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Topic: Song of Ice and Fire Book Thread (SPOILERS) (Read 118037 times)
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BobtheSomething
Terracotta Army
Posts: 453
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I'm pretty stoked. This new book outlines the history of the Targeryens, which means we will have canon depictions of Targeryens kings in armor on dragons, which means CMON will have the rights, nay the imperative, to create and sell a plastic dragon rider mini for their book-based tabletop game, which means in two years I'll be able to go onto Miniature Market and pay 30% MSRP for a sweet-ass dragon king miniature. Feels good.
But there's no way I'll ever read this shit.
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Brolan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1395
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Rasix
Moderator
Posts: 15024
I am the harbinger of your doom!
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Fuck this. Fuck him. Fuck all of it.
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-Rasix
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Chimpy
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10619
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Fuck this. Fuck him. Fuck all of it.
This
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'Reality' is the only word in the language that should always be used in quotes.
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Lucas
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3298
Further proof that Italians have suspect taste in games.
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This is a comment from a related article published on Polygon : In the time since A Dance With Dragons was released, I have:
Got married Moved Finished my associate’s degree Started and completed my bachelor’s degree Moved again Been promoted 3 times Had my first child Seen 13, soon to be 14 new Marvel films Purchased 3 brand new game consoles, and seen all of them receive successors
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" He's so impatient, it's like watching a teenager fuck a glorious older woman." - Ironwood on J.J. Abrams
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jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888
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#1: Dance will not be released in 2018.
#2: I have a pet theory that he has written the entire rest of the series and is just holding onto it as a giant FU to all the people that complain about how long he is taking. Not really.
#3: I have a conspiracy theory that Dance is done, but he doesn't want it out until HBO is done as the story diverges from the shows enough that he thought it would be confusing - or that the books would spoil something for the show. Also a BS theory, but fun to think about.
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2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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Rasix
Moderator
Posts: 15024
I am the harbinger of your doom!
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Dance has be out for about 7 years now.
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-Rasix
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jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888
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Dance has be out for about 7 years now.
So it won't be released in 2018. I meant Winds.
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2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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Rasix
Moderator
Posts: 15024
I am the harbinger of your doom!
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I know. I need to have some fun with all of this. I see theory #2 floated in just about any reddit thread on this (I sub to r/books). Anyhow, if he's secretly done, then he's an asshole. So "fuck him" still stands.
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-Rasix
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jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888
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I had a chance (in 2013 or so) to take a bet that would have paid off $1 for every day before/after January 1, 2017 that Winter is released... I was going to take the over. We decided not to do it in the end, but man, I would have been having fun right now.
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2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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pants
Terracotta Army
Posts: 588
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Nah, he's not done. He's just got the world's largest case of writer's block, with a side dose of 'Ive got a fuckload of money, so I don't need to bust my arse to get this damn book done'. In any other industry, he'd just sell out and retire to count his pennies and do side projects (like all the other random books). We saw that when he started (Dance or Feast? I can't remember) and had to redo it when he realised the 10-year-fast forward wasn't going to work. That's what knocked this train off its tracks.
I'm done with the books, and to a lesser extent the TV. I'll watch the last two seasons, but just for completionism.
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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This is a comment from a related article published on Polygon : In the time since A Dance With Dragons was released, I have:
Got married Moved Finished my associate’s degree Started and completed my bachelor’s degree Moved again Been promoted 3 times Had my first child Seen 13, soon to be 14 new Marvel films Purchased 3 brand new game consoles, and seen all of them receive successors My Life: I was on my honeymoon when the book came out. Since then I've: Bought 2 houses. Changed jobs 3 times. Had 3 kids.
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Sir T
Terracotta Army
Posts: 14223
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The real reason is he cant figure out a way to have long meandering passages on the food available at court feasts in the middle of the eternal winter war. I don't see the King of the walkers sitting down for a 2 day feast.
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Hic sunt dracones.
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NowhereMan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7353
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Sanderson has said he actually tried doing a SoIaF entry himself and the result was so awful he's been too embarrassed to show it to anyone else.
He's also published 26 books since Dances with Dragons was released (some of those being short stories but still!).
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"Look at my car. Do you think that was bought with the earnest love of geeks?" - HaemishM
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K9
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7441
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I doubt Sanderson wants anything to do with ASOIAF; he's got his own thing going on now.
