So what’s the chances of Robert Jordan actually finishing the series?
So i ended up watching it all in 2 days…Shit went by way too fast & felt disappointed the show was over…Man i really like all the characters in this show, i mean almost every single ones…The wolves are awesome, red headed whore is awesome, even fat guys are awesome, the villains are awesome, good guys, etc…
So what do i do now? Anybody got the 2nd book? I want to read it, i haven’t read a book in 10 years, probably will start now…
Just finished dance. What the fuck with these cliffhanger endings.
Do I really wanna wait five more years to find out what happens?!
Still…far better than Feast. Dany is pretty dumb tho.
Ive dled the audio books atm… im on clash of kings sword of storms. havn’t synced up dance to teh iphone yet.
i get most of the show but was wondering about something…
The two brothers, the huge mofo & the one with burned face, do they hate each other? Was it a plot the whole time or did they really fought each other at the Jousting tournament…Im asking cuz at the end they were all there to capture Sean Bean’s character…Also the Leonardo skinny blonde gay guy, so he’s sleeping with the incest brother fucker & the kings brother, is he part of the lannister side? Could he be the douche bag father who is now king?
Anyway im going to check out the audio books, decided not to read heheh…Audio books any good?
IIRC the huge brother (Gregor) doesn’t hate the burned one. He doesn’t give a shit. He is probably the most straight-up evil character in the series. The burned one (Sandor) hates him, but is also shook by him since his brother is both huge, and fucked him up in the past. But they have the same boss (Lannisters), but Gregor is just aligned with the Lannisters as a Lord but does “special jobs” for them, while Sandor’s only job is a (very loyal) body guard to Joffrey. The skinny guy (Lancel) is sleeping with the queen, and he is a Lannister, but you already know who’s kids those are. Basically, you can just look at everyone’s hair color to figure out where they are aligned.
dance with dragons up to ending
[details=Spoiler]I felt bad when Mance tricked me twice in the same book (three times if you count him baiting everyone with the horn). I love that dude though.
Honestly, I didn’t remember Theon until I started watching the show. Jesus christ he got fucked up. I guess Ramsay cut off his dick? And was Asha flipping out because Theon wasn’t at the kingsmoot so he can call a redo?
And I fucking hate Dany. The more I think on it, the more I hate her. But I also can’t hate her, because she really is just some stupid girl. The only stuff she learned about responsibility came from her time with Drogo, and the dothraki don’t know much about responsibility or ruling cities. But she is so fucking capricious and just doesn’t look at problems that she makes, and everything that came down on her is her own fault. And she is always getting bailed out by ridiculous shit happening! Dragons being reborn, oldest knight of the kingsguard bailing her out, everyone wanting to fuck her or wanting to follow her because she has dragons. She almost let the plague victims into the city during a fucking siege!
Jon had it the roughest. Still making hard choices (those people in Halfhome or whatever are fucked, but he had to get them out or face the 4k zombies that they’ll make) and pretty much none of it is a situation he walked into by being silly. Fucking rough ending, but I can understand the nightwatch’s actions. [/details]
Dance with Dragons. MASSIVE SPOILERS, DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T READ DANCE. YOU WILL REGRET IT
[details=Spoiler]
So, I just finished the book on my brand new KINDLE hurray.
First let me begin by saying I feel very strongly this book is superior to Feast, but is still weaker than the original trilogy.
I enjoyed it for the most part, but it was too full of fillers. I really hated the wandering Brienne chapters in Feast, and we get that again with Tyrion. At least more shit happens to Tyrion, and he’s inherently a more interesting character - but it’s still ultimately boring. He spends the entire fucking book trying to reach Dany and never gets there.
George has grown his tendency to pad books with pointless discussion on topics that are pretty irrelevant. I also feel like we get too much introspection sometimes. How many times do I need to hear Tyrion reminiscing in his head about Shae, or the crossbow? How many times do I need to hear Jon complain about the difference in his life now that he’s the Lord Commander?
In Storm and Clash, things happen pretty rapidly, major plot elements happen one after the other.
The problem with this book is that there are just too many fucking cliffhangers! It’s like if Game of Thrones ended with Ned’s execution, or Clash ended with Renly’s death or Stannis landing to attack. Imagine Storm of Swords ending with the Red Wedding! In the earlier books we had cliffhanger moments, but then we got to actually see the fallout from those climactic events. In this one, Martin is giving me a handjob for too long with no payoff. I’m gettin fuckin blisters reading about Tyrion getting captured for the 12th time and Dany making more stupid as fuck decisions.
