-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
A Song of Ice and Fire -- **Unmarked Spoilers For All Books including ADWD**
- Thread starter Pollux
- Start date
- Status
blainethemono
Member
Where do you even get those though? I see Sandkings on Amazon but Tuf Voyaging looks pretty expensive
I don't know about Wildcards, but I enjoyed quite a bit the Dunk and Egg stories and Dying of the Light. There's more to him than ASIOFAF books, and I think that the man deserves to have a break from them from time to time (plus I love his take on science fiction).
Also, I think that it would be a mistake to use how much he talks on his blog about the books as a valid measurement of how much he is working on them. He seems to be quite weary of commenting anything in that regard after the whole "Yup, ADWD is almost finished" fiasco.
Didn't he said time ago that there won't be any new POVs in the Winds of Winter nor Hope of Spring? (sans the customary prologe / epiloge POVs)
Also, I think that it would be a mistake to use how much he talks on his blog about the books as a valid measurement of how much he is working on them. He seems to be quite weary of commenting anything in that regard after the whole "Yup, ADWD is almost finished" fiasco.
Didn't he said time ago that there won't be any new POVs in the Winds of Winter nor Hope of Spring? (sans the customary prologe / epiloge POVs)
Let me describe how awful Wild Cards is. In the first Wild Cards novel, there is a short story where a loner geek out of touch with 60s culture does acid and for a brief moment gains super powers. The Super Power? Being a SUPER HIPPIE or something. Seriously.
Fuck this Wild Cards crap.
Fuck this Wild Cards crap.
Basileus777
Member
He may have said that, but I'm not sure why we would believe him. GRRM is hardly the most disciplined person when it comes to limiting POVs or avoiding self indulgent tangents.
Even if you want to say he deserves a break, he took 12 years to basically finish one book. With the worst part of it being the big "problem" he mentioned for years, wasn't even resolved. I've come to the conclusion long before Dance even came out. He is never going to finish the series. I think he just doesn't know how to wrap everything up and that is why it keeps taking so long.
Add on he badly needs to have a professional blog and a personal one separate.
its unfortunately out of print. I had to buy a haggard used copy. The GRRM anthology Dreamsongs has Sandkings and 2 Tuf stories though.
blainethemono
Member
I have Dreamsongs Vol. II for the first Dunk & Egg novella...found the hardcover on sale at the book store for like 7 dollars, but I dont have the first volume
HowardRoark
Member
Is there not a collection of the Dunk and Egg stories in one book (preferably Kindle)?
At least it sounds like the fourth Dunk and Egg story is finished and his involvement with The Lands of Ice and Fire is over, but he still has The World of Ice and Fire to work on, and GRRM usually spends all summer traveling to conventions, so I don't expect him to make much progress on any of his other projects soon.
Emerson
May contain jokes =>
Read GRRM's blog post, came here hoping for positive reactions, instead get more negativity and baseless speculation. Silly me.
I'm glad he's working on TWOW. If you listen to some people here they'd have you believe he hadn't written a word of it aside from what was done for ADWD simply because he wasn't blogging about it.
It seems to me a lot of his other projects are winding down so hopefully he'll be able to focus more on TWOW in the future.
I'm glad he's working on TWOW. If you listen to some people here they'd have you believe he hadn't written a word of it aside from what was done for ADWD simply because he wasn't blogging about it.
It seems to me a lot of his other projects are winding down so hopefully he'll be able to focus more on TWOW in the future.
bengraven
Member
I'm more worried that he's putting too much on his plate. Not in a "he's never going to finish Winds" way, but in a "he's going to start suffering from exhaustion" way. He's not a healthy young man and I know he's gotten used to flying around the world every few weeks, it sounds like his schedule is getting even worse and he's more busy than ever.
Last thing we need is him falling over dead from exhaustion.
Though I would prefer he die from work than from a deep dish pizza. Kidding...obviously.
I am looking forward to his anthologies, though. I've only read his Dying Earth anthology but that was incredibly well put together (and his story was my favorite - which shocked me since I expected to like the Gaiman or Simmons story first).
Last thing we need is him falling over dead from exhaustion.
Though I would prefer he die from work than from a deep dish pizza. Kidding...obviously.
I am looking forward to his anthologies, though. I've only read his Dying Earth anthology but that was incredibly well put together (and his story was my favorite - which shocked me since I expected to like the Gaiman or Simmons story first).
Agreed.
PhoenixDark
Banned
Froggy is the avatar he uses when giving fans casting hints, it's not a Reed reference.
