A Song of Ice and Fire

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elguapo

250+ Posts
Has anyone else gotten into this epic series? I started reading it a couple years back and was immediately hooked. If you enjoy sci-fi/fantasy novels then this is a must read IMO.

Waiting for Martin to finish the next installment has been brutal.
 
good series, but i think he's grown addicted to complexity, to the point that it is almost destroying the integrity of his narrative.
 
I like it a lot. However, he needs to end it soon...no more Robert Jordanesque never ending type deals. Wasn't the books slated for a TV series adaptation?
 
Great start but he really got bogged down in A Feast for Crows and it's looking like he might croak before he finishes the series.
 
HBO bought the rights and some script work was done for a pilot but nothing has happened since then. The HBO deal was announced last January. It doesn't appear that there will be a show anytime soon, 2010 at the earliest I imagine if it even happens.
 
I've decided not to read any of these things until they are finished. I started reading Wheel of Time back when the first one came out. I've been waiting for it to finish ever since....then the author died.
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I don't like the way he split the last book and next book geographically instead of chronologically.

You know he doesn't mind killing off people -- which isn't any kind of spoiler, given how widely it is mentioned in reviews -- but the red wedding was hardcore.

Jordan put all the info in place with those close to him for the last book. They know how it ends and what gets wrapped up and what doesn't, if anything. I am hopeful that it sees the light of day.
 
The Red Wedding was the moment I realized this story was a little different. How often does that happen in a fantasy story? I remember reading it and thinking "wow, this sure looks bad. How are they getting out of this predicament?".

Next thing you know heads are coming off.
 
I'm with Deguello, I wish he had split it chronologically because some of my favorite characters weren't mentioned. I guess I have something to look forward to in the last book, if he makes it that long. I've read each book when it came out... been waiting a very long time for the series to end and probably need to start over by now for a refresher.
 
The lack of sacred cows draws you in, in that anyone can go down at any moment (I actually re-read that wedding scene hoping it was a dream sequence or something) but it's the character development itself that hooked me. I don't think there is a character in fiction more gripping than Tyrion Lannister, not because the other characters don't have serious moral ambiguities and flaws, just that for me his are more compelling. Is Jaime Lannister a bad guy? Is Sandor Clegane? On the surface you say yeah but after some backstory it gets really hard to tell. There are very few good/evil archetypes in play and many shades of gray everywhere else.

I really wish he hadn't split the last book up the way he did as well, but apparently he had to split it in some fashion to satisfy the publishers. I reread the last novel before starting a new one on long series like this anyway so it's not that big a deal to me.

BTW- I liked Fevre Dream, but if you told me the guy who wrote that and some Beauty and the Beast episodes would come up with a series like this I wouldn't have believed it.
 
Some of the best modern fiction, of any genre. Weirdly HF has had threads on this before.

I'm reading Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing series, and while its dark and gritty, its just not as enjoyable of ASOIAF.
 
spoiler warning:







dudes, jaime is the only character who i have utterly despised and hated in a book or series who i have come around on and thought "wow, maybe he's not so bad."

i mean, dude is ******* his sister, bullying around the original protagonists, has foundations of loyalty built on quicksand, and through all that, when martin decided to write things from his point of view, i started rooting for him to do things instead of dying in a fire. very weird.
 
I read these books, and while reading your posts I realized I have forgotten everything about them.
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Re-reading the Wheel of Time when that last one is completed by the replacement author is gonna be brutal.
 
I completely agree on the Jaime Lannister point. I was hoping for a wolf to tear out his face for the first 2 books, but b y the time (spoiler)



he loses his hand, I'm rooting for the guy. This sort of character development takes some serious skill.





I can't wait for the next book either. My predication is that Jon Snow wil become the main protagonist by series' end.
 
My problem with reading the series is that I read them all a couple of years ago and now remember too little of the plot to follow the story lines in the next book (which he keeps promising to work on and then finds other **** to do).

If you're interested, you can find updates and released chapters from the next one at westeros.org.
 
The Jaime Lannister character arc has been an epic mindfuck. He's set up to be as clear a villain as there is in fiction. In the first book he throws a child from a window, crippling him for life, but by the end of the latest books, he's a sympathetic character that you're actually rooting for. Crazy!
 
Love the series so far and agree with a chronological versus a geographical break in the last book.

Was a welcome relief after the Jordan books of the reluctant hero becomes supreme bad@ss, only to see him revert to reluctant again at the start of the next book. Jordan blew it. Plus all the man-hating grated on me.


Allso, if you are a fan of this genre check out:

Steven Erikson is writing a series called "Malazan Book of the Fallen".

He has finished 8 of the 10 books with an additional five side/tangent novels also already published.

Truly a glorious feeling when you realize how great this series is and that there are already 8 books published with another 5 for depth.

Kind of a Glen Cook - Black Company, meets George R. R. Martin.

Check them out.
 
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