xkcd

by **Amarantha** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:55 am UTC

novax6 wrote:Can't wait for the new one. Is there an update on the release date for it? or is it still just whenever he's done?

http://grrm.livejournal.com/74995.html

by **mindflare** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 5:12 am UTC

So, I read three pages of the topic, and realized that I have a test tomorrow in my 8 am... So getting some measure of sleep would be good. However, I do have a question I can't seem to find an answer to: Where the hell is Rickon? He went off with Osha, but after that we hear nothing about him, and all about Bran, Arya, Sansa, and Jon. While they are good characters (even Sansa now, having finished AFFC [I agree with SexyTalon; she's starting to see everything has gone to shit and is going to do something about it soon; she's learning from one of the best]), it leaves me curious as to what Rickon's going to be doing...

by **Blaze Krakaros** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 11:42 pm UTC

Rickon is of course going to become a wildling berserker warg dude.

by **mosc** » Mon Jul 06, 2009 1:50 pm UTC

Update:
http://grrm.livejournal.com/2009/06/22/

not done but progress...

by **Sarr** » Mon Oct 11, 2010 10:44 pm UTC

http://io9.com/5660273/george-rr-martin ... lmost-done

I'd say I'm trying not to get too excited, but I'd be a fucking liar. I just spent the last 5 minutes somewhere between laughing maniacally and giggling like a schoolgirl..

by **Izawwlgood** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 2:36 pm UTC

Was feast for crows the one prior to that? I think I only got about 100 pages into it and just lost interest. Wanted Ayra and Daenys and Brann and Jon Snow...

by **Sarr** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 7:24 pm UTC

Yeah, A Feast For Crows was the 4th book. It centered entirely on the south (just as A Dance With Dragons will focus almost entirely on the north) and introduced much more of a, as I saw someone put it, "commoner's view of Westeros". If you don't like the politics of the south and the characters, you're going to have a difficult time getting through it. At that point, thought, Jamie was one of my favorite characters, and Brienne and Sansa were getting more interesting, so I read through it for them mostly. The Dorne and Iron Islands chapters were pretty good too.

by **pseudoidiot** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 7:35 pm UTC

Also, from what I remember reading somewhere the main parts of the plot from A Feast for Crows & A Dance with Dragons was meant to be all in the same book. It started getting bloated, so Martin decided to split it. Instead of just halving it he based it on region/what characters it was following. So my understanding is there'll be a bit of time overlap between the two books.

by **Azrael001** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 7:40 pm UTC

That's probably a good thing. If I don't find time to reread the series before it comes out it will be nice to have some reminders as to what the hell is going on.

by **paravatar** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 8:56 pm UTC

Sarr wrote:http://io9.com/5660273/george-rr-martins-a-dance-with-dragons-is-really-almost-done

I'd say I'm trying not to get too excited, but I'd be a fucking liar. I just spent the last 5 minutes somewhere between laughing maniacally and giggling like a schoolgirl..

This is some good news, but do you really think this is going to happen?
I'm still a bit skeptic

by **Sarr** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 9:10 pm UTC

I'm putting my money on yes. He stated a while back that he wasn't going to keep announcing deadlines because he knew he couldn't satisfy them, and they were basically giving him panic attacks. For him to announce that he wants to be done by Christmas, I think he's really confident about getting it done.

by **Czhorat** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 1:59 pm UTC

Has anyone else lost interest in this? I was very into it back when A Game of Thrones first came out, but have little to no interest in the latest sequel. For one thing, my tastes have evolved in the past decade and a half. For another, there are so many characters and such a complicated backstory that I'd have to either re-read or otherwise research the previous volumes to know what's going on. It's not worth the effort, especially considering that the book won't likely conclude the story anyway and it could be another 5 years or more for the next one.

by **Azrael001** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 2:58 pm UTC

by **mosc** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 9:12 pm UTC

No, I haven't lost interest. If he ever manages to finish, we'll be talking about these books for 100 years. They will re-open up the word of fantasy not innovated since the lord of the rings came out. Given today's technology, I'm expecting lots of cool games, movies, and beyond.

by **mosc** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 4:00 pm UTC

Sarr wrote:http://io9.com/5660273/george-rr-martins-a-dance-with-dragons-is-really-almost-done

I'd say I'm trying not to get too excited, but I'd be a fucking liar. I just spent the last 5 minutes somewhere between laughing maniacally and giggling like a schoolgirl..