Always good to hear from Martin, although I must admit it's odd that someone with so many obligations would go to so many conventions, speeches, etc; to be fair all of them are obligations as well, planned ages ago, but I hope he can take a break for that and finish his backlog. Not even TWOW, the stuff that will come out before that.
Also, Martin's comment on the Dothraki is one of many things that makes me believe Dany won't be going back to Meereen anytime soon. I'm starting to think she will fulfill the Stallion prophesy and unite all the khalasars. Which could take a long time.
BenjaminBirdie
Banned
Long form series (books/tv) really bring out the worst in some of their audiences. I was so psyched to finish the books and start taking part in the spoiler free conversation and then I find all these people slagging off the dude who came up with the thing they like in the first place.
When you wait for a book for eleven years, you start to get irritated when it seems like he'll never finish the story. The dude is old and fat, and he's not getting any younger. And his schedule certainly isn't getting any tinier. If he takes as long on the next two books as he did on the last one, we'll never get closure. To me, that's worth getting a little annoyed over.
electroshockwave
Member
The "stallion who mounts the world" one? I think it would have died at the same time that her and Drogo's baby did. Fuck anything that doesn't involve her getting back to Westeros as soon as possible.
It could still be in play if the "stallion" is actually one of her dragons. He could "mount" the world through the submission he would exercise on the world through sheer might.
Emerson
May contain jokes =>
I recognize I must seem like a young, starry-eyed optimist since I didn't have to wait through those long intervals. But the negativity is just truly oppressive. You can hardly have a positive discussion about this series anymore.
I always assumed Drogon was the stallion who mounts the world.
bishopcruz
Member
You assume it's only going to be two books. If he doesn't start shaving POVs it's going to be three at least.
I would imagine that we're going to be seeing a lot of characters get knocked out during TWoW, and aDoS will bring us back to a core 5-7 narrative POV's with one or two one-offs.
Majmun
Member
Yes, I expect some sort of genocide in the next book. I wouldn't miss:
- Victarion
- Asha (but I'm sure they'll kill Theon instead)
- Arienne
- Hugo
- Aeron
I'm sure Jaime's and Brienne's POV's will blend together again, with Brienne being the main POV. And if they'll find Sansa, the three POV's can come together into one.
I want more:
- Arya and Melisandre
I want to learn more about Mel. We'll probably know more about her when they introduce the city of Ashai. And I wonder where Arya will go after she's become a faceless man.
The Bran POV has been very vague and kept at a minumum in ADWD. So I expect GRRM to flesh out his POV in the following book. But I don't know if I'm interested or not...
And then we have Davos who's on his way to Rickon and Osha.
Don't know how relevant that story arc will be...
Pffff the next book needs to be at least 2000 pages long with all the shit that's currently happening and is about to happen.
I can't believe this was supposed to be a trology at first. :|
- Victarion
- Asha (but I'm sure they'll kill Theon instead)
- Arienne
- Hugo
- Aeron
I'm sure Jaime's and Brienne's POV's will blend together again, with Brienne being the main POV. And if they'll find Sansa, the three POV's can come together into one.
I want more:
- Arya and Melisandre
I want to learn more about Mel. We'll probably know more about her when they introduce the city of Ashai. And I wonder where Arya will go after she's become a faceless man.
The Bran POV has been very vague and kept at a minumum in ADWD. So I expect GRRM to flesh out his POV in the following book. But I don't know if I'm interested or not...
And then we have Davos who's on his way to Rickon and Osha.
Don't know how relevant that story arc will be...
Pffff the next book needs to be at least 2000 pages long with all the shit that's currently happening and is about to happen.
I can't believe this was supposed to be a trology at first. :|
PhoenixDark
Banned
Agreed. Considering Victarion has the horn, I have a feeling Dany won't go back for awhile. Her knowing how to control Drogon now, and with multiple Khalasars at her back, I think she'll be able to re-take the horn and fight off two wild wild dragons.
POVs:
I think a lot of them won't be prominent simply because they were meant to serve specific parts of the story at one time. Barriston will certainly have some POVs to tell us what's happening in Meereen, but Tyrion is there also. I think Barriston's POV numbers will be low enough for him not to take much space; same with Victarion. The main POVs will certainly be Dany, Jon (eventually), and Tyrion with an extended return of original characters like Sansa and Arya
Not as of right now. Last I heard he's finished the 4th one but they're waiting on the other books in the collection before it is published. After that they plan on releasing them all together. Thats what I'm (patiently!) waiting for
I love the books, it's just really irritating to see GRRM working on some garbage like Wild Cards, when his legacy is sitting there unfinished, a tv show is going to be rapidly catching up to where he is, and he's old and fat and there's no way he's getting younger. And he said he doesn't have an outline for his story, something like "he knows the destination but not exactly how the journey will go." So there's real danger that if he dies there will never be closure for the near endless mysteries the series has presented so far, and that's worth being a little paranoid over. It's not some imagined problem.
