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Author Topic: Song of Ice and Fire Book Thread (SPOILERS)  (Read 116618 times)
Chimpy
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on: July 12, 2011, 11:25:03 AM

Just wanted to warn everyone to kiss your loved ones goodbye, since the apocalypse is upon us. A Dance With Dragons just hit my Kindle. Anyone taking bets on the release dates of the next book? I will take the over.

Looks like the library has 3 copies and 1 on order. Being number 33 on the hold list, I can assume that I will get a copy to read about mid-september.
« Last Edit: July 29, 2011, 01:37:48 PM by Samwise »

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Reply #1 on: July 13, 2011, 08:46:30 AM

Got ours from Amazon today - it's very thick. I would have preferred it read it on the Kindle, but I already have all the other books in paper copy ...

I had the same problem- I wanted to read the first 4 again, but didn't want to read the physical copies. I also didn't want to buy ADWD (should it ever come out) physically...so I bought the 4 book omnibus on Kindle  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

Only 2 chapters (plus the prologue) in so far, but already an oh shit moment. Some of it feels slightly off from the earlier books, but that may just be me. So far so good?

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Reply #2 on: July 13, 2011, 11:19:02 AM

One thing that threw me at first is some of the events at the start of book five predate events toward the end of book four.
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Reply #3 on: July 13, 2011, 01:28:51 PM

Book 5 runs in parallel with book 4.  The stories were originally supposed to be interleaved into one book.  Even after the tv series, I just can't be made to care about this book anymore, it's just been too damn long, and I don't want to reread the other 4 again now.
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Reply #4 on: July 13, 2011, 02:37:46 PM

Book 5 runs in parallel with book 4.  The stories were originally supposed to be interleaved into one book.  Even after the tv series, I just can't be made to care about this book anymore, it's just been too damn long, and I don't want to reread the other 4 again now.

There's little need.  Based on the first few chapters, he enjoys retelling things as much as Jordan did.

I'm finding I enjoy the chapters of the characters I suspect he dislikes more than the ones he likes.  Jon Snow, for example has very little bullshit and a lot of story.  Tyrion's chapters... do I need to hear the details of every goddamn object and piece of food?

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Reply #5 on: July 13, 2011, 05:01:17 PM

He does have a way of making food sound incredibly good though.  Just finished A Dance with Dragons, it is officially safe to get back on the internet, whew.

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Reply #6 on: July 13, 2011, 07:18:53 PM

Book 5 runs in parallel with book 4. 

So you guys have been waiting for this guy to write the book for years and a good chunk of it isn't even a sequel?  ACK!
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Reply #7 on: July 13, 2011, 07:23:06 PM

Book 5 was originally supposed to be a part of Book 4; when the author realized how long it was going to end up, he cut it in half (by characters, not chronologically) so ADWD covers the characters that weren't in AFFC in the same time period. The foreword hints, however, that ADWD will go a bit further, and wrap up some things from the characters in AFFC too.

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Reply #8 on: July 13, 2011, 07:31:23 PM

Book 5 runs in parallel with book 4.  The stories were originally supposed to be interleaved into one book.  Even after the tv series, I just can't be made to care about this book anymore, it's just been too damn long, and I don't want to reread the other 4 again now.

It only starts out paralleling 5.

Finished it today, up to his usual standard, IMO, now to wait another 5 years.  Ohhhhh, I see.

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Reply #9 on: July 13, 2011, 08:33:35 PM

Book 5 runs in parallel with book 4. 

So you guys have been waiting for this guy to write the book for years and a good chunk of it isn't even a sequel?  ACK!

None of them were "sequels" it is all the same story spread out throughout seven books.  That 4 and 5 run parallel doesn't really affect anything.

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Reply #10 on: July 14, 2011, 06:01:00 AM

I'm about five chapters in and I'm quite suprised how little trouble I've had remembering who some of these characters are. I think I read Crows about four years ago, but he does a decent job of refreshing you on who people are without going overboard.

Unlike say when I would torture myself with the WoT books, and have to look up characters in the appendex every time he jumped away from one of the core five.

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Reply #11 on: July 14, 2011, 12:03:23 PM

Yeah, I was a little worried about starting "cold" without rereading any of the earlier books, but who's who is coming back pretty quickly.  Every now and again I'm surprised by where a character is and I take a moment to recall what happened to get them there.
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Reply #12 on: July 15, 2011, 06:19:28 AM

The "Reek" chapter was the only one where I felt I needed to remind myself of previous events.
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Reply #13 on: July 15, 2011, 03:12:31 PM

Book 5 runs in parallel with book 4.  The stories were originally supposed to be interleaved into one book.  Even after the tv series, I just can't be made to care about this book anymore, it's just been too damn long, and I don't want to reread the other 4 again now.

There's little need.  Based on the first few chapters, he enjoys retelling things as much as Jordan did.

