A Song of Ice and Fire (Book discussion)

[Man0warr]

Jordan felt like he was expanding the story just for money's sake (or his publisher got him into a contract to produce like 15 books), whereas I think Martin just wrote himself into a corner.

[Bweigelt]

When he wrote the first two books he said that the entire series would be done in 2-3 more books when obviously it won't be. Jordan caught a lot of heat for his never ending series. Which I don't understand because I like having another book to read in the series.

Uhh Martin had planned for it to be a six book series right from the start. It would have stayed a six book series but his publisher didn't want to publish a book longer than ASOS (although ADWD is now bigger than that so they could have left AFFC and ADWD together) and made him split the 4th book when it was pretty much complete. Martin didn't think he had a good place to split the books chronologically so he split it by character which unfortunately created it's own problems and resulted in him pretty much rewriting ADWD entirely. We won't know if he made the right choice by splitting by character until we get the book, but the series still only has two books left after ADWD.

[Palin]

GRRM put up a writeup of his endeavors putting a DDWD together. Quite an interesting read.

[Tyche]

Just finished book 1...

Spoiler: show

So, I kept reading and reading the last 15%. And I kept remembering reading "Dad is skinnier than I remember" and "That head doesn't really look like him". I recall Varys being a master of disguise and visiting Ned. So, I put the fucking obvious together, especially after Yoren took Arya, and assumed Ned was switched. So I kept reading and reading and reading, waiting for the last chapter to be an Arya chapter where it's revealed that Ned is alive and then the book ends. Never fucking happened. I knew it was going to be incredibly predictable, and it wasn't. I didn't see that shit with Dany coming at all. I figured she may just walk in the fire and not get burned...but the fucking dragons? It was an epic, unexpected end to the novel, albeit disappointing, as I expected Ned to be alive. With that said, I prefer you don't reply with "be patient", or "he's really dead, or anything else that my spoil it for me.

Is the 2nd book as good as the first?

[Doombear]

I think the 2nd book is even better in a lot of ways and the 3rd was damn good also. The 4th is my least favorite so far but that, I think, has a lot to do with Martin having to edit it in a way he hadn't originally planned on.

[Tyche]

Is the 2nd book battle heavy? I think I enjoyed this book a lot because it was more political than battle. I found myself a bit bored with the battle scenes that didn't involve Tyrion. All the Tyrion chapters were fantastic.

[Doombear]

Judging from what you know of how book 1 ended, and the events in your spoiler. I think it is a safe bet there will be some battlin' in book 2 eh? Things start getting real.

[Man0warr]

There are some big battles but he doesn't spend a lot of time on them, mostly periphery stuff that you know is going on but isn't detailed.

[Bweigelt]

I wouldn't say book 2 is battle heavy, because while there is certainly more action it still focuses more on the political aspect. It's definitely better than book 1 but book 3 blows the both out of the water.

[Tyche]

I don't mind the battle stuff, I just don't want to read 900 pages of..."this party will flank left and hold the river. Archers will climb the third tower and hold fast". I guess I don't want to read "The Art of War" again, as great as it is.

[FailureMidgard]

I don't mind the battle stuff, I just don't want to read 900 pages of..."this party will flank left and hold the river. Archers will climb the third tower and hold fast". I guess I don't want to read "The Art of War" again, as great as it is.

It's definitely not like that. There is a bit more fighting, as should be expected, but I don't think it goes into too much detail. I think it's also worth mentioning that GRRM does a pretty good job of "staying in character". I think you'd really need a PoV of someone who was that trained in tactics to even have a chance that he'd write something like that. If you pay attention to it, you'll notice a lot that the same events (either prior to, or during the book) are referred to by different characters, and it always has a biased view from the characters PoV - Bran seeing Cersei and Jaime, Sansa watching Ser Hugh's joust, etc. If the character shouldn't know or care about something, he does a good job omitting that something and keeping it in character.

Just enjoy the book, it really is good.

[tyven]

READ THAT SHIT TYCHE, SHIT IS MAD GOOD.

[aduidarnenye]

I'm starting a re-read of the series. I tried about a year ago to re-read but I couldn't believe how silly I found it. I read the first novel in 1998 in Scotland (perfect place to read this series by the way) and maybe once since then. I'm hoping now that I can visual the whole thing better having watched the TV show and I won't find the 700 foot wall, the ravens, the animal shaped helms, and everything Catelyn does so silly this time.

[Baelorn]

I don't mind the battle stuff, I just don't want to read 900 pages of..."this party will flank left and hold the river. Archers will climb the third tower and hold fast". I guess I don't want to read "The Art of War" again, as great as it is.

I always hated the battle scenes in ASOIAF. WoT spoiled me on awesomely written battles.

[aduidarnenye]

I always hated the battle scenes in ASOIAF. WoT spoiled me on awesomely written battles.

I think the battle scenes in ASOIAF are better, much better, than WoT. For one, people actually die. I really enjoyed Tyrion's battle on the river. Excellent scene.

If you want an excellently written battle scene in a fantasy novel try the His Majesty's Dragon series by Naomi Novik. Some of the plot lines and much of the dialogue are complete clunkers but man can she write a battle scene.

[FailureMidgard]

If you want a good book/series about battles, The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon is a really good read. It's a trilogy, and at least book 1 and 3 are quite good. (Book 2 is still pretty good, but less so!)

But ya, I'd strongly recommend reading it after ASoIaF!

[Talus]

Since all the chapters are from a character's POV, and most of the battles are fought by the bannermen of the various lords, you don't really get a lot of detail about the battles. Occasionally you do get detail from a swordfight/attack. I would say the fights happen with JUST a bit more frequency than someone straining against the laces of their breeches, if you know what I'm sayin'. If you like food, you get WAAAY more detail about what everyone's eating... lol

[Rulke]

^ The battle on the Wall during Jon's POV is mighty good imo.

[tyven]

^ The battle on the Wall during Jon's POV is mighty good imo.

THAT AINT NO WHISTLING DIXIE

[tyven]

Since all the chapters are from a character's POV, and most of the battles are fought by the bannermen of the various lords, you don't really get a lot of detail about the battles. Occasionally you do get detail from a swordfight/attack. I would say the fights happen with JUST a bit more frequency than someone straining against the laces of their breeches, if you know what I'm sayin'. If you like food, you get WAAAY more detail about what everyone's eating... lol

rofl, people are always straining against the laces of their breeches, or is it stiffining?