Book chat!

[Shockeye]

Stop making me split and merge posts. I don't like having to "work".

[Shmtur]

Apparently the next book in the Song of Fire and Ice series is actually done.  And apparently the next book in the series is also half finished.  Quoted from his website:

No, I haven't finished writing everything I wanted to include in A FEAST FOR CROWS. I have wrapped up a whole bunch of characters and storylines since the last update in January, but "a whole bunch" does not equate to "all."

And I was facing another problem as well: the sheer size of the book.

All of the books in this series have been big, mind you. A GAME OF THRONES weighed in at 1088 pages in manuscript, not counting the appendices. A CLASH OF KINGS was even longer at 1184 pages, not counting the appendices. And A STORM OF SWORDS measured a gargantuan 1521 pages in manuscript, not counting the (etc).

Any publisher will tell you that a book as big as A STORM OF SWORDS is a production nightmare, and STORM did indeed cause problems for many of my publishers around the world. In some languages it was divided into two, three, or even four volumes. Bantam published STORM in a single volume in the United States, but not without difficulty. Pretty much everyone agreed that it would be a really good thing if the fourth volume in the series came in somewhat shorter than STORM, so I set out with the idea of delivering a FEAST closer in length to A CLASH OF KINGS.

Alas for good intentions. In hindsight, I should have known better. The story makes its own demands, as Tolkien once said, and my story kept demanding to get bigger and more complicated.

I passed A CLASH OF KINGS last year, and still had plenty more to write. By January, I had more than 1300 pages, and still had storylines unfinished. About three weeks ago I hit 1527 pages of final draft, surpassing A STORM OF SWORDS... but I also had another hundred or so pages of roughs and incomplete chapters, as well as other chapters sketched out but entirely unwritten. That was when I realized that the light I'd seen at the end of the tunnel was actually the headlight of an onrushing locomotive.

And that's why my publishers and I, after much discussion and weighing of alternatives, have decided to split the narrative into two books (printing in microtype on onion skin paper and giving each reader a magnifying glass was not considered feasible, and I was reluctant to make the sort of deep cuts that would have been necessary to get the book down to a more publishable length, which I felt would have compromised the story).

The first plan was simply to lop the text in half. In that scenario, I would finish the last few chapters in as short a length (and time) as possible. That would have produced a story of maybe 1650 to 1700 pages in manuscript, which we would simply have broken into two chunks of roughly equal length and published as A FEAST FOR CROWS, Part One and A FEAST FOR CROWS, Part Two.

We decided not to do that. It was my feeling -- and I pushed hard for this, so if you don't like the solution, blame me, not my publishers -- that we were better off telling all the story for half the characters, rather than half the story for all the characters. Cutting the novel in half would have produced two half-novels; our approach will produce two novels taking place simultaneously, but set hundreds or even thousands of miles apart, and involving different casts of characters (with some overlap).

The division has been done, and it think it works quite well. The upshot is, A FEAST FOR CROWS is now moving into production. It is still a long book, but not too long; about the same size as A GAME OF THRONES. The focus in FEAST will be on Westeros, King's Landing, the riverlands, Dorne, and the Iron Islands. More than that I won't say.

Meanwhile, all the characters and stories removed from FEAST are moving right into A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, which will focus on events in the east and north. All the chapters I have not yet finished and/or begun are moving into DANCE. I think this is very good, if truth be told, since it will give me the room to complete those arcs as I had originally intended, rather than trying to tie them up quickly in a chapter or two so I could deliver the massively late Big FEAST.

So there it is. I know some of you may be disappointed, especially when you buy A FEAST FOR CROWS and discover that your favorite character does not appear, but given the realities I think this was the best solution... and the more I look at it, the more convinced I am that these two parallel novels, when taken together, will actually tell the story better than one big book.

And if there are those who don't agree, and still want their Big FEAST with all the trimmings set out on one huge table... well, there's an easy fix. Get both books, razor the pages out with an Exacto knife, interleave the chapters as you think best, and bring the towering stack of text that results to your favorite bookbinder... and presto, chango the Big FEAST will live again.

As for me, I am getting back to work. There's good news on that front too -- A DANCE WITH DRAGONS is half-done!!!

(And before anyone asks, yes indeed, this development means that Parris was right all along. It will now probably require seven books to complete the story).