I'm trying not to jinx it >_<
It can't be that easy to write a 400k word novel. Especially if you are a perfectionist. Tolkien took 10 years to write Lord of the Rings and that isn't much longer than A Dance With Dragons.
That said, I am hoping the wait for Winds of Winter is 3-4 years in total instead of 5-6.
The place for this whining is over here -> http://www.iswintercoming.com/
(Just found it the other day, can't believe it exists)
(Just found it the other day, can't believe it exists)
BenjaminBirdie
Banned
Well, obviously I'll never be able to relate, as I read them all over a half year, but one would imagine that the continuity of consciousness (that this is the same brain that came up with the books in the first place so the current gadabouting can only be looked at as a direct result of creating the first set of books; there is no other logical conclusion) would be enough to just chalk it up to circumstance and pick up reading something else until he releases the next one. There's no dimension that exists where writing 1-5 didn't result in the time GRRM is taking to finish the next one. I can't imagine that a writer, even one as cruel and food obsessed as he, would willfully keep prose hostage in his brain just to spurn his audience, as much as their cloying senses of entitlement might compel him to do so.
Perhaps I am simply too pragmatic.
Comics make you patient as well. I'm still waiting for Joe Mad to finish Battle Chasers.
i read over a hundred books per year, reading something else isn't the issue. It's just as I say. This is his legacy, and he doesn't have an outline for the story, so if he dies, the story dies with him. And with the rate he is writing now and the projects he is swamped with, every day that passes without him focusing on the last two books makes it less likely we'll ever have closure. That is a problem; we have invested in the series, we ARE entitled to something.
Basileus777
Member
Who said anything about holding things hostage? He's just a writer who had the structure of his story fall apart because of poor planning and has been spending the last decade plus trying to piece it back together. I'd think one of the reasons he spends time on other projects is that he needs to do something he enjoys, because the foreword to ADWD certainly makes it seem like writing ASOIAF in recent years has been a pretty arduous task for him.
i think its better of tyrion is genuinely tywin's son
it makes his character arc much more powerful
My friends who were at Cyanide during the GoT game development told me something interesting. After the meetings with Martin and his assistant Tyr, they felt that Martin was preparing Tyr to take is place if need be. Apparently the guy knew the lore better that Martin himself, as at times he corrected him on various things.
Martin also told them some spoilers to prevent conflicts with their game, notably a few things that were contradicted in ADWD (for example, the strong hint about Jon's mother in the book really, really surprised them). They suspect that Tyr wrote a few chapter of that book as well, as a "test".
Take it with a grain of salt, this is second/third hand information, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was some truth in it.
Martin also told them some spoilers to prevent conflicts with their game, notably a few things that were contradicted in ADWD (for example, the strong hint about Jon's mother in the book really, really surprised them). They suspect that Tyr wrote a few chapter of that book as well, as a "test".
Take it with a grain of salt, this is second/third hand information, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was some truth in it.
That site just led me to Jaime Lannister x Winnie the Pooh erotic literature...
What sort of dark place have you brought me to...
Remind me again, what was the hint to Jon's mother in Dance? I seem to remember Dance throwing out a few hints at Ashara or Wylla, and nothing really that backed up R+L, but I don't remember anything that seemed too huge.
BenjaminBirdie
Banned
PhoenixDark
Banned
I don't think he's preparing Tyr to take his place, but the story is still interesting. On lore, Martin has readily admitted that he doesn't remember many details off hand, and relies on people like Tyr but especially Elio and Linda Garcia to set him straight. Both Elio and Garcia read a whole lot of ADWD beforehand; Elio mentioned he read one of the Jon chapters almost ten years ago in fact. So he certainly has a brain trust of his most loyal fans and supporters who help him; in fact he's writing The World Of Ice and Fire with Elio and Linda, and Elio has said it'll have some rather juicy information in it.
I have no problem with Martin being Martin, ie going to conventions and giving speeches and hanging with the BwB; that's who he is. And considering how big of a 2011 he had, it's not surprising that he's still marveling in the spoils. At some point this year he's going to get back to writing, and will finish the various projects he has on the table. Then he'll pick up TWOW, which he has said he looks forward to doing.
