Can't agree with this more. Other than Tower of The Hand which you can set your scope to, I'd stay away from them.
Interesting theory. Never thought of it but I don't think it really all add up. Why would Ned Stark let Jon join the Black if Jon is from Spoiler Lyanna and Robert ? If you read the link above you can see the theory of Spoiler Lyanna + Rhaegar = Jon Snow is pretty solid.
So, is A Dance with Dragons going to Spoiler advance the plots chronologically or just cover essentially the same timeline as A Feast for Crows from the POV of a differnet set of characters? Are we, for example, gonna see any of the characters on A Feast of Crows (Cersei, Jamie, Sam, etc.) at all and find out what happened to the loose-end things like what happened to Cersei/Margery and whether Brienne died? I really missed Jon Snow, Tyrion and Daenaerys while reading a Fest for Crows. The whole book felt like a side story since (I think) Snow and Daenaerys are going to be the main driving force of the whole looming conflict with the Others.
Spoiler Originally it was going to be just the North/across the sea povs, but I think GRRM scrapped that and is going to include other POVs as needed. It will be mostly North/across the sea, though. And some Dorne stuff.
Spoiler I'd heard recently, can't remember from where, that it would cover the other POV's from the same time period as FFC, but that George would take the story a bit past that as a "Thank you" to the fans for being patient. Thankfully, we'll find out in two months!
Thanks guys. Spoiler I was thinking there would have to be something more than just "the other half of the POVs" since he allegedly had the story completed at the time the decision to split happened. Just cutting it by POV shoudln't take 6 years.
GRRM has stated in interviews that he knew the ending before he started writing the first book. He says he doesn't want the books to have a Lost situation, so hopefully the ending won't suck. If he doesn't live long enough to finish, then maybe he can pass on his notes/outline to someone else to write the rest (like The Wheel of Time).
This is a great segue into what I was about to post. Joe Abercrombie is probably my second-favorite author after GRRM. Recently he actually interviews GRRM. That's right, Joe Abercrombie and GRRM in the same room. Here's the videos. Beware, there are spoilers: Spoiler <iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/IAyG1BiArd4" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" width="640"></iframe> <iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/a4IrK7MkBYY" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" width="640"></iframe> . Anyway, it seems that young Joe has really taken a shine to what GRRM said. This interview has put the two together in the same room, and if you read JA's blog, he seems to have taken GRRM's word to heart. When I think of 'who would write the rest of the books should GRRM die?' I think Joe Abercrombie. There's something about his writing style that makes me think that the series would end well in his hands.
If I am to believe that GRRM is not just lazy, and believe what he has written on his blog, one of the reasons Dance was so delayed is in the ultimate final edition of Feast for Crows, he had created some "knots" in the story that really took a long time to rewrite for Dance. When Crows was originally released, it was assumed that he had already written most of Dance and they were going to release it fairly quickly. I actually remember reading his blog updates that Dance would be 6 months to a yea behind Crows. I think when they figured out that he had actually written himself into a corner, he basically had to scrap huge chunks of what was written. Either that, or he travelled too much and was lazy, or he had a bigger case of writer's block than he ever admitted.
I've made up my mind. I'm going to give the books a try. Terry Brooks has been my favorite just because I love his stories and really enjoy his writting style. Other fantasy writters like Stephen Donaldson or science fiction writters like Douglas Adams (love his humor though) have terrific stories but I sometime get a little bored with their writting styles. I've never had that problem with Brooks. I could not get into LOTR because I could not enjoy Tolkiens writting style.
So... why is everyone so concerned about Martin dying? Has he had serious health problems (other than being chubby)?
Well he is 62 and not an incredibly healthy looking guy. Dance with Dragons took 6 years to write and he has two books left to write. Seems like a reasonable concern for fans of the series.
I think it was pneumonia. He's obese, getting up there in age, and has a lot of stress/stuff to juggle. You don't have to be a doctor to do the math there.
