Posts Tagged ‘george r r martin’

The second half of A Dance with Dragons from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire has been a long time coming. I use Audible for a lot of my function, including this, and to say Audible had some small technical issues would be an understatement.

Originally they published everything in two halves, hence why all my write-ups of A Song of Ice and Fire have also been in two halves. However, midway through listening to A Dance with Dragons they consolidated the two into one single audiobook.

The problem was that anyone who had bought the first half, could not longer buy the second half. Nor could you buy the new consolidated book because the system thought you already had it. Yet every time you tried to download it, it would give you only the first half again.

It took Audible months to sort this out. I was not tracking exactly how many, but my guess was it was in the three to six-month timescale. They had to roll out a software update to their app to fix it.

Of course, this small delay is but a taster of the delay I can expect to encounter while I wait for Martin to release The Winds of Winter and the book that comes after that.

Was it worth the wait? No, because Martin does what he always does and kills off my favourite characters. But, like a beaten puppy, I cannot stay away and keep reading regardless.

A Dance with Dragons is the 5th novel in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series.

I am in two minds about it. Some of it, especially at the start is just confusing. Sam is back at The Wall and being sent to Old Town. I don’t know why as he left in A Feast of Crows. Maybe I missed the sentence that said “Jon Snow had a flashback”, but having talked it over with friends I am not the only one to have suffered déjà vu. Davos too, though this is latter explained.

On the other hand, it feels like quite a bit actually happens in this book. Which is unusual for a book of this series which can often go for hundreds of pages without much happening. I think i like it this way.

As I mentioned in my post about part one most A Song of Ice and Fire novels follow a predictable format of not a lot happening then a bunch of people dying. Again in part two though, there were not actually that many deaths.

George R. R. Martin has never been one for going over dramatic. The Red Wedding was a series finale in the TV series, but was just a part of the story in A Storm of Swords and while brutal, he never went into much detail or spent much time on it. Parts of A Feast for Crows felt similar – it would look much more dramatic on screen than it is written in the book.

When reading A Song of Ice and Fire you soon get into the George R. R. Martin routine. Nothing happens for ages and then loads of people die. The first book of A Feast for Crows follows a similar vein but with surprisingly few deaths. Which just leaves the large spaces of nothing happens.

That is not to say it is not enjoyable. The large amount of nothing that happens in each novel is politically interesting and the constant changing between characters keeps things fresh. I enjoyed the last book more though. Perhaps it’s all building up for the second half.

If you are a big reader you may well read A Storm of Swords as one book. However, if you are like me, reading a book longer than Anna Karenina is no small undertaking.

To make it easier I read Part 1 earlier. Even so, it is still a meaty novel, twice as long as your typical one. What a novel it is though. The more I got into it, the more I could not put it down.

I have only seen Game of Thrones up until the end of series 3 and A Storm of Swords goes beyond that so for the first time in the series I was breaking new ground.

There is a special circle of Hell in which George R. R. Martin will be subjected to all the things he has done to my favourite characters.

As with any instalment of A Song of Ice and Fire, lots of people died. Some of them I was pleased about, some I was annoyed about, some of which I was just surprised at.

A Storm of Swords is the third novel in the Song of Ice and Fire series. However, I haven’t actually read it, I have only read part 1 because it is so amazingly long.

Good though. Nothing really happens, it’s just people marrying each other. This is good if you enjoy the chess of politics, though perhaps does not live up to the name – there is no storm of swords. There is quite a detailed description of people dying in gibbet cages if your worries about a lack of gore though.

How exactly it is two separate books is unclear. It ends right in the middle of a story. It feels a lot more like cashing in on having able to sell two products than even a vague attempt at pretending there are two parts.

I’ve been reading George R. R. Martin’s second book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series ever since I finished the first over a year ago. Clearly with not much focus. Actually, I have been putting it off because I was a bit worried about not remembering what was going on.

Having restarted, however, I found it fairly easy to piece together. This involved fitting some of it in with the TV series though, and there are differences.

It is what you would expect from Martin. The good guys having a really hard time, the bad guys having a slightly less hard time, and all your favourite characters constantly being killed. The ending is also rather abrupt. It is almost like he just writes the entire thing and picks arbitrary points to slice into books (maybe he does).

Having been watching the TV series, I’ve also been reading the book as well.

It’s not been a bad read, but I really think it speaks highly of the TV series that actually includes most of the details.

Sadly, I can’t think of a better example than Harry Potter. But if you take Harry Potter, the novels are great because they contain large story arcs and extra details that are entirely missing from the films. I didn’t find this to be the case with A Game of Thrones – the TV series has covered pretty much all the book.

As I’ve said, that isn’t really a fault of the book though, which was definitely worth a read.