We have Jon getting the Caesar treatment, Stannis marching on Winterfell, Theon and Jeyne escaping, Aegon landing in Westeros, the situation on the Wall, the Pink Letter… Too much buildup here with too little payoff!
And then one of the big cliffhanger moments from the first book - Brienne - gets barely a fucking mention in this! We are left to deduce what she most likely said (Jaime) and her agreement to lead Jaime to UnCat in return for her life - yet another fucking cliffhanger that goes nowhere. At the end of the book, effectively, nothing big or major has happened that we can see the result of. Dany is basically back where she started, realizing she should have gone to Westeros. The entire side-show in Meereen has effectively accomplished nothing. A lot of interesting things happen to the characters that are ultimately minor. The Others are still persona non grata, mentioned only in shadows. Dragons still haven’t returned. Stannis hasn’t really conquered shit. Tommen is still king. Dorne is still ‘progressing’. The Ironborn are still the same. Not enough major shit has happened! The book feels like filler to me in too many places.
Now that I’ve finished bitching and expressing my general discontent for George’s overdone, padded writing style, let me talk about what were some of my favorite moments from this book, and what pretty much made it worth the day-1 purchase:
[LIST]
[]Barristan Selmy. It was nice to see him get his own POV chapter and reveal a little more about the past of the Targs. We also get to see some more perspective on Tywin Lannister, Robert, and Dany. One of my favorite moments in the book is when he’s calmly murkin one of the champions from the pit like it aint no thang. Another moment I like was when one of the sellswords throws a hostage’s head in front of the King of Meeren, and he’s musing on how his different kings would have handled it. Jahaerys would have ordered him arrested, Aerys would have recoiled in fear, cut himself on the throne, then shrieked for his guards to kill the dude …Robert would have roared, grabbed his fucking warhammer and gone to fucking town. Which brings me to my next point
[]Robert. Dude was not in this book, but every time he’s mentioned it just reiterates what a fucking badass he was, and I really hate that we never see that in the TV show. Every time warriors talk about Robert, it’s usually to say something along the lines of “Robert would have been hammering these walls down. A river never stopped him.” “It’s 15 days hard marching to Winterfell. Robert would have done it in 10, and then beat 3 different armies when he got there.” “Robert would have jumped from his throne and started slayin fools left and right.” Even Stannis gets exasperated by this shit and talks about how “Yes yes, if Robert were here, he’d singlehandedly scale the walls with a battle axe in each hand, I know.”
[]Wyman Manderly. This dude is one of my new favorite characters. He does such an incredibly cunning about-face, tricking Roose Bolton, the Freys, Davos, Stannis - EVERYONE. I remember when Davos gets there, and what an awful character you think Manderly is at first. This guy’s SON was killed at the Red Wedding, and yet he has Freys in his household, entertaining them, ‘buying’ their story of how it was all Rob’s fault the Red Wedding happened, meekly sucking up to Roose Bolton, ordering Davos to be executed. Then the moment he speaks to Davos in private - and how he talks about “They think I’m weak because I’m fat, but they don’t know.” He swears vengeance…how the Freys will pay, the Boltons will pay, how the north never forgets. I’ve never wanted to see a family get slaughtered as much as the Freys, and this fat bastard starts picking them off, one by one, and feeding them to each other. That’s right - did you catch that? He kills a bunch of Freys and bakes them into pies and feeds them to the other Freys. Laughing and playing the role of fat jolly man the entire time. It’s not just the Boltons or the Lannisters who can be cunning and crafty and tricky. Which brings me to my next point:
[]**The North Remembers. **I love the feeling of how even though they lost the war, the Northmen hate the Freys, don’t really respect the Boltons, and are a bunch of mean sons of bitches who have to be treated very carefully. The Umbar especially; Roose talks about how “If you didn’t have his uncle in chains, he’d probably rip your throat out with his bare hands.” They also have to treat the memory of Ned Stark very carefully because the Northmen universally respected him and any slight to his honor is enough to make them spill blood.
[]Reek. I didn’t think I’d like this character, but the Theon chapters are actually some of the most harrowing and interesting in the entire book. They’re grim, but still have a dramatic bit of hope in them that actually works for me very well. I was pleasantly surprised. The only problem is the FUCKING CLIFFHANGER ENDING! The moment when he’s trying to escape with Jeyne is actually incredibly suspenseful to me, because you know just how crazy Ramsay Bolton is.