Bad news, that's not from JRRM it's from a publisher. I would put zero faith in this.

by **Mega D** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 1:21 pm UTC

Czhorat wrote:Has anyone else lost interest in this?

I'm with you. While I did find the story engaging, I was never a big fan of his writing. At this point I'd have to reread them to remind myself of what's going on, and I'm definitely not interested enough to invest that much time in it.

by **mosc** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 6:35 pm UTC

Bah, all his chapters follow the same pattern. Background, characterization, encouragement for rampid speculation by the reader, and then in the last 100 words of the chapter, all kinds of shit goes down. Every time you finish a chapter, there's a moment of "Holy shit! *rapid page turn* "Fuck, this chapter's on the other side of the world". His writing style is tease, tease, tease, orgy, tease, tease, tease.

by **Sir_Elderberry** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 6:46 pm UTC

Yeah, at this point, I don't really expect to read the next book. I'd like to, but it'd require rereading all the others, and I just don't know that I would do that. We'll see.

by **El Spark** » Fri Oct 22, 2010 5:10 pm UTC

Czhorat wrote:Has anyone else lost interest in this?

Kinda? It's one of those strange situations where I'm really not interested in the books except when I'm reading them. Once I AM reading them, they're awesome, but somehow it doesn't stick between readings.

I might finish the series if Martin does. I might not. I'm more interested in the Wild Cards series.

by **blu** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 5:19 pm UTC

No.. This can't be real, right? A release date has been set: TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2011.
This is a hard release date, which is supposed to be harder than the other release dates.

Nice covers too. I prefer the last version.

SexyTalon wrote:... Pick a character, just read their parts until you get to the end of the book, start over and pick a different character, repeat until the book is finished.

That's actually a nice idea. Sort of like playing a game and reaching the ending through different branches, only hearing about some things happening off screen, and sometimes

Spoiler:

by **pseudoidiot** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 9:37 pm UTC

blu wrote:No.. This can't be real, right? A release date has been set: TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2011.
This is a hard release date, which is supposed to be harder than the other release dates.

Is it sad that I immediately thought you were talking about the TV show and I was going to say, but that's not the release date I heard. And shouldn't this be in the thread under Movies & TV?

It's been so long since the last book, it wasn't even on my radar you were talking about the actual book series.

Then I followed the link.

Woo!

by **blu** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 9:48 pm UTC

pseudoidiot wrote:Is it sad that I immediately thought you were talking about the TV show and I was going to say, but that's not the release date I heard. And shouldn't this be in the thread under Movies & TV?

It's been so long since the last book, it wasn't even on my radar you were talking about the actual book series.

I know what you mean. I initially went to post it in the Movies & TV thread but caught myself in time.

by **mosc** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 3:18 pm UTC

I'd still take the over in a bet, but progress is always good

by **LaserGuy** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 6:19 pm UTC

Random thought I had on the series: what alignments (Lawful/Chaotic, Good/Evil) would you assign to your favourite characters in the series? Who changes? Obviously because of the complexity of the story such designations aren't always easy or possible, but I found it an interesting exercise to try. Here's a few that I was thinking (some possible spoilers ahead):

Eddard Stark: Lawful Good. Probably the only one in the entire series.
Stannis: Lawful Neutral. For obvious reasons. I think the story of Stannis' relationship with Davos is classic LN.
Cersei: Neutral Evil. Totally selfish. Will use the law when it benefits her and flout it when it doesn't. Her focus is entirely on her own interests and will go out of her way to harm those she perceives as threatening.
Catelyn: Not sure. I'm leaning towards True Neutral for her (after her encounter with the Freys, she seems to shift to more of a lawful evil, but it's hard to tell given how little we've seen of her since). She's actually much like Cersei except without the vindictive streak.
Jamie: Lawful Evil, but moves to Lawful Neutral as the series progresses.
Sansa: Neutral Good? Hard to pin anything to her really. She's too immature to have a really well-defined alignment IMHO.
Arya: Chaotic Good, moves to Chaotic Neutral as the series progresses.
Jon: Neutral Good, probably.
Tyrion: True Neutral? He's really tough.
Littlefinger: Neutral Evil.

