quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: Where are you getting this? I admit I don't stalk the guy or anything, so I don't know the intimate details of his writing process, but from what I remember reading in the back of Feast for Crows, he scrapped the book back in 2002, then wrote Dance and Feast simultaneously, splitting it into 2 books when it got too big. He's since spent the last 6 years tweaking Dance. And judging by what a needlessly bloated, glacially paced monstrosity Feast was, he could've just excised half of Brienne and Jaime's endless chapters, added the Dance characters, and spent that time writing original material instead of revising the other half of the characters. [/QB]
Is it bad that I actually liked Jaime's chapters? I know he didn't do a whole lot, but I enjoyed seeing what he did do. The trebuchet line... heh.
Brienne... well, Brienne was completely useless as usual.
Oh, as for what Martin was doing with Dance, he thought he only needed a few hundred pages more to make a book about the size of Feast, but then, as he rewrote, it turned out that he didn't like alot of what he'd written and spent a loooot of time rewriting, restructuring, etc. By 2007, he actually had several hundred pages fewer finished than he had in 2005. But that kind of thing happens when a writer is obsessively trying to make a book the best it can be by jettisoning the things he doesn't like and rewriting over and over.
From that point on, though, his work was steady. Three or four hundred pages a year. Until he was done this year. His rate since the tv series was started didn't look much different from the rate of his previous years, either.
Honestly, instead of "giving up" on the series, Martin's been working like made, really, and rewriting it probably over and over again. He's talked about chapters he's rewritten five or six times. (I know the feeling and can sympathize. The last time I truly gave a screenplay of mine the time it needed, I rewrote this one scene about six or seven times myself. But that was a three page scene. Martin's chapters are much longer than that.)
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Xavier: I think half a masterpiece is a lot more interesting than a full series that's of lesser quality.
I'm torn. I think that Buffy would have been better on average if they'd ended with the fifth season. But there were some pretty great things in seasons 6-7. Do I wish that the last two season had never been made?
posted
I can't say I'm torn at all. I'd rather Martin, should he find his health failing, entrust another author with his notes and plans, and allow us an ending. If the volumes thereafter are sub-par, I'll know why, and I'll probably just refuse to consider them canonical. I have no problems doing so with large swathes of the Star Wars universe. I wouldn't with ASoIaF either.
That said, what Martin chooses to do with his personal effects upon his death are, of course, entirely up to him.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
It's easier to make half a master piece then a whole one...the set up for SoFaI so far has been very well made, if GRRM can live up to it with a strong conclusion is another matter all together.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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I'm tempted (after porteito's argument about Jordon kinda won me over) to hope he does that too, if it comes to that.
I'd still be leery, as I'd hate to have what happened to Dune happen to it. Honestly? The three Butlerian Jihad books didn't disgust me. They were just light, meaningless popcorn books. But as a part of Dune? It was like going out for a lobster and being served fish-sticks. Fish-sticks aren't always terrible, but compared to the lobster I wanted it would be an incredible disappointment.
Nevertheless, at least then I'd have a right to choose to ignore the weird book about how the Others were defeated by the new author's invented characters presented originally in some ungodly prequel about how Aerys the Mad and Tywin Lannister went on light-hearted adventures as kids.
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Bah, the original Dune was lobster, Children of Dune is lucky if it is fish sticks. Herbert didn't need anyone else to F up his world, he did that all by himself.
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Why mph, why? That book makes me physically sick it is so bad, especially considering how amazing the first one is!
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quote:I'm torn. I think that Buffy would have been better on average if they'd ended with the fifth season. But there were some pretty great things in seasons 6-7. Do I wish that the last two season had never been made?
That's not quite what I was getting at. I didn't mean "I'd rather he stop writing then finish the series with mediocre books". Maybe that's true, I'd have to think about it, but it's not what I was saying.
The general idea is that the series is already very very good, even if it never gets an ending. So waiting "just in case" it never gets finished is a foreign concept to me.
The first three books, as written, are already the best books I've ever read. They don't need any future books to be written for them to be satisfying for me.
So to not read those books, and presumably spending your time reading lesser books that the author claims are finished, doesn't make much sense to me.
I guess some people need closure more than others? I honestly don't think any series (or book for that matter) ever truly ends, the author has just decided to stop writing it.
Added: Take, for example, the Ender series. Card stopped with Children of the Mind, but clearly the story didn't need to end there. There was a lot left to tell.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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Yeah, you and I definitely feel differently about closure. One reason why ending Buffy at the end of season 5 would have been better is that there would have been much more closure. Likewise if OSC had kept writing more stories after CotM. The story was over. (At least, the story I cared about. I couldn't care less about the descolada planet.)
