop paying the fucking farmers--they could be burning every sickly or weak part of their herd and bringing it in as if Drogon did it.
 
Ah Book 4-5....

A Dany chapter then a Bran chapter. You get depressed. Then the next chapter are the pointless ironborn debating on boring shit. You start listening to Jay and pick up The First Law.
 
Ah Book 4-5....

A Dany chapter then a Bran chapter. You get depressed. Then the next chapter are the pointless ironborn debating on boring shit. You start listening to Jay and pick up The First Law.
Does The First Law finish the story for A Song of Ice and Fire? I don't even care for medieval fantasy that much, but I'm attached to these characters.

Dance is just so amateur hour to bring up the same disagreement each time a character has a POV chapter. Or for someone to appear, only for it not to matter and everything goes back to the way it was before the chapter started like it's a fucking TV episode for a crappy show. This is the kind of crap you edit out after the first draft. Why is this book so many pages? It's not like people would feel cheated if it was 200 pages shorter. They would've still bought it.
 
Ah Book 4-5....

A Dany chapter then a Bran chapter. You get depressed. Then the next chapter are the pointless ironborn debating on boring shit. You start listening to Jay and pick up The First Law.
Oh god, I blocked out all the Ironborn debating.


It's flooding back now! I'm so booooooooooooooooooored!
 
So here's a fun question. Who's the greatest warrior in the series? Alive or dead (different answers I presume). Also, please spoiler anything that hasn't been in the show yet.
Well if you take everyone in the books at their words, it's Arthur Dayne... both Selmy and Jaimie seem to think they're still no where near him.
 
Does The First Law finish the story for A Song of Ice and Fire? I don't even care for medieval fantasy that much, but I'm attached to these characters.
I gave up on the possibility of a proper ending (ending? what ending??) for these books years ago... and you'll be there soon enough as well. Maybe another book will be out by the time my daughter goes to 1st grade... and that's me being optimistic. So what... 2018-2019? After reading Dance and felt completely underwhelmed at the last 2000 pages of mediocrity from the past 2 books, I gave up. Heck, even Martin gave up. I can tell. How can the first 3 books be so awesome and the last two suck SO much? The guy lost it and now all he does is live off his old fame and blog about his shitty American football team, that fat useless fuck.

The First Law is beautifully written and to me a work of art. It's witty and engaging and this initially trilogy is treated as a project with a beginning and an end. All one can hope for. Something Martin clearly doesn't understand. You read that right. There's an end and currently... new books of that storyline universe are coming out every 1-2 years at most and they are just as exceptional. I'm wrapping up on the 4th book as I type this and it's almost as fantastic with some parts even more engaging than A Song of Ice and Fire can ever hope to be. And this is outside of the main trilogy. Everyone should read this book and I hope it gets its own HBO series. It's far better than GoT. The author will be releasing his 7th book this summer.

7 books in 8 years?

Martin almost died reading that.

You state you don't seem to care of medieval fantasy all that much but the fantasy part plays a more minor role than it does in ASOFAI and for what it's worth it's mostly on par of what you already read in ASOFAI. Though no Dragons. YES!!! You initially follow the POV of the 3 major protagonists of the series. Sometimes you get others. Glotka is my favorite character in the series and he's a deeply flawed noble, witty, intriguing and sarcastic. He's also a cripple, kneeling to the wills of a master who is just as intriguing. By the time I finished reading the first 50 pages, I was completely enthralled until the end of the trilogy. Thank you @HowDroll for recommending this to me. And the other protagonists are just as great. The new book follows new protagonists (upwards to 5-6) who are just as interesting.

No one is boring as Bran.

No one is as useless and frustrating to read like Dany has been the last 2 books.

No one punishes you to read through their chapters like the chapters of the Ironbore did.

No one is as engaging as Nicomo Costa and all others are great and flawed in their own way. Nicomo reminds me of a 'dishonorable' Syrio Forel.

Do yourself a favor, buy a used book and read the first one. Heck, if you want, I'll ship you mine. Stop your suffering. After being unable to play all these great games on PC these last few years and being part of the inferior gaming race and drudging through the last 2 books of ASOFAI, you deserve something better.
 
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GasBandit

Staff member
If we're recommending other books to read, the Midkemia universe by Raymond Feist is pretty good (and easy) reading that doesn't start to go downhill until book 25 or so. Now Feist is clearly just phoning it in, but at least he's reliably put out a book a year minimum.

I really like the Kingkiller Chronicle series by Patrick Rothfuss... but it's only got 2 of the 3 books out so far, and unfortunately he's also taking 5+ years per book. See what kind of horrible trend Martin has started/made "acceptable?"
 
Chiming in with my usual recommendation of the Vorkosigan/Barrayar saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. Not fantasy though.

I really don't see much of a future with Martin's work, let alone a proper ending. Sad for someone who started as a real tastemaker...
 

Necronic

Staff member
since we're pushing other fantasy books I quite liked Richard Morgan's series. Only 2 books out so far (Steel Remains and Cold Commands), but the next one should be out soon. Definitely takes some interesting routes with the fantasy genre that I have never seen before. Some of it is pretty graphic, so fair warning.
 
Excellent suggestion folks.

For future searching references : lamoufette

And for those who'll back up Martin saying a 1200 page book is longer to write than a 500 page book. I'd much rather read a shorter 500 page book that is exceptional every year than a mediocre 1200 page mess every half a decade. If Martin keeps his current pace, the series will be written in 2022. No thanks.
 
Excellent suggestion folks.

For future searching references : lamoufette

And for those who'll back up Martin saying a 1200 page book is longer to write than a 500 page book. I'd much rather read a shorter 500 page book that is exceptional every year than a mediocre 1200 page mess every half a decade. If Martin keeps his current pace, the series will be written in 2022. No thanks.
Bro, all those locations ain't gonna describe themselves in ridiculous and pointless detail.
 
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All right, all right, if you recommend it that strongly, I'll pick up book one as the first book I read after Dance.
Hey, don't worry about reading it, just google "lengthy descriptions of things I don't really care about" then read the wiki page to find out how many inches forward the characters moved. ;)
 
Hey, don't worry about reading it, just google "lengthy descriptions of things I don't really care about" then read the wiki page to find out how many inches forward the characters moved. ;)
It's getting a little better, switching between chapters that are interesting and chapters that are completely pointless. "Here's an update on this person." Hey George, how about you update me WHEN IT FUCKING MATTERS. I'm already thinking of ways he could have jumped past most of this without much trouble, and without the summary being 100+ pages. It would've been very easy, introducing one element of change at a time from a POV, then another, etc. I don't know what the fuck he was trying back in 2002.
 
The earlier ones are like "can you stop making stupid decisions" but later on they have been getting better. And there have only been three Bran chapters so far, so that doesn't seem to have been a big deal either.

Though I wish every other chapter wasn't a new POV, at least now the new POVs are from characters we've known for a while, or at least were introduced in earlier chapters by previously-established POV characters, not just

RANDOM IRONBORN CHARACTER

Boring stuff ensued.
 
With the Dany chapters, at least it's obvious and clear there's going to be a pay-off (assuming GRRM lives long enough to finish the books). Arya you can...sort of guess which way it's going.
The Ironborn chapters just seem to be going absolutely fucking nowhere. Yeah, ok, so they're
sailing south to attack King's Landing or whatever. They'll be just in time to spoil yet again some intelligent plan.
 
The iron born are not characters of interest. They exist only to provide a method for GRRM to write himself out of a corner.
 
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