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Video Game Adaptation In the Works For A Song of Fire and Ice
On Wednesday, French game development studio Cyanide announced that they will be working with George R. R. Martin to bring his popular fantasy series, A Song of Fire and Ice, to the realm of video games. The press release implies that there will be more than one game, and the games will come out for PCs and "next-gen consoles." Apparently an HBO television series is in the works as well, in addition to board and card games related to the books.
Or is this one of those Chinese knockoffs, like "backstroke of the west" or "Harry potter and the big Funnel"?
... if George R.R. Martin would just finish writing the damn series!!!
I sure don't have high hopes for this one. At least the tv-series has a small chance of getting the characters and drama right. [Assuming the networks don't decide to remove the incest and childkilling, and so on.] But I highly doubt videogame developers are going to focus on anything but violence, violence, violence with this. Doing anything else is going to require some thought, effort, and risk-taking as the primary draw of ASOIAF has much more to do with character interactions and political intrigue than straight up and up killing things.
It'll probably end up similar to the three hack n' slash Lord of the Rings games on the Xbox - Gameplay might be fun, but you could remove the setting entirely and not make a difference. Personally, I think the best style for this game would be something more akin to King of Dragon Pass.
It is Duke Nukem Forever among the fantasy cycles.
If you don't count The Wheel of Time, but that's quite different story.
Yes, it is that good. The writing is only fair, but the characterisation, plotting, and world-building are absolutely outstanding. The best fantasy series I have ever read, and I'm including LOTR. It's epic.
You get war, intrigue, politics, a giant wall of ice hundreds of metres high, torture, incest, dire wolves, eunuchs, castles, tournaments, rape, duels, slavery, dragons, fratricide, patricide... all the good stuff :)
A Song of Ice and Fire is, in my opinion, the best fantasy story out there. Makes Tolkien look like a confused old fairy tale uncle.
Realistic characters, lots of greys (as in bad guys act bad for a good reason and the other way around), no hesitation to kill off main characters/heroes, etc.
I'd rate it as the second best, actually, behind Stephen Erikson's Tales from the Malazan Book of the Fallen. However, they are two incredibly different styles, and while I think Erikson has the edge in execution, both of these guys are highly talented authors. Very hard to make a fair comparison between such radically different styles, I guess.
While I do agree on the characterization part, I cannot agree with you about the plot, because there is none yet.
A bunch of subplots centered in a confused mishmash and a vague promise that "winter is coming".
We don't even know what that means, except that the wildlings are supposed to invade from the north. Only - the wildlings were killed off in the last book.
I see everyone begging Mr. Martin to please finish the series - but how would it be finished? There's no end condition.
The story is so formulaic. Here's the formula:
1) Create a likable character.
2) Create a hideous character.
3) Have Character #2 rape Character #1.
4) Have multiple other people rape Character #1.
5) Kill Character #1 in an ignoble fashion.
6) Choose a new Character #1. Repeat steps 3-5.
"Murphy's Law of George R.R. Martin":
If you like a character, that character will be maimed, raped, and/or killed in the next book. There are no exceptions.
I would like it if writers stopped thinking of their customers as their bitch. If he does not understand the impatience and irritation of his paying customers in not delivering product according to a promised schedule, he's not going to have the franchise grow very much farther than it already has. A professional writer is an artist, true... but more importantly, a professional writer is a paid professional. It's a major disservice to the craft of writing to string your readers along the way he has.
It's one thing to say, "Hey, guys... I lost my mojo on this. I may come back to it in a few years or I may not." Hey, whatever, crap like that happens. Stick to single-volume novels, and your readers will give you another chance.
It's another thing to sneer at your readers and insult them for questioning your grandiose "art." That's not only rude, it's dishonest.
It's not the reader's fault you managed to paint yourself into a corner with your sub-plots. It's not the reader's fault you can't break the story down into novel-length chapters... it's your failing as an =artist=.
Entitlement? Demanding your readers adore you and your works uncritically after having failed them so spectacularly is probably one of the grossest examples of "sense of entitlement" I've come across.