Slashdot Mirror
George RR Martin Finishes A Dance With Dragons
Lil'wombat writes "George RR Martin has completed his long awaited conclusion to the A Song of Ice and Fire series. A Dance with Dragons will be published on July 12, 2011. Let the celebrations begin! And everyone was worried that he was going to pull a Jordan."
First Duke Nukem Forever and now this.
I'll echo someone I read a couple of days ago and say this is the longest wait for half of a book I've ever encountered.
Uh, "if it looks roughly mouse-shaped according to my infra-red sensitive pit, eat it"? --Chris Burke 09-08-10
1) The link says specifically that the book isn't done but it's close enough to done to give it a publication date
2) It's not the series conclusion. It's the 5th of 7 planned books that was originally supposed to be 3 books total :)
The first LINE of TFA says " No. Sorry. Not done yet."
How the hell do you go from that to "hey it's done!"?
I mean come on. Even for Slashdot this is retarded.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I remember back in the day, as a young man full of optimism and energy, eagerly anticipating the second half of this marvelous novel.
Now at last I might take it in my wrinkled, trembling hands and gaze in wonder through rheumy eyes, ever so slightly before the reaper takes my withered husk from this world!
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Was anyone actually worried he would "pull a Jordan?"
Yeah, their is concern... check out this timeline:
* A Game of Thrones (1996)
* A Clash of Kings (1998) 2 years
* A Storm of Swords (2000) 2 years
* A Feast for Crows (2005) 5 years and next book half done
* A Dance with Dragons (not in 2011) 6 years
* The Winds of Winter (forthcoming) so 6 years (GRRM age now 68+)
* A Dream of Spring (forthcoming) so 6 years (GRRM 75+)
Unless something really changes in the speed of his writing we are likely never going to read the ending.
May be a good time to post Neil Gaiman's blog entry on why George R.R. Martin is not your bitch.
Apparently "Pulling a Jordan" means to go down with what looks like a career ending injury, only to come back and have the best game of his life.
Why wouldn't you want him to pull a Jordan?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Personally, I like the Jordan style much, much better for WoT. There's an essential life to the story, and characters, that's missing. A lot of the things that seem unnecessary, even in retrospect, are there to justify the otherwise insane decisions the characters make; for me, it was clearest at the beginning of the Galad/Perrin confrontation--the characters just seem to move on strings, acting for no real reason other than that's what's necessary to move the plot along. I don't mean that to discourage anyone from reading the Sanderson WoT books though--especially since there is a lot in there where, either Jordan wrote it himself, or Sanderson's ability to imitate his style waxes and wanes, because the magic is there, just in spurts. The example I spoke of was probably the worst, and it wasn't that bad.
Anyway, even (or maybe especially) if you don't lie WoT at all, you should check out Sanderson's other works. Mistborn was pretty good--that's a high compliment for fantasy, which is usually absolute shit--and The Way of Kings, the only published book from the Stormlight Archives, is fucking amazing. I honestly haven't loved a book this much since The Fires of Heaven (I liked WoT before that, but that's the book that made me love it).
As for what the article is actually about, for those who have read it, is there an actual story arc going on? I read I think around halfway through the first book, and it just seemed like a bunch of disconnected subplots, and keeping track of all the characters even in that little bit was extremely difficult--now that I know he takes his PoV characters seriously it'd probably be easier, but I remember it being a real challenge to even remember what I already read about them. And maybe it's trite of me as a reader, but if I'm going to read about swords and magic and all that, I'm looking for a story about something more than the machinations of a bunch of people squabbling over power. From what I read, it seemed that that's all there would be.
But, I loved the writing. I loved the characters, and how well the author got into their heads. I guess I'd like to be on the bandwagon for this one, so (please) without spoiling anything, is there an actual story here?
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And the Tolkien estate sues him for writing fantasy and using two Rs as middle initials.
Just to provide a bit more insight on what Martin is attempting to accomplish in this saga; he's actually a historian by education who specialized in the war of the roses. All the squabbling that occurs is a remythologization of that power struggle, because people generally don't want to read stale history books (and by people, I mean the fiction consuming public). So it's pretty integral to his goals a writer and continues throughout the whole series, but the POV chapters lend very well to get in to the minds of various people and villains often end up having shades of gray which adds a great dynamic IMO. Don't know that any of this changes your opinion on his work though :)
Mod parent up. Seriously, he'll be lucky if he finishes this before he reaches his 80's. If he spent the same effort actually writing the Song of Ice & Fire books that he puts into writing his blog everyday, the thing would be done already. These books are the best fantasy-fiction I have ever read (although a bit dark), but these books are super low on the author's priority list.. He even went so far as to tear into his fans on his blog, saying he doesn't owe us anything... I think we'll be LUCKY if he pulls a Jordan (that is to say, leaves enough outline and material for a follow-on author to finish the story after he dies)... I think it is FAR more likely that this will be the last book that we see in the series, leaving this really amazing series stranded.
Each processor would proceed sequentially as if it had been better for them not to rise against Saul.
... you don't think it's clear that, at that point in writing the series, Goodkind read him some Ayn Rand and thought it was the most genius shit ever?
I mean, Jagang is instantly transformed from being a badass conquerer who wants to break your spirit and take everything from you just because he's such a badass and can to... a guy who wants to bring communism to the world. That completely pisses on the characterization of the major antagonist of the series. Faith of the Fallen isn't just a bad, unoriginal book, it's in that "Highlander 2" special echelon of being a sequel so bad, it actually ruins the good entries in the series before it.