Then there's the difference between, for example, the Alivn Maker series and the SoIaF. Seventh Son, Red Prophet, and Prentice Alvin are all novels in a series. Yes, there are strong threads that go from one story to the next, but each book does very well all on its own, with each novel's story arc giving closure while the larger story continues on.
The SoIaF books, however, are much more devoted to the overall story arc, with much less developed arcs for the individual books. Just like Xenocide and Children of the Mind is a single novel published in two volumes, in a sense, the SoIaF books aren't really novels themselves, and don't provide the closure that a full story arc does.
Inadvertently or not, you taught me that I desire closure more than I thought. I re-read your post twice and then refreshed the page four times to see if you had finished that sentence.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: <-- is a big fan of Children of Dune
Dune is one of my favorite books, and though I didn't particularly care for Dune Messiah (which I thought was a touch boring), I thought Children of Dune was pretty good. Not as good as Dune, but certainly enjoyable.
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Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, while not being as good as Dune, retroactively make the book Dune even better (on subsequent re-readings).
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That's how I remember it as well, but because it's been at least a decade since I've read the Dune series I'm having trouble recalling why I felt that way about them. Might be time to put the series on me "to be read" pile again.
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MB: Thanks for the explanation. That significantly changes how I feel about the situation. I think reading Dance, if it blows my socks off, will do so even more.
I had kind of assumed, based mostly on the rambling and relatively mediocre Feast, that GRRM ran out of steam after Storm and has just been trying halfheartedly to keep the series on life support until the end. If in fact he's making a return to form with Dance, I'll be a lot more excited about the books. Even if it means my (currently unborn) child(ren) will be old enough to start reading them by the time the last one comes out.
Someone mentioned Robin Hobb. I honestly think the biggest thing keeping her from being a great writer is that she doesn't understand the value of concise prose. I certainly loved the Assassin trilogy and think she's a great storyteller. But Card, for example, could've written the entire 1000+ page trilogy in 350 pages, and it would've been better for it. She has the bad habit (shared by Marion Bradley IMO) of writing endless internal monologues and repeating the same bits of information (albeit with different nuances as the situation dictates) over and over. Shaman's Crossing is her attempt at writing a fast paced novel, and it's by far my favorite of her books because of it.
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quote:That's how I remember it as well, but because it's been at least a decade since I've read the Dune series I'm having trouble recalling why I felt that way about them. Might be time to put the series on me "to be read" pile again.
IIRC, Scott Brick, one of my very favorite auto book performers, did a new version of Dune a few years ago. I don't recall if you're into audio books, but if you are, you might want to check that out.
--
And in reference to the closure that I was talking about above -- it's not all-important to me. Because of what happened with SoIaF, when I read Name of the Wind, I did so with a halfway expectation that that there would never be another book. And I'm glad I did -- even if there had never been another book, that was a fantastic book to read.
But, being the weak human that I am, being able to be philosophical about such things now doesn't erase the frustrations and distrust I've already felt because of the situation of SoIaF.
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quote:Someone mentioned Robin Hobb. I honestly think the biggest thing keeping her from being a great writer is that she doesn't understand the value of concise prose.
I enjoyed all of her books until "Renegade's Magic". Honestly I couldn't get through it. The first half of the book is all about what the main character eats, and I'm not really exaggerating. He does some bit of magic, and then spends the next chapter eating various random crap people bring him. For what seemed to be hundreds of pages.
I doubt I'll ever pick it back up. Wikipedia's plot summary is just describing the setup, so now I wonder if I'll ever know how that series ends.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
I only got halfway through Forest Mage. I literally couldn't force myself to continue after realizing that she had taken a series - and a character - with such amazing potential and utterly destroyed it in a few pages. I'm sure in her mind she thought she was doing something bold and provocative and brilliant, and maybe she was, but I simply couldn't go along with it. It's a good example of a series with not just a mediocre ending, but a disastrous ending. Shaman's Crossing is still my favorite book by her, and I usually just pretend the sequels don't exist.
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Forest Mage definitely took the series in a very different direction than I was expecting. However, it was interesting to me to read about the complete destruction of a fantasy hero's life. His friends, his family, his body, his career, his love interest, his future. All irrevocably destroyed a bit at a time and left with nothing.
It wasn't the direction I'd have chose, but it still was something I was interested in reading.
Then in the next book, she wrote hundreds of pages of nothing happening. I've read the first nine Wheel of Time books, and as empty as some of those are, they can't compare to the sheer banality of the first half of Renegade's Magic.
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Now, the question is... will it be any good? The only review I've seen so far does say the book has a similar feel to Feast, and that the audience should "think strategically, be patient as the story grows, and brace for a beating."
