Current Events > Reading ASOIAF.

(+) Yeah! (+)

ScazarMeltex posted...

Have fun with pages long vivid descriptions of food and clothing while getting short paragraphs describing battles.

That isnt the case at all. 1/2 of a page is the longest deception of food AND clothes
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ScazarMeltex posted...

Have fun with pages long vivid descriptions of food and clothing while getting short paragraphs describing battles.

Plus, everything is grey-green. No need to repeat it for every object in every character's field of vision.
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Yeah, anything he says is bs to me. He's been hinting that it's nearly done for about 5 years now. I'll believe it when I see a release date from the publisher.

Till then, to quote the man himself, words are wind.
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Bad_Mojo posted...

ScazarMeltex posted...

Have fun with pages long vivid descriptions of food and clothing while getting short paragraphs describing battles.

That isnt the case at all. 1/2 of a page is the longest deception of food AND clothes

Dude, Joffrey's wedding is way over the top with that sort of nonsense. Is it interspersed with small bits of conversation between minor characters? Sure? Does it also have in depth details on what type of alcoholic beverage was in Tyrion's cup? You bet. It has songs and every trivial detail about the guy/girl who sings it.

It's not even that i'm opposed to that level of detail. It takes a good writer to cram that much level of detail into something and still tell a compelling story. The problem is that it permeates every scene of social gathering within the books and really fucks with pacing and flow. Especially when it's 9/10 times only the social gatherings that get that level of detail. Battles get glossed over in a paragraph or two because he rarely places the viewpoint character in them, and when he does he does things like knock out the viewpoint character part of the way so you can find out afterwards what happened when someone explains it to them. It's simply that he likes writing the fashion and food more than he does anything else. He's even said as much at a reading I went to back when Feast for Crows first came out. (Before the show was dreamed of and most people hadn't heard of the books, he still had time to do appearances at local small conventions and the like).

Tolstoy does the same thing, especially in War and Peace, though in that particular case it's his editorializing on the nature of history that drags it down.

All that being said, The Battle of The Black Water was one of the best written battles from multiple viewpoint characters I've read in fiction, so when he does want to the man can write a good long battle narrative.

I get it, it's probably just a personal preference thing, but I don't think it would hurt anything to tone it down a tiny bit.
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I always thought the song of ice and fire referenced in the title was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SGlPnA_iCk" data-time="
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AlephZero posted...

Just know the book series ends with Dance With Dragons. There won't be any more.

The consequences of opening tons of new plotlines without ever closing old ones off.
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ScazarMeltex posted...

when he does he does things like knock out the viewpoint character part of the way so you can find out afterwards what happened when someone explains it to them

I'm almost certain this doesn't happen in the book ever whereas it absolutely happened in the show because they didn't have the budget in season 1.

And FWIW, the lurid descriptions of food is meant to contrast the starvation of the simple folk.
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SomeLikeItHoth posted...

Do you think the next book will be out by then?

No.

Feline_Heart posted...

They should have Brandon Sanderson ghost write the books for George R.R. Martin

Dear god no. Their writing styles are far too different.

ScazarMeltex posted...

Battles get glossed over in a paragraph or two because he rarely places the viewpoint character in them, and when he does he does things like knock out the viewpoint character part of the way so you can find out afterwards what happened when someone explains it to them.

I think you might be getting GRRM confused with Tolkien here. Green Fork and Blackwater are pretty well written out.
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if you liked show tyrion, you'll love book tyrion
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Vegy posted...

if you liked show tyrion, you'll love book tyrion

Not Dance with Dragons Tyrion though. He fucking sucks
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SazhAndFrocobo posted...

Vegy posted...

if you liked show tyrion, you'll love book tyrion

Not Dance with Dragons Tyrion though. He fucking sucks

Tyrion himself, yes. His POV is a lot of fun, imo
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Yall really hate the Meereen stuff from ADwD? I thought it was pretty solid stuff.
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stoltenberg11 posted...

Yall really hate the Meereen stuff from ADwD? I thought it was pretty solid stuff.

Not at all

I like Feast and Dance a LOT more than most people, but that's because I'm a really long time fan of the series that, imo, I was better at adapting/learning all the new shit they introduced

By time Feast had come out I had read the series at least 50 times in the 6 years I had been reading the series up to that point. Most fans now days have read Game - Dance back to back, so of course you're going to hate the change all all the POVs in Feast and Dance, but for me, it was a very welcomed change because I knew everything between Game and Storm very, very well
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stoltenberg11 posted...

Yall really hate the Meereen stuff from ADwD? I thought it was pretty solid stuff.

In the first read through, no. Same with all of a feast.

But once I got through the stuff I DID like...the other stuff was much better. Affc is infinitely better on the re read FYI

I also enjoyed Feast and Dance a lot more on the second read, but I think part of that is that I used one of those lists online which put the two books in chronological order.
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Romes187 posted...

Affc is infinitely better on the re read FYI

Yeah I need to reread Feast. I didnt like it at first, particularly the Brienne stuff. I thought it was a whole lotta nothing since we knew she wasn't going in the right direction to find either Sansa or Arya.
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stoltenberg11 posted...

Yall really hate the Meereen stuff from ADwD? I thought it was pretty solid stuff.

Everything that takes place in Essos in Dance barring the two Selmy chapters is the worst stuff in the series. Everything that takes place in the North in Dance is the best stuff in the series.

I simultaneously love and hate Dance
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AlephZero posted...

Just know the book series ends with Storm of Swords.

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