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A Song of Ice and Fire BOOK Discussion |OT2| Unmarked SPOILERS for Published Material

This thread is for book discussion of George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. There will be UNMARKED SPOILERS for all published material, which includes the books up through A Dance With Dragons and any side material such as the World Book or the Hedge Knight novellas. Material from preview chapters from The Winds of Winter MUST BE SPOILER tagged.

Please try to keep discussion about the TV series in the many threads related to that.

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And a link to the old thread that lasted us many years:
A Song of Ice and Fire -- **Unmarked Spoilers For All Books including ADWD**
 
Thanks for making the new thread, Basileus.

We can leave this thread in the Off-Topic forum for a week or so, and then it'll get moved into Community.
 
The way she only has like five chapters total between Feast and Dance is a tragedy. A lot of the Brienne chapters in Feast and the Tyrion chapters in Dance should have been cut and filled with Arya chapters instead.

Just to revive this silly argument before the thread is locked (edit: too late!), that isn't how books are written in general, and certainly isn't how GRRM writes. AFFC and ADWD should be considered one book, that was clumsily split in two because it had been so long since ASOS. Martin doesn't seem to jump between characters when he writes. Apparently, when it's time to tell a POV story, he sits down, rereads what he has written of that character before, and writes the entire arc. And sometimes he decides it was the wrong direction to go, and starts over.

I will always recommend to new readers and re-readers to try the Boiled Leather/Ball of Beasts version. It improves the story immeasurably, as well as minimizing the frustration of "fat pink masts" and "where do whores go" references.
 

Damerman

Member
Im gonna reserve this post for an exposition on why i think Stannis is autistic. I'll post excerpts and give my opinion on it.
 
Show watcher here. I've just started A Game of Thrones on audible though, and I plan on getting through them all eventually. I'll probably finish before The Winds of Winter is anywhere near done tbh.
 

Puppen

Banned
Im gonna reserve this post for an exposition on why i think Stannis is autistic. I'll post excerpts and give my opinion on it.

It's a bit tiring how nearly everyone with a non-typical personality gets diagnosed as autistic by the Internet these days. Sometimes people are just different, it doesn't mean they have a cognitive disability, so I'm hoping you have a compelling case for this.
 

Tubie

Member
Will Winds even come out in this OT's lifetime? One has to wonder...

I think Winds will come out sometime next year, but the story itself will never be finished (at least not by him).

He will never finish the story in 7 books, I personally don't even think it's possible in 8.

I have a feeling that Winds will end with actual winter barely starting and Daenerys just finally returning to Meereen.
 

Mediking

Member
I feel like I oughta reread the series because I barely remember anything....

Hopefully the next book has a really good recap of what's going on.

But I do remember a certain something about Jon Snow....

Oh, yeah... Robb Stark....

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT'S ALL COMING BACK...
 

Moff

Member
TWOW will release 2019, together with the blu-ray set of the complete TV show

ADOS will release after the finale of the reboot of the TV show
 
No hope. I used to read theories and debates on Reddit, plus various articles about the lore or what's to come. Not anymore. Every other month Martin is previewing some new thing that isn't TWOW.

And the funny thing is that when Winds comes out he'll go on a press tour, which is fine/no complaints...but afterwards he'll attend cons and events every other month for a couple years, and by 2019 he'll have maybe 200 pages of A Dream Of Spring written. Same mistake over and over, since 2001.
 

darscot

Member
At this point the books are pretty much done for me. With the show passing them and most likely wrapping up the whole story before another book comes out let alone two, whats the point? The books were really starting to drag for me, just too much filler and not enough of the actual story.
 

DKehoe

Gold Member
I was hoping this thread would contain something other than people complaining how long it's taking for the books to come out. I should have known better.
 

Kain

Member
Aaaaaaaand the wound stays open.

To contribute something, this weekend I'll probably get the Tales of Dunk and Egg.
 

TheXbox

Member
Aaaaaaaand the wound stays open.

To contribute something, this weekend I'll probably get the Tales of Dunk and Egg.
^ Dunk and Egg is incredible. It's some of the best stuff he's written since ASOS, and there are inklings of foreshadowing towards stuff that will presumably take place in TWOW and ADOS.

If he's committed to wrapping things up with ADOS then hopefully it won't take him as long to finish the series, if he ever does.You've gotta figure by the end of TWOW he'll have his end in sight, again providing ADOS is where he's ending it.

He can't go on adding new characters and starting new story branches forever, at some point is has to start winding down.
We said this about ADWD. And TWOW. It's not happening.