It also says it's a good book and it has a whallop of a finale. Which makes sense, since the Meereeneese knot Martin has been talking about for the last two years was about the finale. It was apparently tough to write, and a very exciting sequence.
The review does state that "Even ostensibly disillusioned fans will be caught up in the interweaving stories, especially when Martin drops little hints around long-debated questions such as Jon's parentage."
The thing that bothered me so much is that it seemed so pointless. She had such a unique, amazing story that could've been told... and she consciously and deliberately destroyed it. I presume the reason Renegade Magic was hundreds of pages of nothing in particular is because there was nothing left to write - she wrote herself out of what could've been the most memorable series of books in the past 10 years.
I think there's a fine line you have to walk with writing tragedy. If your readers can empathize with your character, you have to put a limit on how much you torture them before the reader stops reading. I literally *couldn't* finish Forest Mage because it was so painful and uncomfortable for me to keep reading. And she just went on and on and on with it.
Even GRRM, who often does horrible things to his characters, knows to keep it to a few pages, or even a few paragraphs. *SPOILERS* Dany's miscarriage plus Drogo's death, and the Red Wedding *SPOILERS* only last maybe 2 or 3 pages each of actual bad things happening. For the most part he limits himself to a sentence or two.
Really, tragedy is meant for plays and short stories. The novel is too long of a format for it... either the audience becomes jaded and loses their sympathy for the characters, or they give up, because they can't bear it anymore.
MB: I'm going to try and keep my expectations low... the last time I was so truly overwhelmed by a fantasy novel that I stayed up all night reading and spent the next few days in a trance was when I read The Name of the Wind. That's because I picked it up randomly, knowing nothing about it. The Wise Man's Fear was definitely a better book, but I went into it expecting it to be the greatest thing ever, and so it pretty much just matched my expectations instead of blowing me away. I figure if I expect Dance to be boring and convoluted and overwritten, and it ends up being another Storm... well then I'll be a very happy man.
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Now, the question is... will it be any good? The only review I've seen so far does say the book has a similar feel to Feast, and that the audience should "think strategically, be patient as the story grows, and brace for a beating."
It also says it's a good book and it has a whallop of a finale. Which makes sense, since the Meereeneese knot Martin has been talking about for the last two years was about the finale. It was apparently tough to write, and a very exciting sequence.
The review does state that "Even ostensibly disillusioned fans will be caught up in the interweaving stories, especially when Martin drops little hints around long-debated questions such as Jon's parentage."
Sounds hopeful.
I read somewhere that the reviewer for Time Magazine is in the middle of reading it right now. Supposedly we won't get many reviews before it actually comes out, they aren't showing it to a lot of people.
The review or two that I read also said that it looks like things are really setting up Winds of Winter to be an all-out battle royale.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
I bet Bronn will not only live, but he'll end the series as the ruler of the seven kingdoms.
Because he always ends each book better off than he was at the start. And with where he is now, how much higher will two books push him?
Oh, he'll also marry Margaery. Who will still be a virgin at that time. Just because I find that hilarious.
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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I watched the official review he did after he calmed down. "George R. R. Martin, you are a sick, twisted, cruel man. May God have mercy on your soul"
There's something sadistic in me that loves that millions of unsuspecting viewers are in for a lot of heartbreak over the next few years.
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I remember being frustrated that it took so long for someone to kill Ned. I quit reading it because he wasn't dying fast enough. He was way too honorable to navigate that world and live, so I knew he was either going to die spectacularly (likely after the child-crippling and dog-killing that was going on) or was going to get out of dying in some unlikely way that would annoy me.
I just got really frustrated that the story wasn't progressing quickly enough, and I'm honestly glad I stopped reading. I'll pick it up when he finishes the story, or else watch it on HBO with the hubby, which is more fun. At one book a year, HBO might catch up with him before he's done. You never know. Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Yeah if they get that worked up over Ned's death, wait until the post wedding feast. There will be riots in the streets, haha.
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quote:Author George R.R. Martin was asked if he had a resolution or ending to the seemingly endless conflict. He replied that the end would be a cloud of dust or snow being driven by the wind across a vast graveyard full of tombstones.
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Just in case anyone else found the spoilers from the early shipments of ADWD, it should go without saying that several of them are totally incompatible with things that happen in the officially-released spoiler chapters (i.e. from readings or on the website). Others are silly lies, and the rest are pretty much just epic and hopefully true.
Spoil yourselves with caution - if you can't wait two more weeks. Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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posted
I have a feeling that Mr. Syrio is still alive and well and will make himself known to Arya in time. There was never a body or proof of his death! Syrio is way too awesome to die! I have a feeling he might actually be Jaqen H'ghar, I guess we will see!
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