I understand why people were disappointed with A Feast for Crows. I wanted more about the Lannister/Stark war also, but really that stuff is over and the good guys lost. I think people thought the books were going to be about the Starks vs the Lannisters when in reality they are about the slow collapse of ALL the seven kingdoms with Daenerys and the Others waiting in the background. Now that the Riverlands and the North have been crushed, and the Lannisters have mostly self destructed and the Vale is being undermined from within the emphasis is of course going to shift to other characters in the other kingdoms. In the last book we had Highgarden being invaded by the Iron Fleet and Myrcella being seriously injured while a “guest” of Dorne which will likely lead to a confrontation with the crown. Slowly but surely anyone and everyone who could hope to unite and defend the seven kingdoms is being taken out and its all going to lead to Daenerys coming as a liberator rather than conqueror.
I wonder if he could write the books faster if he was making better use of technology. Over at SFF World, they’re saying Martin still uses an 80’s word processor. He has a lot of characters and plot points to keep track of, and it’s gotta be more time-consuming if he’s referring to written notes. I remember working on a DEC, and it was a right bitch to rearrange paragraphs. And those floppies don’t store nearly enough data.
Personally, I don’t care if he finishes. I read the books because I like hanging out in the world he’s created. If I have to leave it too soon, it will still have been a great experience.
For what it’s worth, apparently Gerrold has a legit excuse: he’s adopted an autistic kid who requires enough time/attention that Gerrold can’t write the Cthorr stuff (which takes massive research).
I find that disappointing, but I’m finding it hard to get mad at someone for taking care of a seriously disabled kid rather than entertaining me.
But damn I want that next Cthorr book.
(Actually, what I’d be satisfied with is to find out what the invasion is. Where’s it coming from? Who’s behind it?)
Expanding on this (and I agree personally):
A DoD will come out. It will not be written as the last book in the series, possibly with a note in the back that the next book “A Lot of Language” will be out in a few months.
Because it’s been so long since his last book, fans will be underwhelmed or ignore entirely.
The lackluster reaction will only re-enforce him to abandon the series, complaining that the fans don’t appreciate his work. More SoF&I miniatures and Wild Card books are seen in the following years.
I’d be satisfied with my money back. He raffled off the opportunity to be minor characters in the next book, and I ponied up. If I don’t get to read about my own death by Chtorr I want my money back.
Well, since I’ve been given five years before the cancer carries me off, I charge you Dopers to read it over my grave when my long-delayed Amazon pre-order finally arrives.
Are you really ill?
Any websites that give the Cliffnotes versions of the series? I really want to keep up with the discussion, but I can’t afford the time to re-read the books at the moment.
I really hope he doesn’t finish it. It’s become a running joke every year at the block party - my friend and I keep sucking new people into reading the series, and then the next year they tell us we’re bastards, and then we all talk about how we hate Martin.
Plus I can’t remember a damn thing about it anymore, except the kid on the ice wall up to the north and the hunchbacked guy who’s a clever schemer.
Robb’s wedding was pretty memorable, I thought.
I convinced my boyfriend to start reading the first book. I need someone else to bitch about Martin with.
The trouble is, I’m still interested to know what happens next. With Wheel of Time I fell into apathy after the 10th book (or was it 11th? don’t remember) and wasn’t all that upset when Jordan died (I mean, I was sorry he was dead, but not as annoyed as a lot of his readers). If Martin dies I may just write my own ending so I can get some sort of closure and move on with my life.
Check out Wikipedia. It has plot summaries of the books as well as articles on the characters,places and events in the universe.
This. I think it’s far more fun for him to play in the world he’s made, with games and figurines and TV shows and whatnot, than it is for him to actually work to finish it. I’m not sure if it’s greed (I’m almost certain he makes more from licensing than he does from writing) or laziness or a Peter Pan complex or what.
I bet he’s typed the phrase “And then a giant meteor came and killed everything so God could go watch football and play with toy soldiers without hordes of fans bitching” more than once.
Hell, I’m still waiting for C. J. Cherryh to get back to the Morgaine Saga, 20+ years and counting now…
Not quite the same thing, as the nature of that story is pretty open-ended. She could write twenty more or she can consider it finished where she left it, which I half-expect is the case. While she left herself some plot points to continue with if need be, it was always more a story about the character growth of the protagonist and that ended on a fairly mature note. I would be happy to read more, but I’m not bothered if that’s it.
Martin, on the other hand, bothers me.
Can someone convince me to read these books? I’m kinda fascinated. Like most people, I read (twice) Lord of the Rings and loved it, I don’t read any fantasy but like science fiction some, love historical fiction and LOVE long books. So, yeah, I’m very intrigued. It’s obviously not a small undertaking if I start so I want to know if I should. Anyone?
I wouldn’t, actually, considering that it is unlikely to finish.
However, they are pretty good fantasy books, with a very limited amount of fantasy. What I mean is that there is not a ton of magic and dragons and so forth, though things do exist like this.
What’s cool is that it contains multiple story lines going on and each chapter follows a different characters, so you get to know a bunch of people. I found myself looking forward to various character chapters a lot and dreading others. Maybe not dreading, but certainly not getting excited.
Anyway, if you are OK that it does not have an ending and may never have one, go for it.
Oh, and it is unpredictable. Main characters sometimes die.
Thanks, I think I might give it a whirl. I don’t care for magic and dragons very much anyway. If I ever made it through all 4 books it’d be a miracle, so I guess I’m not concerned about it ending either.
Must have been 10 I just finished it and all 1000 pages of the book take place over two weeks and basically just talk about what everyone else was doing during 9. I’m doing a reread in preparation for 12 coming out next week.
I’ve given up on Martin there were too many chapters about characters I either didn’t care about or actively disliked being in their heads. I don’t even remember if i read the last book. Jordan on the other hand wandered a lot but there are no characters that when I see a chapter is going to be about them I consider if I want to skip the chapter.
Well, not ill at the moment like throwing up, but yes, I really do have follicular lymphoma that is incurable, and at the moment untreatable because I have become hypersensitive to the chemo.
Sorry about the hijack. Carry on with the bitching and moaning about Martin.