This show has several things going for it: 1. Excellent source material 2. Great HBO production values 3. Great actors and acting The problem is the story is poorly crafted. 1. There is no sense of epic scale. This is not something that requires extensive resources. Just some well placed shots of the environment. A show like Deadwood or The Wire or Rome, the environment is almost a character unto itself. Westeros just seems like a bunch of disconnected set pieces. No sense of time passing either, and this could easily be remedied with fade in/fade out montage type sequences. 2. Exposition is handled poorly. The Wall is a great example. In the book there is a wonderful scene with Tyrion and the officers of the Night's Watch having dinner. It's full of activity, things are going on, it feels organic and still provides backstory. In the show these scenes are in lifeless rooms with two or three characters talking at each other. The tourney scene is another example. In the book there is a feast, Joffrey sends Sansa back with the Hound, and in a drunken rant he tells her about his brother. It reveals alot about both characters. In the show this story is dictated to Sansa by Littlefinger. 3. Not episodic. This is basically a ten hour movie. No effort to carry a common theme through an episode or have any kind of contained story arc. The source material, production values, and good acting are covering up what is an average adaptation at best by the writers. It's a good show, but it could be much better.
Considering they only have 10 episodes to work with, I think they've done a pretty good job of adapting the story. *shrug* I don't know, I've just never been one of those 'but it's not just like the book!' type of guys. If they don't go word for word, or add their own method of fleshing out the story, it's fine with me as I try to judge it more by the medium it's been adapted too. Not everything has worked, but as someone who is a big fan of the books, this is far better than I had honestly expected. It's obvious the creators (and HBO) have put a lot of work into it.
I'm a huge fan of the novels and for the most part, LOVE the show so far. Its almost exactly like how I imagined the scenes in the book, unfolding while I read it. But that might be part of the tiny tiny problem i have with the show so far. I could be mistaken, but i think Commodore's point is that perhaps the show is too representative and loyal to the book; in not only the majority of the lines, but scenes and directing as well. Its basically a video reproduction of the book, which while great, doesn't necessarily result in great episodes. Due to time constraints (10 episodes) stories that have great emotional impact or are deeply intense lack punch when forced to fit within the script. Theres a sense of fragmented stories in each episodes, lacking flow, time and impact when each episode is trying to fit so much into so little. So while I still love the show, I totally agree with commodore's points and a big fan of benioff, believe that perhaps if he and the other writers had taken a more liberal interpretation of the book and changed how the story unfolded, it may have resulted in a better television series. To be fair, i make these criticism, fully aware that the writers/producers are greatly constrained by the fact that they only have 10 episodes to recreate such a grand story and that it would've required a work of genius to come up with a way to retell the story in a dramatically different way and make it better. I just hope season 2 and beyond get the full HBO 13 episodes per season, like true blood, sopranos, the wire etc.
Oh I can definitely see those points, but that's still kind of what I am referring to as far as the 'interpretation of the book'. In an odd way, I think those of us who are big fans and are really familiar with the books are at a disadvantage in that regard. We are still viewing them against the books themselves, which in almost every example is always going to end up poorly, and it's something I try not to do with anything that's an adaptation of a book I've read (though I don't always succeed haha). That's what I mean by considering the medium. A lot of the emotional impact, for example, is played out in the books because of internal dialogue we have access to. That's not something that's easy to do on television (without a narration I suppose). It's possible to draw that out visually for the viewer, but again with so many characters and a shorter 10 episode timeframe that's probably a limitation. It's interesting; when I read stuff online or talk to people that have either read the books or not, the conversation is vastly different. I've actually seen both (it follows the book too closely and OMG they changed/added this scene why?) responses by the readers. The non readers have a very different view of things like exposition and pace and character motivations; they don't know what it is 'supposed' to be like, but to be honest if I'm creating a tv series they are probably your target anyway. It's such a crazy balancing act to work out (between appeasing those that are familir with the source material and maintaining the TV audience that isn't) and I respect the enormous effort it most have taken. I don't know: so far I'm enjoying it, I see the flaws, I see some changes that have worked and others that haven't, and sometimes I have a hard time trying to use the book just as reference and nothing more but I'm trying. I'm really curious how it's going to work out in this second half.
