elchip: The Iron Islands and Dorne chapters eventually figure into the overall story in a big way. I actually found the "reveals" to be pretty satisfying, but maybe that's because they're two of the few plot points I didn't ruin for myself by reading A Wiki of Ice and Fire.

I'm crossing my fingers; I thought the first book was pretty good, and there are definitely things I've enjoyed so far in all the books.  But I still can't escape the nagging suspicion that the narrative has taken a direction that's not entirely in Martin's control.

Firstly, very impressive.

Secondly to people saying the books get boring. I disagree, The central plot may not have run forward, but he slowed down and took some time to immerse us more in the minutae of the world. Little things, inconsequential people and their dinner and their lunch and how they broke their fast. It's easy to roll your eyes but I like it, i'm in no rush to get to the end of the story, I want to enjoy the world he's created for as long as possible. I just hope he doesn't take so long he ends up dying first.

Plus it's obvious how it'll end. Rickon will kill Stannis in a drinking game, become king in the north, and build a bridge from the wall to the southron realms, so the Iron Throne has to deal with the white walkers, and Danaerys. They all die, but the North survives, because we all love the north. Except that bastard of Bolton.

"The Four Judgements:
We judge applications based on (in order of importance) - your attitude, your imagination, your ability to problem-solve, your architectural sensibility, and your adaptiveness and ingenuity.

Attitude
If you answer our questions with one sentence answers, we will assume you aren't very excited about joining, and that you haven't put that much effort into writing a good application. Remember, there is no such thing as writing too much. If you demonstrate a passion for the ASOIAF universe and an eagerness to help us out, it will look good.

[More of the Four Judgements]
"

Shiat just got real.

moothemagiccow:

I love how you guys all know how to write this man's book for him.

So your telling me you NEVER complain about the direction a story is going? You NEVER complain about a movies pace? You DON'T get irritated when you pay for a product and it has a glaring flaw that could easily be fixed?

No of course not.

His books aren't bad but they aren't great. What was at first a cool story about zombies and dragons returning to some medieval fantasy world turned into a scattered "i dont know how to tie this back together in a meaningful way" mess. The plot developed so much at the start. Now not so much. Now there are 20 characters and they all get their chapter because they matter for some reason or another and nothing seems to happen even though a terrible lot has been said.

Dont even get me started on the publishing timeline. The next book should be done some time after 2083... The shows started as a 1 book a season deal. Now the future books are being split into multiple seasons... Part of me wonders wether its just to give him the time he needs to finish the series.

It drags and drags and drags but it had enough of a hook to make me want to find out what happens. Just keeping your readers hooked isnt enough to make what your writing good.

Lost kept me hooked right up till that last episode. But i would lay a big steamer right on a box set rather than re watch or recommend it to someone who hasn't seen it. Wanting a conclusion is different than being invested it. Whats worse? a bad movie? or a movie that seems great but you only get to watch the first half of? A bad lay is better than a girl who leaves halfway through...

Every time the red priests or the red woman show up in those stories all i see in my head is Picard going "WTF IS THIS SHIAT???!!!" I dont know -- it just feels like a shark jump, or something added in later to help tie characters together or push them apart when the author had gotten in over his head with how he was going to pull off a character.

The Larch: HalEmmerich: You clearly haven't gotten to A Feast for Crows yet. Hundreds of pages of almost nothing of note happening.

That's a shame. I just finished A Storm of Swords, and I was already trying to figure out why he was spending so much time with secondary characters and (seemingly) inconsequential plot that wasn't driving the overarching story forward. It's clear that he has some idea where he's going with the story, but I'm a little afraid he's going to get eight or nine books into it before he realizes that he's created a big hairball and can't figure out how to unravel it all.

A Song of Ice and Fire is like the opposite of Lord of Rings, in a way -- Tolkien started with a huge overwhelming world, and he carved out a small slice and tried to make sense of it. Martin appears to have started out with a good story and a relatively small slice of a world, and suddenly finds himself trying to wrestle with a huge world that has grown beyond his control.

Imagine if Tolkien decided top stop the story in the middle and spend 400 pages telling us Galadriel's backstory fit into current events. That's kind of where I'm afraid it's going...

Sounds like a retread of what happened with the Wheel of Time series.

mikefinch: moothemagiccow:

Dont even get me started on the publishing timeline. The next book should be done some time after 2083... The shows started as a 1 book a season deal. Now the future books are being split into multiple seasons... Part of me wonders wether its just to give him the time he needs to finish the series.

It drags and drags and drags but it had enough of a hook to make me want to find out what happens. Just keeping your readers hooked isnt enough to make what your writing good.

I can generally excuse poorer writing if there's a good story so I quite enjoyed the books, sans some of the food and nipple descriptions. But my guess would be the splitting the season up is more because so much happens in Book 3 (especially latter half) that it would be a pretty busy season otherwise.

Also I wouldn't be surprised if they start to incorporate bits of 4 and 5 into the end of 3. They can't present 4 and 5 on TV the way the books are, people would hate not seeing Tyrion or Dany for a year or whatever. I'm guessing they'll combine 4+5 and split that mass into two seasons chronologically.

mikefinch: Part of me wonders wether its just to give him the time he needs to finish the series.

And not because they cut major characters in the second season for no reason.

It's just not up to you to decide what the plot of the book is or when it comes out. Sorry. I like the books and I understand what Martin said. At the end of the day, the work is going to be judged by its quality, not how quickly it was finished.

XMark: Cagey B: Hodor.

Hodor!

Hodor!

moothemagiccow: It's just not up to you to decide what the plot of the book is or when it comes out. Sorry. I like the books and I understand what Martin said. At the end of the day, the work is going to be judged by its quality, not how quickly it was finished.

As you might notice the GOT threads are often bubbling with people biatching about the quality of the latest book or show compared to the quality of the last.

His books have taken a noticeable decline in quality. Feast was blah and Dragons had allot of the same problems just tacked on to more interesting characters. I will judge it on its quality -- that being said -- for the time invested in writing each book i would have expected the quality to be higher.

Imean -- 5 to 6 years for a fantasy novel follow up that ends up being a bit lackluster in allot of the audience's eyes? C'mon. The series gets a blowjob from pretty much everyone that picks it up. Im guilty -- i love the story. Doesnt mean i cant point out its flaws and biatch loudly about it on the internet.

And while i can understand splitting SoS and CoK into two seasons (3 seems to many for one book) It doesnt seem necessary. They cut allot from the first book in the first season and the same in the second -- My opinion is that no matter how many episodes you have in a season they will still end up cutting characters who were in the book and adding in crap that wasn't alluded to in to book.

But i honestly do think that they way they split the seasons had more to do with "lets not overtake the source matterial" than it did regarding having to cut scenes.