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I love the smell of facepalm in the morning
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Chimpy
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10619
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I doubt Sanderson wants anything to do with ASOIAF; he's got his own thing going on now.
He also doesn’t seem to have the fetishes required to write a book that would fit the Martin template. (Or at least he isn’t able to articulate them )
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'Reality' is the only word in the language that should always be used in quotes.
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Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15163
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I know everybody thinks it's because he actually found the god of tits and wine and so doesn't want to finish.
But I honestly think he wrote himself into a cul-de-sac and has no idea how to get out without reconfirming the more conventional plot arcs the series runners have defaulted to. So he's just going to leave it because he really doesn't know how to write his way out.
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lamaros
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8021
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I know everybody thinks it's because he actually found the god of tits and wine and so doesn't want to finish.
But I honestly think he wrote himself into a cul-de-sac and has no idea how to get out without reconfirming the more conventional plot arcs the series runners have defaulted to. So he's just going to leave it because he really doesn't know how to write his way out.
He started doing that about halfway through book 2. Fell in love with (some of) his characters, and his "world" and entirely lost the thread that was driving the series.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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guys i know this is gonna be crazy but
is it possible he's just a bad writer
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42631
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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He's not actually that bad a writer though. I mean, he's not what I'd call greats in literature, but he's not a bad writer. His entire body of work is one of an interesting genre writer. Song is a pretty remarkable work just in terms of sheer wordage. Even the worst of the series are better than most of Jordan's epic. Epic fiction ain't always easy.
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lamaros
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8021
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guys i know this is gonna be crazy but
is it possible he's just a bad writer
He isn't great, but Game in particular is well written and interesting, with a clear focus. But the books, like Harry Potter before them, have gotten more self obsessed, indulgent, and generic as they've continued. For someone who was so keen on avoiding putting the fantastic elements in focus and more interested in intrigue he has obviously slipped a long way, and there's no saving the position now.
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Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15163
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You want to see him at his height, go back and read the original short story version of "Sand Kings". But the first Game of Thrones and even the next two are pretty tightly written for this sort of thing.
Keeping in mind his models, the 100-Years War was a real muddle in the middle too. A lot of pointless killing, a lot of the most interesting individuals from the first part died or went home, etc. It didn't become narratively exciting again until the last 40 years, with Agincourt, Joan of Arc, etc. and then the War of the Roses to follow in England.
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Teleku
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Posts: 10510
https://i.imgur.com/mcj5kz7.png
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I always thought his model was basically just War of the Roses?
And he’s a fine writer (or was, at least for fantasy), he just obviously ran into the biggest writers block in history after getting to the end of the the first plot arc (The first three books). Which he obviously had already plotted out in his head before time, as he pumped out the first three books all within 1-2 years from each other. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned 100 times, he really should have stuck with his first instinct to to do the time jump between book 3 and 4, instead of bogging himself down trying to explain everything that happpened. It was all setup perfectly, and then devolved into a mess.
This though.... yeah, this is proof he’s pretty much given up. 1,000 pages of fake history bullshit, instead of the 1,000 pages you were supposed to have spent the last 7 years working on. I just say give it to Sanderson as a joke since he finished the Wheel of Time (and frankly, his three books were better than anything Jordan had written since the 90’s), but seriously. Just like, find a competent writer and hand things over along with your notes, so you can spend your few remaining years bathing in baconators or what ever the fuck. I’m sure, just like Jordan, he has the ending worked out. Just no idea how the fuck to get there.
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor." -Stephen Colbert
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eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11843
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If it was just war of the roses, it would be a lot easier to wrap up.
There would be another round of the war of n kings with everyone's kids and this time it would end when Henry VI/Tommen kills himself and the throne goes to someone who can unite the country under a stark/Lannister marriage pact.
The magic elements that represent the greater game have been there since the start but where the series genuinely falls down imo is that they haven't been properly integrated into the PoVs of the characters we know and it is hard to imagine that being done in a satisfying way in the last 25% of story.
I had no problem with Feast and Dance for what they were, but I find really hard to believe they've left us two books away from the end of the tale.
No idea if he's given up but really hard to imagine that 8 years of writing is going to lead to a good book.
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"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson "Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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Teleku
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10510
https://i.imgur.com/mcj5kz7.png
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It's going to give us a shitarillion though. AMAZING!!!
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor." -Stephen Colbert
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ghost
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He's definitely going to get a cheeto lodged in his left anterior descending artery before he can get close to finishing.
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