I won't say he's a slow writer either, because he's honestly put in a fair amount of work between ADWD and TWOW. Writing TV episodes, editing anthologies, the Dunk and Egg stuff. Oh, and he wrote something like 150000 words for that fucking coffee book. He writes a lot, he works a lot, but I don't think he has the desire to dedicate 100% or even 50% of his energy towards mainline ASOIAF like he used to.
 
No hope. I used to read theories and debates on Reddit, plus various articles about the lore or what's to come. Not anymore. Every other month Martin is previewing some new thing that isn't TWOW.

And the funny thing is that when Winds comes out he'll go on a press tour, which is fine/no complaints...but afterwards he'll attend cons and events every other month for a couple years, and by 2019 he'll have maybe 200 pages of A Dream Of Spring written. Same mistake over and over, since 2001.

If he's committed to wrapping things up with ADOS then hopefully it won't take him as long to finish the series, if he ever does.You've gotta figure by the end of TWOW he'll have his end in sight, again providing ADOS is where he's ending it.

He can't go on adding new characters and starting new story branches forever, at some point is has to start winding down.
 
If he's committed to wrapping things up with ADOS then hopefully it won't take him as long to finish the series, if he ever does.You've gotta figure by the end of TWOW he'll have his end in sight, again providing ADOS is where he's ending it.

He can't go on adding new characters and starting new story branches forever, at some point is has to start winding down.

Yeah, but I don't see that happening with book 7. It just feels like there's no way to end it that soon.

I do think the final book will probably get written faster once we get there, because middles tend to be the most difficult part of a story to write, but I think we've still got at least one more book after Winds before that gets into sight.
 

Paganmoon

Member
He'll announce he's done in August for a late 2016 release.

pls George ;_;

If and when it gets released, I'm almost positive it's going to be in connection to the TV-series, either a month prior, or just after the season wraps up, to get maximum exposure. One could argue a book with this kind of following wouldn't need it, but it could sell new readers on the series as well.

That is, if the show is still on the air when the next book gets released.
 
I finished the 5 books a few weeks ago. It is true that ADWD doesn't move the overall plot much, but I love it. It and GoT were the only books I read consistently without long breaks in-between. ACOK was the most tedious and my least favorite, it took me over 2 years to finish it. The first half of ASOS was also boring up until the red wedding, then it is incredible. FFC had boring chapters but it was interesting overall because I couldn't wait to read what Cersei was up next. I'm sure TWOW will be amazing, if he ever finishes it. The way he set up the plot lines in ADWD will be worth it by the end.
 
BWAHAHAHA new OT.

The last one lasted nearly five years this one could beat it since there still isn't a new book out and I imagine a lot of the early discussion came from ADWD sprinkled with show discussion before the whole separate OTs for the show came about.
 

Jacob

Member
Woop woop, new OT.

I did like a number of things in ADWD and I think Martin's prose might be improving, but the length and the lack of plot movement is what killed it for me. Maybe if I was younger and still read more I wouldn't have minded.

BWAHAHAHA new OT.

The last one lasted nearly five years this one could beat it since there still isn't a new book out and I imagine a lot of the early discussion came from ADWD sprinkled with show discussion before the whole separate OTs for the show came about.

Not really, the last OT started in late 2011 and had links to pre-existing book-reader and newbie-friendly Season 1 threads in the OP.
 

CassSept

Member
The last thread really slowed down though as time went by, we didn't even fill 5 pages within the last year. A few years back George still dropped a chapter or two once in a while, mostly from delayed ADWD material. Now, well. I don't think any of us realistically expect the book to come out any time soon, especially after the announcement earlier this year.
 
It took 2018 days from the release of AFFC to the announcement of ADWD's completion. We have almost exactly nine months left before TWOW eclipses that wait.
 

fallout

Member
I finished the 5 books a few weeks ago. It is true that ADWD doesn't move the overall plot much, but I love it.
Yeah, I read through ASOIAF about a year before ADWD came out and it was a great experience. I really get the issues people have with AFFC and--to somewhat lesser extent--ADWD, but it never really came up while I was reading through them. AFFC in particular was a really great exploration of other characters and it never slowed me down at all.
 

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
Will Winds even come out in this OT's lifetime? One has to wonder...

At this point all I hope for is that GRRM manages to finish the series in a coherent way. Everything just screams of him having lost control over all the plot lines and characters and now trying to find a way to wrap everything up into the ending that he always wanted to arrive at.

The rumors about a potential 8th book are particularly worrying.

Fuck else we got to talk about?

Valar bitcheris. All men must complain.
 
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