[Paelos]

That is great news. Anything to get a copy in my hands faster is good.

[WayAbvPar]

Looking forward to it.

[HaemishM]

That makes a lot more sense than QT and Miramax deciding to cut half of a story into two movies.

[Morfiend]

That makes a lot more sense than QT and Miramax deciding to cut half of a story into two movies.

Or making a 6th movie that badly attempts to tie the 5th which is the 2nd together with the 1st that is the 4th.

[kaid]

Wow that is good news. Frankly with as much detail as he puts into all his intertwined stories this is a perfectly good way to solve it.


kaid

[Dren]

I'd even buy that in hardback right now.  I need to read about my favorite characters tragically dieing some more.  For some strange reason, that works for me.

I'm rooting for Tyrian to become King.  That means he'll die pretty early on I'm guessing.

[kaid]

I am curious to see when the series is over which if any of the main characters survive. I have never seen another author as willing and able to brutally slay any and all characters as needed. Most get so attatched they can't bring themselves to killing important characters off.


kaid

[Paelos]

Why can't he dump off one of the daughters. They both bore me.

[Johny Cee]

By the way,  Glen Cook's The Tyranny of the Night is out now.

Got about 50 pages into it.  Seems interesting so far.  ALOT going on.  You have essentially a Europe/Mediterranean area, but borrowing a events from across the timeline.

There seems to be a Pope/Anti-Pope in exile.

Making noises about a Crusade/Holy War, with a contested Holy Land that also appears to be a large source of supernatural nasties.

Following a neo-Franciscan (vows of poverty, etc) reforming order.  The establish church is in places massively corrupt and morally bankrupt.

One character appears to be a slave-soldier in an Ottoman-style empire. 

There's a Holy Roman Emperor/Empire out there.

Looming Ice Age.

Death of a nordic prince.

Some use of gunpowder.

Oh,  and everyone is scared of the dark and the night.  Because nasty, nasty things come out at night.


There is the unfortunate timing of Bakker's "Prince of Nothing" series which is treading on similar ground.

[Jamiko]

After finishing up book 3 in "A Song of Ice and Fire" and loving the series, I find myself looking for something epic in space, with ship battles. Lots of combat but most of it ship to ship. Any suggestions?

George RR Martin has raised my standards significantly. I ached inside as I got close to the end of book 3 knowing that book 4 is not yet ready for my consumption. Is there anything else out there that is as good or better than those books? They are easily my favorites of all time.

[Daydreamer]

The Vorkosigan books by Lois McMaster Bujold perhaps?  Lots of humor, with a unique protagonist, some whodunits and lots of how-do-I-save-the-world stuff.  I'd start with The Vor Game or the Warrior's Apprentice, to see if her writting appeals to you.

EDIT: Didn't see the ship-to-ship part.  For that I'd go with the Honor Harrington series by David Weber.  His flat characters and non-combat writting could use some work however.  Overall not quite as good as Bujold, but much closer to what you seem to want.

[Murgos]

After finishing up book 3 in "A Song of Ice and Fire" and loving the series, I find myself looking for something epic in space, with ship battles. Lots of combat but most of it ship to ship. Any suggestions?

Excession by Ian M. Banks.  You won't regret it.  I like the Honor books but they are pretty pulpy, don't expect a lot of interesting verbiage but they make fun light reading.  There is also a series cowritten by David Weber and Steve White, they start off ok but the last one I read, The Shiva Option was pretty painful, lots and lots of ship to ship combat though.

[Abagadro]

I'll second what Daydreamer said on both those series.  Another "space opera" series I really enjoyed was the Sten series by Chris Bunch and Alan Cole. They just put the whole series back in print a couple years ago.

[Calantus]

Sort of...

:D

[kaid]

For military ship to ship sci fi type books the Honor Harrington series is pretty good and there is quite a lot of them to keep you busy. The characters may not be spectacular but the writting style is good and they are pretty fun reads. One series I also like by David drake is the LT leary series.

Edit

I almost forgot about the most space based carnage series I have ever read also co authored by David Webber. It used to be I think 5 or 6 books but they just released to compliation books stars at war 1 and 2 which I believe have all the novels in those two books. Very good and about 80% of the books are ship to ship fights.

kaid