HBO greenlights 'Game of Thrones' to series

To give some idea, since Feast for Crows was released in 2005, Stephen King has written and published 7 complete novels and written almost 20 short stories into collections. (I completely understand that Song of Ice and Fire is much more complex than any Stephen King novels, but still).

He has done this all while adapting and getting a Dark Tower Series started with a feature movie with Ron Howard at the helm (Producing), then moving into a TV series.

So what is Martin's excuse? He has a "knot" of story lines that he has almost had to completely rewrite. He has changed the storyline from flash forwarding 4 years to being continuous. That's it. He's put out all these other side projects, and been working on this TV show. I understand people need lives and artists need time to create, but his delay, after delay, after delay (when he had half the book written already when Crows was released) is either a case of EXTREME writer's block, a case of losing focus and doing too many other projects, or inexcusable laziness. Perhaps a mixture of all three.

He is a cash cow now. He will go straight to the top of the best sellers list, but I can NOT believe that his publishers aren't about to kill him.

To me, the only saving grace is if he has somehow worked it out to not only release Dance, but have written/outlined enough to quickly release the next book or two almost immediately after. (He's going to have to because the HBO series, if popular, will quickly catch up to where he has written).

 

yup its going to bigger then twilight with all the little teen girls.

 

I'm now on the last book (about 40% done) and so far I have been less than impressed with this one. It seems so all over the place and it focuses on characters that I couldn't care less about. I want more Starks and Lannisters. WTF?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Feast_for_Crows

If A Dance with Dragons is ever released it should focus on the rest of the characters.

 

It has been such a change from the first three books that it's thrown me for a loop. I can understand splitting books but I don't understand why it hasn't continued like the previous. The first three books were fantastic reading. I couldn't put them down.

 

Every time I think I should say to hell with it and read Martin, I see posts like the last few. I'm not touching that series until he finishes it. I'm already waiting on Rothfuss to finish the last two books of his trilogy, Lynch to finish the last 5 books of The Gentlemen Bastards, McCammon to write the next 7 Matthew Corbett novels, and for Sanderson to finish the Wheel of Time.

We'll probably have to get Sanderson to finish for Martin in a few decades after Martin is killed by a rogue fan.

 

After being an excited little fanboy with the "Dark Tower" adaptation news (Even though I am not impressed with the team adapting it...sorry, after how Opie wimped out on his DaVinci Code adaptation, I'm not expecting much. But I digress...), I missed all of this until this morning.

It looks like this series may very well exceed my expectations. The look and the effort that is being put into it is very exciting. Daenyrus looks like a perfect casting. In fact, most of it does. Jon Snow looks a little bit more rugged than I imagined, but he doesn't seem like a bad pick at all. But Dinklage is going to own in this series. I just know it.

A good breakdown of the trailers and tons of screencaps here: http://www.westeros.org/GoT/Graphics/Gallery/GameOfThrones_Still03.png

Man, this makes me want to read the books AGAIN!

But, about A Dance with Dragons. My opinion is that one of two things will happen. Either this will light a fire under his ass to get to cracking, or it will slow it down even more if he is heavily involved with the shows production. Kind of a double-edged sword there. I want him to be involved, but I want this series to get completed more.

 

I finished the books that were available a couple years ago before I realized that THE SERIES WASN'T COMPLETE!

I hate that, and I hate that it has taken him so long, I'm forgetting the world he created. I also both hate and love that most all the characters


****SPOILER-die, but I guess that is life.-END SPOILER*****

Also, I preferred the Sword of Truth series (at least the first 4) by Terry Goodkind, Terry Brooks' Shannara Trilogy, and Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickmans books in the Dragonlance series better than Martins' books... but I am more about the innate magic than the political/sex drama. Also, the TV series Legend of the Seeker was kinda lame, but the series finale was AMAZING... really really good... actually the last 4 episodes were fantastic. I wish HBO would remake that series.

 

AustinBriggs, you need to read Patrick Rothfuss. He's got one book published and a second coming out in March of his Kingkiller Trilogy. It's truly epic, and one of the best fantasy books I've read. I almost hate to call it fantasy, because it's such a rich story that happens to take place in a fantasy setting.

Steven Erikson's Book of the Malazan is supposed to be fantastic and epicly awesome. The 10th and final book comes out in January. I've been holding off reading, but I look forward to picking this up and reading the whole thing straight through in a few months.

If you want a cool magic system, read Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. The magic system kicks ass, and the main character rivals Lisbeth Salander for most bad ass modern heroine.

 

Big time spoilers. I wouldn't look if you haven't read the books.

Here are the pics:

Flashback:


Knights:


King Robert:


Queen Cersei:


Jamie Lannister (looks the part)


Ned Stark


Bran and Jon


Daenerys Targaryen


Tyrion Lannister


Tyrion Lannister and Catelyn Stark

 

Read on the winteriscoming blog that they are reusing sets from Your Highness for the series, which should help them get more out of their budget.

 

Holy cow. I REALLY want to do Daenerys Targaryen. And perhaps it is just that one frame capture of Cersei...but she looks far too kind.

 

The look of Tyrion Lannister is more perfect than I imagined him.

 

What a coincidence, I was thinking about this series yesterday. I'm looking forward to it. Maybe this is a reason for Martin to actually finish the books.

Why can't they also make a tv serie about the Malazan book of the Fallen :grin:

 

Man, I love Tyrion. He's hands down my favorite character. Jon snow is second.

I doubt they will ever make a series out of the Malazan books- SO complicated. They would be better off doing an anime.