George RR Martin's 'A Dance With Dragons': My Love/Hate Relationship With 'A Game Of Thrones'

WSJ:

George R.R. Martin's fantasy series "A Song of Ice and Fire" came into my life when a friend recommended the books to me, shortly after the third volume in the saga, "A Storm of Swords," was published in 2000. I had my doubts -- the cover was awful, and I thought the R.R. was a silly gimmick (C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling--great fantasy writers tend to have initials in their names somewhere).

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Comments

[ScorpioRN]

09:34 PM on 07/23/2011

Some alternative titles that came to mind after finishing the book:

"A Lacking of Editors"
"A Cashing of Royalty Checks"
"A Fulfilling of Contractual Obligations"
"A Losing of Interest"
"A Yawning of Readers"
"A Stuffing With Padding"
"A Bloating of Subplots"
"A Skimming of Chapters"
"A Nothing is Happening"
"A Why Am I Reading This?"
"A Done With This Series"

Who are these five thousand tedious new characters introduced over halfway through the series and why should I care about them?

Why have all the main characters turned into boring whiny passive/reactive repetitive unconvincingly drawn shadows of their former selves?

Why does the plot only advance three inches in over a thousand pages?

The first three books are classics. Enormous, towering achievements. I can't remember the last time I became that emotionally caught up in a series of novels.

The fourth is decent. A change of pace, yeah, but still lots of interesting stuff there.

But this one... sorry, I have to get off at this stop.

If the next two (three? four? five?) books do come out at some point, I'll skim summaries. But I'm not wading through this murk again.

I don't mean to be mean. Martin's a once in a generation fantasy writer. A man of staggering talent.This story's just clearly - to me, anyway - gotten very far away from him, and I can't go on watching it getting driven into the ground like this.

[Steven Synan]

08:32 PM on 07/10/2011

I really want to get into this series bad, but I just can't stand the thought of getting all the way through to A Dance With Dragons and then having to wait a decade to finish the rest. I have A Game of Thrones, but I'm not touching it until this series is DONE! I'm not much of a re-reader, so re-reading the series for each new release is out.

[niko73]

10:01 PM on 07/09/2011

I'm glad Ayra is a POV in this book. She's my favorite character. Plus you've got Snow and Tyrion, two characters most readers love. Add Dany on top of that and that's why Martin fans have been frustrated the last 10 years. Can't wait for Tuesday. My bet is it's good, but not quite at the level of the first three. I don't think he'll regain that magic. But I liked A Feast for Crows, even being slow and without all the characters. This will be better than Crows, but some fans will still be disappointed. I won't be. I'm sure it will be very entertaining and this series will remain one of the premier in fantasy.

[RedneckLiberal]

10:36 AM on 07/08/2011

I like the series and really enjoy the fact that very few characters are 'safe'. Martin does like to kill of major characters.

That being said - he really needs to pull his thumb out of that orifice. Waiting 5+ years between books is ridiculous. Especially when he is publishing other work in the meantime and not finishing the books in this series.

[John Rathe]

01:57 AM on 07/08/2011

Meh. I was dying to read this book... five years ago. My excitement lead to frustration, which lead to disappointment, which lead to disinterest. Probably won't read it as it's been so long since I read the previous one in the series, I'd probably have to go back and start the whole series over again. And there are supposedly another book or two in the series? Dude will pull a Robert Jordan before it ever gets finished.

[Back on Earth]

12:21 AM on 07/10/2011

I hear you! I started reading this series when my son was in elementary school. He's now in college! I will probably be a grandparent when the series is done if GRRM and I are lucky to make it that far. This is also the reason I've never read another fantasy series and never will.

[Brigette]

09:31 PM on 07/07/2011

I'm on the first book, after immediately falling in love with the TV show.

[Kingkongmama]

10:02 PM on 07/07/2011

Prepare to be blown away.

[niko73]

05:05 PM on 07/09/2011

I'm so jealous. I wish I were reading them for the first time too. What a great experience.