[]Roose Bolton. I don’t like this character, but I can’t help but respect how scary he is to his opponents. Ramsay is flaying motherfuckers for even daring to call him by his last name “Snow” or if he even hears the word bastard - then Roose walks in, starts talking about him being a bastard, and how “You’re beginning to make me regret raping your mother.” Ramsay just sits there and takes it. He’s smart, too, and knows how to play the game, something his bastard son is too psychopathic to realize. Ramsay and Gregor are tying for some of the most vile characters, which Ramsay maybe a little bit less evil because Gregor was just stone cold murderous without giving a fuck.
[*]Slynt gettin got. 'nuff said.[/details]
[/LIST]
dance with dragons spoilers
[details=Spoiler]I did get tired of Tyrion’s complaining about his father and “where do whores go” and whatnot, but Tywin was the final boss of Tyrion’s life. Kills his dad, kills his whore, jumps a boat and basically as he can do is think. He does start to get over it later when he meets up with Penny and Jorah, but up until then he didn’t have a purpose. He wanted to reach Dany, but he didn’t have a hardon for it like most everyone else and this book was basically a big “What now?” for him.
For Jon, he was voted to his position a year ago. He has been at the wall for two years before he got booted up to lord commander.
There was a lot of “Robert had the biggest dick”, wasn’t there? I guess because people are just looking back at shit being tight with him, and how focused he was on winning that war. He wanted revenge and to get his precious Lysana back, whereas Stannis is… what? Trying to become the rightful ruler because it is his responsibility?
I missed the pie thing. Which I’m pissed about, since I was looking for it!
Dany is a dumb fucking cunt.
Well, this book was the cliffhanger book since we only have two left. I don’t remember reading Clash (that was what, 10 years ago?) but I guess this one was the same thing.[/details]
More about Dance
[details=Spoiler]
The problem is, Martin could have easily given us at least one big climax in this book. You could have given us a Meereen showdown with results, you could have given us Jon’s “death” and obvious rebirth as Azhor As’hai or whatever, you could have given us the Others finally attacking in force, you could have given us Victarion or Tyrion meeting Dany, you could have given us the battle of Winterfell and the results - there are so many things he could have done that we don’t get to see. He could have given us the first use of Dragons in war, and that would have fit right in the with the title. I don’t mind cliffhangers, but really we should have gotten SOMETHING resolved in this book so it doesn’t feel like a giant cocktease.
Regarding Wyman Manderly; my first suspicions were confirmed upon a re-read.
“Three great wedding pies, as wide across as wagon wheels.” Notice how the main ingredient is ‘pork’ (which is supposed to taste a lot like human flesh). Notice how Manderly makes sure to serve them to the Freys and Bolton first. "The best pie you have ever tasted, my lords. Wash it down with Arbor gold and savor every bite. I know I shall."
Notice how happy he is devouring this stuff. "The lord of white harbor was the very picture of the jolly fat man, laughing and smiling, japing with the other lords and slapping them on the back."
Notice how he asks for a song called “The Rat Cook” which is about a member of the Night’s Watch breaking the Guest Right and feeding people to oblivious guests.
Also I remember someone connected to Martin mentioning that in Dance there would be someone killed and cooked into a pie. So it all comes together quite easily.
He gets a pretty badass line too. When they find the body of the 9 year old Frey that was killed…
“Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise. Otherwise, the boy would have grown up to be a Frey.” Fucking owned.
As far as Jon, I feel his decisions were questionable in some areas, but nowhere near as bad as Dany’s. Him locking up Ghost at the end was so ridiculously contrived, with the reason being lame in the extreme. That was a really bone-headed decision[/details]
Wyman Manderly…“Would you like Freys with that?”
Got it on saturday, haven’t had much time to read it. Only on page 100, 800ish more pages to go.
FUCK YEAH REPAY THOSE DEBTS TYRION DON’T LET ME DOWN AND DON’T FUCKING DIE PLS!
dance
[details=Spoiler]The pacing issues might just be a victim of how the books are basically short story and this was basically the second half of FFC. He said that he pulled some chapters from the end of this one to put at the start of Winter, and I know that he had been sitting on the first Dany chapter for something like ten years, since that was the preview chapter he released after storm. What more payoff could he have written?
Without Dany there a Meereenesse is even more pointless since we don’t even have a dumb bitch reason to care about what happens there.
If the others had started attacking, that would change pretty much everything up north. The people at hardhome would have been left for fucked, Bran would be even more useless, and the timing would have been fucked for POV characters to experience it.
