Current Events > Authors don't owe you a sequel and if you trash them for it you're an asshole.

(+) Yeah! (+)

DeadBankerDream posted...

I don't think Clash of Kings is particularly great.

In fact, I think it's the second worst after Dance with Dragons. I don't really get the dislike for Feast, I guess. I found the new perspectives engaging.

Nothing really happens in Feast. It doesn't continue off the momentum of Storm of Swords very well. Plus it was a shock to have so many major POVs like Jon,Tyrion, Daenarys..etc cut out to focus on the secondary ones.

Slayerblade11 posted...

Nothing really happens in Feast. It doesn't continue off the momentum of Storm of Swords very well. Plus it was a shock to have so many major POVs like Jon,Tyrion, Daenarys..etc cut out to focus on the secondary ones.

I liked feast though. I loved the new characters, there was still lots of intrigue, and it was moving the story forward even if it and dance with dragons lacked big events.

I'm probably biased because I read through Wheel of Time so I know what it's really like for the story to drag....

Agreed 100%.

I would love a sequel but I also think it's wonderful enough we got a beginning.

Funnily enough I was watching a documentary today about Richard Feynman and other physicists were sometimes annoyed that he had other life interests that took his time. Some people are the worst.

How did Neil Gaiman put it - "George R R Martin is not your bitch."

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Maybe much story advancement didn't happen, I guess, but I still enjoyed it thoroughly. Not much happens until the last quarter of the first book, it's mostly setting up stuff, and I'm okay with that, in fact it's probably what I enjoy most. Feast is sort of like that for the Dorne and Iron Isles regions, and I find it deeply interesting. Especially Dorne. Though I'll admit it's probably a bit late in the franchise to return to such a slow pace.
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DeadBankerDream posted...

Maybe much story advancement didn't happen, I guess, but I still enjoyed it thoroughly. Not much happens until the last quarter of the first book, it's mostly setting up stuff, and I'm okay with that, in fact it's probably what I enjoy most. Feast is sort of like that for the Dorne and Iron Isles regions, and I find it deeply interesting. Especially Dorne. Though I'll admit it's probably a bit late in the franchise to return to such a slow pace.

The slower pace makes a lot of sense imo. A sense of false peace prior to an impending storm, where rebuilding is completely borked by a character which represents the worst of all the high born in the Seven Kingdoms: Cersei. Obviously that's an over simplification of what happens, but still. And we have all the characters reflecting on who they are and what they want to be in the fallout of what happened. I think it's just hard to swallow then the following crescendo doesn't exist, and there's a good chance it never will. If the series is ever finished, I think a lot of people will change their tune on Feast.

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Nah feast is bad and much worse than cok. He should have stuck with the timeskip instead. Y'all are comparing the pacing of the fourth, unplanned book that was meant to be handled though flashbacks to the first book in the series, that's insane. And it's not even fair to the first book, which does a better job of moving things along even though they need to introduce us to an entirely new setting.

I also read wot, you're allowed to like bad books but that doesn't make them good. I mean I starting reading these book series when I was 12.

I don't really feel the need to belabor this point though, I'd argue that more people who bitch at grrm agree with me than you two regardless of who is right. Maybe I'm wrong but I've only seen a positive reception to like 2-3 chapters in DWD and none for feast over most of the internet

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For example, Jon being denied a seat at the table and the subsequent conversations are much more meaningful to the story than the volumes of aerons history which are mostly shared through exposition

If you already want to like the books I can see not understanding the difference, but the writing is better both mechanically (mixing thoughts with actions with dialogue) and in terms of economy (they show us why Jon is sad about being a bastard instead of letting us see him think 'I'm so sad I'm a bastard' over and over, which is closer to aeron in feast)

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Not sure why you assume I disagree with what you're saying. Well, yeah, I disagree that Feast is ultimately bad, but everything of substance you're saying is right.
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Mybad man I didn't mean anything rude by it

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I didn't mean to imply you were being rude, if indeed I did.

My bad man.
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Balrog0 posted...

Nah feast is bad and much worse than cok. He should have stuck with the timeskip instead. Y'all are comparing the pacing of the fourth, unplanned book that was meant to be handled though flashbacks to the first book in the series, that's insane. And it's not even fair to the first book, which does a better job of moving things along even though they need to introduce us to an entirely new setting.

I also read wot, you're allowed to like bad books but that doesn't make them good. I mean I starting reading these book series when I was 12.

I don't really feel the need to belabor this point though, I'd argue that more people who bitch at grrm agree with me than you two regardless of who is right. Maybe I'm wrong but I've only seen a positive reception to like 2-3 chapters in DWD and none for feast over most of the internet

*shrug*

For me, how well plot moves has never been that important for writing. I am a big fan of slow, indulgent writing. For instance, "Fly" is one of my favorite episodes in Breaking Bad (top 5 probably), and the second half of the last season dropped in quality because they moved through plot points at a break neck pace (in comparison to other parts of the series). Particularly when there are great books where the plot isn't that important or isn't even coherent.

Edit: In general I'm less sensitive to pacing issues compared to other people. There are examples which are egregiously bad (like Walking Dead having half season which are 100% pointless garbage), but I don't this Feast or DWD is one of them.

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Another caveat I should add is that I've only read them once, and I read them all rather quickly. This is why I mentioned I read them all in a month (the first month of quarantine lol).

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Jabodie posted...

Another caveat I should add is that I've only read them once, and I read them all rather quickly. This is why I mentioned I read them all in a month (the first month of quarantine lol).

Honestly I think this is probably the big difference between how people receive slower-paced storytelling. When you can just read things back to back to back and individual novel that doesn't feel like it covered much ground isn't a particularly big deal. When you have to wait years between novels, you'll finish that same individual novel and feel like you barely moved forward from 5 years earlier.

Except now with Winds of Winter we are going on 10 years. With the two preceding novels released in the last 20 years being mostly rising action and set up for the Phase 2 of the story.

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