Fans are certainly wary of predictions, but I still maintain that with the Meereenese Knot unraveled (for the most part), this next book will not take forever to finish. After all, he's finally on HBO's clock here as well. I truly think it'll come out in the next 2-3 years (3 being far more likely). You can tell that Martin has enjoyed the attention ADWD's release brought him, and I expect he'll want more of it asap
I have no problem with Martin being Martin, ie going to conventions and giving speeches and hanging with the BwB; that's who he is. And considering how big of a 2011 he had, it's not surprising that he's still marveling in the spoils. At some point this year he's going to get back to writing, and will finish the various projects he has on the table. Then he'll pick up TWOW, which he has said he looks forward to doing.
Fans are certainly wary of predictions, but I still maintain that with the Meereenese Knot unraveled (for the most part), this next book will not take forever to finish. After all, he's finally on HBO's clock here as well. I truly think it'll come out in the next 2-3 years (3 being far more likely). You can tell that Martin has enjoyed the attention ADWD's release brought him, and I expect he'll want more of it asap
Basileus777
Member
A scrapped 5 year gap, the "Mereenese Knot," changes in POVs and a ton of scrapped material, GRRM has been struggling with structural problems to his story for over a decade. Maybe you didn't notice it reading, but this isn't a question, he's talked about it at length over the years.
PhoenixDark
Banned
I'd love for him to do a lengthy analysis/de-construction of the book, perhaps through an interview with Elio. It would be interesting to hear him discuss the situation with a lot of detail, how he got over the hump (he's often said the Barriston POV helped majorly), etc
Count of Monte Sawed-Off
un33dab@dpu$$y
He definitely seemed burned out last year. The shows seems to have rejunivated him a bit.
RatskyWatsky
Hunky Nostradamus
What?
i honestly felt that last book left way too many questions opened... heck, it didnt close any of the plot twists, did it?
I have made a policy to stop reading series until it has been completed, just because of that, but GRRM is such a good writer and i am a sucker for a good story but darn, i shouldnt have read it at all. It builds, builds, builds... the end.
I should go back and re-read Malazeean empire books so i know wtf is happening in Dust of Dreams. It is not easy to remember thousands of pages that went before and I can finally read it since the Crippled God is out.
I much prefer Eriksons handling of the volumes, which are relatively self contained, just like Glen Cooks.
Not easy to find good Fantasy these days anymore, even Sci-Fi.
njean777
Member
Just got to the part in the third book were Robb and Catlyn get killed, I was so fucking angry I almost threw the book across my room, I am literally sad about this development as I was hoping Robb would win. I am a Stark follower by heart and really am sad this happened. Now I don't know WTF is going to happen. I already know Bran becomes something other then himself though, and Arya becomes an assassin I think. But I just see no way the Starks are going to have their revenge and I am really sad that Bran doesn't stay as himself and supposedly becomes a tree? I really don't want any spoilers from the other books as I haven't read any of them yet, but I just hope the Starks come back, because as it is now the Lannisters need to pay badly.
I read somewhere that he actually told the ending of the series to the HBO producers incase he does die. That way the series will be finished even if something bad were to happen to him. So I wouldn't worry about it much.
I read somewhere that he actually told the ending of the series to the HBO producers incase he does die. That way the series will be finished even if something bad were to happen to him. So I wouldn't worry about it much.
PhoenixDark
Banned
To be fair, ADWD doesn't go too far beyond AFFC in timeline; it was more a book about catching up than advancing the overall story. Still, I think there's a clear picture of where the series is going now, and a lot of things happened in the book despite the timeline issue.
I'm not sure everything can be addressed in two books, but then again who knows. The war has decimated so much of Westeros that it shouldn't be hard for Aegon (or whoever) to take over right in time for the Others to show up. At which point Dany swoops in
I'm not sure everything can be addressed in two books, but then again who knows. The war has decimated so much of Westeros that it shouldn't be hard for Aegon (or whoever) to take over right in time for the Others to show up. At which point Dany swoops in
that may be.... but book itself wont be done before 2014 at earliest, while last one left so many cliffhangers. It is just not satisfying when you are left empty after reading few hundred pages.
njean777
Member
Yeah that makes since, but he has to make it where you are wanting more in the end, even though a lot of cliffhangers may not be the best way, but it gets the job done.
Basileus777
Member
2014 is probably impossible, the next book is probably going to have to be another 350k+ word monster, he's not writing that in two years.
- Status