I’m not really disagreeing with you about the experience, but I made my peace long ago that this wasn’t going to be the action-packed hardass motherfucking book of the series. But according to amazon rankings, a lot of people agree with you.[/details]
Gotta get me those books.
just started dance with dragons and it’s meh so far. a review on amazon said it had major cliffhangers. i have noticed that i’m not spending every free minute reading it though. once i started the first 3 books, i didn’t do anything else with my free time but read them. with dragons i’m playing ps3 or on the computer or anything else. i’ve actually forgotten it’s there for me to read once or twice. hopefully it picks up. man so much time invested in this damn series.
i just started clash of kings yesterday, on page 80-ish at the moment… i really cant guess whats gonna happen next lol
Dude. Good call…never even occurred to me re:Theon and the Kingsmoot.
dwd was a bad book. Very dissapointed. Like someone said to much filler, not enough of anything. Waited so long, and he gives us shit and we supposed to lap it up. Very disgusted. Erickson finished a 10 book marathon in between two of these, and doesn’t get half the recognition . What a world we live in.
goddamnit i’m on page 200 and there is definitely a lot of filler.
YEAAAAAAAAAAH
Spoiler
but man page 110 and jon snow handling shit shit LIKE A BOSS was epic. just how eddard would have done it too. slynt you stupid noob don’t fuck with the commander. But scenes like that are few and far between
Music vid includes spoilers
[media=youtube]60Znn2_jDIc[/media]
^lol.
anyway, i really wanted to enjoy dance, bad. as upset as i was with the 5 year fucking wait to get the second half of a crappy book…i was really willing to give it a chance. i bought it the second it came out, brought my kindle with me everywhere so i could read it in my down time - paid close attention and picked up on little subtle things others might have missed - all this, and i was still disappointed.
it really comes down to this - it doesn’t feel like martin enjoys writing about this world anymore. his behavior really adds to this feeling as well. the way he drags his feet, his silly little rules about the situations he doesn’t feel he can write in, his endless delays, his refusal to discuss it for such a long time, his constant talking about other projects that no one gives a shit about (fuck you wild cards), all this makes me feel like he’s just bored of this world and has lost that energetic spark.
reading the first three books, it was like a man excited about the world he was building, excited about the stories, the characters, excited about what he was going to DO with them and he wanted to get there as smoothly and quickly as possible. Remember when Catelyn left for King’s Landing in one chapter, and then arrived there next chapter? It’s because the journey was unimportant - that shit was filler - what happened to her IN King’s Landing was important.
reading the last two, it was like he wasn’t really sure what to do anymore, he couldn’t figure out where he was going, he just had to fill up the pages with something, and he kept thinking back and forth on what to write. adding, deleting, adding, deleting - this is not a good sign in an author, i don’t care what anyone tells you.
i don’t get the impression of a clear vision. i don’t get a sense of his excitement for these characters. it shows up in a lot of ways - the tired cliches, the empty characterizations of the main viewpoints - it feels like Dance was a homework assignment to him, a very unwelcome homework assignment. “This one was a three bitches and a bastard”, indeed it was, and that feeling comes across in his writing style.
I really just feel he’s bored and out of ideas. He’s tired of Westeros, he isn’t sure what to do anymore, and he’s just stringing things along with random WTF moments thrown in to try and maintain our interest and fake excitement. It’s similar to sudden loud sounds or ‘GOTCHA’ moments in scary movies trying to evoke fear when the plot itself is unable to do so.
There are only a few moments where I get a sense of the old Martin. Reading Theon’s chapters were interesting. Theon actually had an arc, an evolution, and you got the sense that George enjoyed telling this story. Too bad he had to ruin it with yet another cliffhanger ending. In fact, this was one of the few true cliffhangers in the book, in my opinion. The other ‘cliffhangers’ were never set up properly and are more like ‘dangling threads’ that came out of nowhere.
Erikson’s series is goofy as hell. Definitely the goofiest epic fantasy that I’ve read.
Yes. Goofier than Goodkind.
What cliffhangers?
Spoiler
Dany runs into the horde led by one of Drogo’s old crew.
Jon dies around a chick that can revive the dead.
Tyrion hires/sells out to some scummy sellswords.
Stannis is dead? Maybe just generally fucked? Who knows. Who cares.
Aside from Jon (who you reminded me has that red mage chilling with him), none of them are really more cliffhanger-y than most chapters.
Best author for pace and quality, IMO, is Sanderson. Pure quality is Martin. Pace might be Erikson.
I should make a thread for fantasy/sci-fi/speculative fiction books. Dresden files new book comes out soon, and so does probably my most awaited book for the year Circle of Enemies.