I'm finding I enjoy the chapters of the characters I suspect he dislikes more than the ones he likes.  Jon Snow, for example has very little bullshit and a lot of story.  Tyrion's chapters... do I need to hear the details of every goddamn object and piece of food?

See, I cannot fucking stand Jon Snow or his chapters any more. There is "story" in those chapters but they are boring as fuck.



But yeah, I went in without rereading the first four and like someone else said, the first Reek chapter was the only one where I went "uhhhh, shit, what's going on?"

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Reply #14 on: July 15, 2011, 06:06:12 PM

Oh I wasn't saying the story was any good, just that there was more of it than intricate page-and-a-half descriptions of the surroundings.  Martin's dislike for the character is pretty apparent at this point.

Meanwhile, I enjoyed Tyrion until this book.  Now it's just blatantly obvious that he's Martin's Mary Sue so I'm sick of him.

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Reply #15 on: July 15, 2011, 07:14:16 PM

Neither PoV is really totally great, really. I just cannot give a shit about the Wall and all that any more. Tyrion's PoV I care about more, even when it's meandering (although I wouldn't complain if it meandered less). At least I'm finally giving a shit about Dany's chapters!

My favorite PoV only got ... two chapters? I think? But they introduced my new favorite character (who is not a PoV) who will probably die in a way that makes me angry as a result, but for now I will just enjoy the dude when he gets to be awesome.


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Reply #16 on: July 15, 2011, 08:36:42 PM

I'm very glad I stopped reading this series.

It's pretty clear that this is going to be another cash-cow that is kept on life support for as long as possible. You know that this series is never going to finish properly.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2011, 08:42:26 PM by Margalis »

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Reply #17 on: July 15, 2011, 10:34:25 PM

I'm very glad I stopped reading this series.

It's pretty clear that this is going to be another cash-cow that is kept on life support for as long as possible. You know that this series is never going to finish properly.

He still seems on pace to finish it in 7, which has been his claim for quite a while now.

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Reply #18 on: July 16, 2011, 11:36:15 AM

I'm very glad I stopped reading this series.

It's pretty clear that this is going to be another cash-cow that is kept on life support for as long as possible. You know that this series is never going to finish properly.

If he wanted a cash cow he would write more than two books in 11 years.

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Reply #19 on: July 17, 2011, 05:35:34 AM

I'm very glad I stopped reading this series.

It's pretty clear that this is going to be another cash-cow that is kept on life support for as long as possible. You know that this series is never going to finish properly.

If he wanted a cash cow he would write more than two books in 11 years.

It takes effort to oversee TV Series and Video Game franchises.

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Reply #20 on: July 17, 2011, 04:26:44 PM

In recent interviews. he's suddenly been saying, "It might take eight books". Translated: "My estate is looking into competent ghosts for the last one or two or...however many."

I like "Dance" better than the last one, at any rate.  I do wish he'd either pull the obvious trigger on certain obvious events or fuck with us thoroughly on them and do something completely different. You can tell me The War of the Roses is your template all you like, but once there are dragons and fire priestesses and greenseers and suchlike, those bets are sort of off.
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Reply #21 on: July 17, 2011, 05:41:56 PM

I've read all the first few a couple of times but I have no desire to get the latest one.
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Reply #22 on: July 17, 2011, 06:11:15 PM

So book 5 is where everyone goes Maddox and declares it too popular to like now?

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Reply #23 on: July 17, 2011, 06:16:17 PM

I don't know that I'd go that far.  I think my feelings are summed-up more along the lines of, "it takes too damn long for them to come out to really care about the series anymore."    I just can't get into it, because I know it's going to be another 5-6 years before the next one.

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Reply #24 on: July 17, 2011, 06:28:50 PM

So book 5 is where everyone goes Maddox and declares it too popular to like now?

No, I just feel like it is becoming much less enjoyable for me. More padded, more cliche (more Dany and Jon). My favourite book was actually book 1.
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Reply #25 on: July 18, 2011, 06:48:09 AM

Sunday a friend mentioned the HBO series and my fiancee was curious because I said it had a lot of royal intrigue and family in-fighting and she loves that crap. Then I got to the stuff about the dragon lady (Dany?) and since it was my least favorite part of the series, it sounded really lame when I tried to explain it. Imo the books would have been way better if he left that part out and really tried to keep the high fantasy stuff out of it and stick to the political and war stuff.
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Reply #26 on: July 18, 2011, 08:04:01 AM

So book 5 is where everyone goes Maddox and declares it too popular to like now?