by **McCaber** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 5:15 am UTC

This isn't a series where I can peg anyone into tiny alignment slots. It's like the real world that way, where people do both good and horrific things, and they're both part of their personalities. See Catelyn Stark or Jaime Lannister.

by **harpyblues** » Wed Apr 06, 2011 4:50 am UTC

Littlefinger is probably chaotic neutral, but like McCaber said, you can't put most of the characters into neat little slots. Cersei isn't totally selfish- she's a mother that cares about her kids, even if it's in a pretty fucked up way.

Fifty bucks on Sansa ending up as a Bastard Understudy/ Magnificient Bitch in Training under Littlefinger.

by **Ulc** » Thu Apr 28, 2011 6:48 am UTC

And now Martin has announced that he is done with Dance of Dragons, so it shouldn't be delayed *again*

by **Jave D** » Thu Apr 28, 2011 10:03 am UTC

The books get better each read-through so far. I always pick up things I didn't the first time(s). Every little mystery, every character, every thread is woven into the whole tapestry. Fucking love it.

I'm afraid to watch the HBO series. One, I'm worried they [will] have fucked it up, dumbed it down. Two, even if not, it'll change how I imagine the characters and settings are. Always happens when they make movies or shows based on books I've read. Jurassic Park being my earliest remembered example.

Edit: I'm now watching the first episode. So far I have a quibble:

Spoiler:

by **LaserGuy** » Tue May 10, 2011 4:51 pm UTC

Jave D wrote:The books get better each read-through so far. I always pick up things I didn't the first time(s). Every little mystery, every character, every thread is woven into the whole tapestry. Fucking love it.

I'm afraid to watch the HBO series. One, I'm worried they [will] have fucked it up, dumbed it down. Two, even if not, it'll change how I imagine the characters and settings are. Always happens when they make movies or shows based on books I've read. Jurassic Park being my earliest remembered example.

Edit: I'm now watching the first episode. So far I have a quibble:

Spoiler:
Ser Waymar Royce was just killed off all quick and didn't have that awesome fight scene with the Others in which his sword froze and shattered, and then butchered only to rise again. I don't know why, but I always liked Waymar - the kid had guts, and when he said "For Robert!" in the book I got chills.

However, the creepy dead child coming back to life was pretty awesome. Creepy dead children are always awesome.

So far, the series has been keeping pretty well with the spirit of the books. They've had to add scenes to fit in some of the exposition, as well as trim quite a bit to keep the story moving, and some of the character relationships have been tinkered with (most notably Dany/Drogo), but overall they've been doing a pretty good job of keeping more or less faithful to the books. I'll not delve too much into it here since there's a thread in TV/Movies that covers this ground. I'm not expecting them to change the major plot significantly, to be honest. If they derail too far, it's going to be a nightmare to get back given the complexity of the story as it is, and they'll probably experience a fan revolt.

by **Ulc** » Tue May 17, 2011 10:38 pm UTC

I watched yesterdays episode with my roommate earlier today, and that led to a ~2 discussion about how the war would have gone if littlefinger had been slightly less competent, meaning that Ned wouldn't have gone south. This involved a quite a it of whiskey and 3½ hours.

And something struck us. I think this is a theory that no one has developed yet as regards to the book - so seriously, don't read if you don't want major spoilers

Spoiler:

by **blu** » Wed May 18, 2011 12:46 pm UTC

I think that the popular opinion regarding the heads is that..

Spoiler:

by **Ulc** » Wed May 18, 2011 1:59 pm UTC

blu wrote:As for Quentyn, how is it obvious he's going to be her husband? Did I forget something from the books?[/spoiler]

Spoiler:

by **mosc** » Wed May 18, 2011 6:07 pm UTC

There's some great stuff on page 2 of this thread regarding the nature of Jon and Dany's connection...

Read Fossa's posts.

by **Ulc** » Wed May 18, 2011 6:49 pm UTC

mosc wrote:There's some great stuff on page 2 of this thread regarding the nature of Jon and Dany's connection...

Read Fossa's posts.

I'm well aware that everything points to Jon Snow being the lovechild of Rheagar and and Lyanna - but I still don't see her marrying him just because of that, and I do not see Jon Snow abandoning his oath over a pretty face (that also happens to be his cousin, probably not a practice that he's comfortable with), - when he wouldn't abandon his oath to become a Stark officially, and be Lord of the North, which he has dreamed on (and known to be impossible) for his entire life.

Entirely beside that it's too obvious, which would fit poorly with GRRM.

Unless it's a double bluff of course, GRRM making it so obvious exactly to get us to go "naah, too obvious, not his style" then WHAM - marriage.

by **mosc** » Wed May 18, 2011 7:43 pm UTC

I don't think they'll get married either. What does that have to do with it?

by **Amarantha** » Thu May 19, 2011 11:51 am UTC

Ulc wrote:
Spoiler:
Tyrion is cool and all that, but it seems massively out of both his and Dany's character to go that route. He's too crude, too ugly and not enough of a warrior for Dany to let it happen, and he on the other hand would have to actually trust someone for it to happen. I can easily see Tyrion and Dany working together, but he'l be a political advisor, not a dragon rider.

For Jon Snow, he has already demonstrated his dedication to his vows, he gave up being lord of winterfell for his vows. No way he is going to give up his vows for a pretty girl on a dragon. And frankly, he's probably more useful to Dany as lord commander of the watch, than as someone on the back of a dragon - or one of her enemies might get someone on that chair that isn't inclined to help her.

Spoiler:

by **blu** » Thu May 19, 2011 12:48 pm UTC

Amarantha wrote:
Spoiler:
Tyrion's lank, pale hair sounds more Targaryen-y than the usual Lannister curly-gold. I wouldn't be surprised if he had dragon blood somehow. Also, if the Sailor's Wife of Braavos is Tysha, as some suspect, perhaps Lanna is Tyrion's daughter. If you can't see him as the head of a dragon, maybe she could be one.

Jon's vows include protecting the kingdoms from evil, icy things beyond the wall. How better than on dragonback? And he already broke some of his pretty-girl vows, for the sake of the aforementioned protective vow. This is, of course, assuming the R+L=J theory. I think I just like the idea of the dragon's three heads having proper dragon blood

Spoiler:

by **Midnight** » Wed May 25, 2011 6:21 am UTC

Ulc wrote:
Spoiler:
For Jon Snow, he has already demonstrated his dedication to his vows, he gave up being lord of winterfell for his vows. No way he is going to give up his vows for a pretty girl on a dragon. And frankly, he's probably more useful to Dany as lord commander of the watch, than as someone on the back of a dragon - or one of her enemies might get someone on that chair that isn't inclined to help her.
.

...he can be both, you realize. He can do what he's doing now AND help her out. It's not like he'd have to quit his job for a year and train with it. In fact, he'd view such an act as perfectly in-line with his duties. commanders leading the charge and all that.

by **Sytri** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 8:00 am UTC

Just starting AFfC but can I say this about SoS

Spoiler:

Oh and:

Spoiler:

by **LaserGuy** » Sat Jun 11, 2011 7:14 am UTC

Sytri wrote:Just starting AFfC but can I say this about SoS

Spoiler:
I can't believe Robb is dead! I kept expecting it to be some sort of ruse or that Thoros would somehow be able to bring him back. I feel like I jinxed myself, an hour before I read about the red wedding I said to my gf that I doubt any other Starks would die after Eddard was killed and brandon and Rickon faked their deaths. "GRRM wouldn't do that" I said to myself. I love the fact that he did kill Robb off though. No one is safe. Tyrion's revenge was so well done, I just hope I see more of him in AFfC. I'm so glad that I started reading them now as ADoD will be out soon and so i can read 5 of the books back to back. Only (possibly) 2 more to be written

Oh and:

Spoiler:
Catelyn's Back from the dead! Awesome!

Unfortunately, you will have to wait until Dragons comes out to see more of Tyrion. AFfC grew too big, and a number of major characters had to be left until the next book. Tyrion, Dany, Jon and Davos (and probably a few others I can't recall off the top of my head) aren't featured in this book at all.

For the rest...

Spoiler:

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