No, I just feel like it is becoming much less enjoyable for me. More padded, more cliche (more Dany and Jon). My favourite book was actually book 1.
Yeah. I loved the first book or two because it was very anti-cliche. The man seemed to deliberetly set up fantasy cliches in order to curb-stomp them. Plus, he had a fun habit of taking "villians" and giving them their own internal story (and their own POV) and really screwing with the whole hero/villian, good/bad thing.
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Reply #27 on: July 18, 2011, 04:01:15 PM

I thought Book 2-3 were freaking great, and where he really hit the mark of what he was shooting for.  Book 4 should have been, "Ok, winter is here and now shit is DIRE." Instead, well, we're getting a bit close to "Nyaneve twirls her ponytail". 
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Reply #28 on: July 18, 2011, 04:11:55 PM

Not quite there yet, but book 4 and 5 are in "build up to Dumai Wells" territory.   Only about 350 pages into book 5 but it's interesting enough.  A token death or two and some interesting happenings.  It just seems to be moving at a languid pace.  Granted we're not spending 40 pages on Perrin brooding over his abducted wife or Egwene dictating laundry duties, but it all feels like build up.  You know what's going to happen, but it's not happening.  Instead of pulling the trigger and giving us what we want, he's having the build up do interesting things.

This does keep it out of Jordan's pit he found himself in, but it just means that overall less of significance is going to happen and the series will continue to roll on.  It's not going to sputter out or decend into mind numbing boredom, but it's going to continue to move the goal posts farther out.

And yah, I thought 2-3 were fantastic. Better than 1, IMO.

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Reply #29 on: July 18, 2011, 04:20:31 PM

Not quite there yet, but book 4 and 5 are in "build up to Dumai Wells" territory.   Only about 350 pages into book 5 but it's interesting enough.  A token death or two and some interesting happenings.  It just seems to be moving at a languid pace.  Granted we're not spending 40 pages on Perrin brooding over his abducted wife or Egwene dictating laundry duties, but it all feels like build up.  You know what's going to happen, but it's not happening.  Instead of pulling the trigger and giving us what we want, he's having the build up do interesting things.

This does keep it out of Jordan's pit he found himself in, but it just means that overall less of significance is going to happen and the series will continue to roll on.  It's not going to sputter out or decend into mind numbing boredom, but it's going to continue to move the goal posts farther out.

And yah, I thought 2-3 were fantastic. Better than 1, IMO.

80% of the way completed now in ADWD, 1st half of book was ho-hum, lots of pieces moved about, with little consequence (other than discovery of "what happened" to characters in lieu of previous "cliffhangers"), but in 2nd half, some sparks of plot raveling, engrossing and compelling enough, and I find myself gripped with desiring to finish quickly, to find out what happens…


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Reply #30 on: July 18, 2011, 06:13:11 PM

Not quite there yet, but book 4 and 5 are in "build up to Dumai Wells" territory.   Only about 350 pages into book 5 but it's interesting enough.  A token death or two and some interesting happenings.  It just seems to be moving at a languid pace.  Granted we're not spending 40 pages on Perrin brooding over his abducted wife or Egwene dictating laundry duties, but it all feels like build up.  You know what's going to happen, but it's not happening.  Instead of pulling the trigger and giving us what we want, he's having the build up do interesting things.

This does keep it out of Jordan's pit he found himself in, but it just means that overall less of significance is going to happen and the series will continue to roll on.  It's not going to sputter out or decend into mind numbing boredom, but it's going to continue to move the goal posts farther out.

And yah, I thought 2-3 were fantastic. Better than 1, IMO.

Thinking more about it, yeah 2 was probably the best. But 3 not so much for me.

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Reply #31 on: July 19, 2011, 06:00:34 AM

Not quite there yet, but book 4 and 5 are in "build up to Dumai Wells" territory.   Only about 350 pages into book 5 but it's interesting enough.  A token death or two and some interesting happenings.  It just seems to be moving at a languid pace.  Granted we're not spending 40 pages on Perrin brooding over his abducted wife or Egwene dictating laundry duties, but it all feels like build up.  You know what's going to happen, but it's not happening.  Instead of pulling the trigger and giving us what we want, he's having the build up do interesting things.

This does keep it out of Jordan's pit he found himself in, but it just means that overall less of significance is going to happen and the series will continue to roll on.  It's not going to sputter out or decend into mind numbing boredom, but it's going to continue to move the goal posts farther out.

And yah, I thought 2-3 were fantastic. Better than 1, IMO.

I'm about 300 pages in and I find the main thing I'm doing is flipping back to the maps at the front "ok, these guys are here, but these guys have progressed to this spot..."

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Reply #32 on: July 22, 2011, 06:59:26 AM

I'm 3 chapters into ADWD and I like the snappy dialogue in places. At times I sit there nodding my head with a smirk going, "Ok Martin, that was good."

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Reply #33 on: July 25, 2011, 10:26:31 PM

Finished ADWD last night.


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Reply #34 on: July 26, 2011, 08:39:31 AM

Finished ADWD last night.

Same here, I'm not sure I can take any more books that hop all over the world to follow yet another character every single chapter.  I'm beginning to think that this is done as a series of cliffhangers gimmick to hide how bad the story really is.  At least he isn't as bad as Jordon and introducing a new plot element (that will never get resolved) in every chapter as well.
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