A Song Of Ice And Fire - George R R Martin (Spoilers allowed)

STAFF EDIT: This thread is now "spoiler allowed." Since it has been over 9 months since the latest book was released, we are assuming that everyone has finished reading it, so any material that has been previously published may be discussed without tags. If you have not read all the books, read at your own risk.

If you are looking for discussion of the show, please see one of the relevant show threads.







Just making a new thread because the other one is about the first book and we were discussing the later books in there, which may spoil plot details of this amazing series for those still reading.



This is without doubt my favourite fantasy series. The writing is great, the characters and character development is great, the plot is so intricate and the twists Martin employs are brutal. I love how some of the "bad" characters we loved to hate in the beginning, once their points of view are introduced in later books, are turning out to become quite popular and Martin is really good at showing things in shades of gray rather than just black and white.

I also love how this is a fantasy series but does not have any of the cheesy stuff that is prevalent in almost every other series in the genre (though I do love the fantasy genre, I am well aware of its pitfalls and stereotypes and am glad that these are not present in A Song of Ice and Fire).

As of now, a pilot for the the HBO series has been approved with Martin as executive producer (?) and also if the series is green lit, then he will have script input and direct at least 1 episode a season.

Also, A Dance With Dragons is (I heard) tentatively scheduled for October 2009 (?) I can't wait as A Feast For Crows really developed the characters well and you can just tell that some major shit is going to happen in this book.

Title of final books:

Also, the penultimate book's title is going to be The Winds of Winter and with the whole "Winter is coming" theme throughout the series so far, you can just tell that things are going to get even more badass before anything is resolved! And the final book will be called A Dream of Spring apparently. Although I read it could also be called A Time For Wolves

I heard the release date is Sept/Oct as well, and I'm hoping that pans out; however, I wouldn't be surprised if it were pushed back even more until '10 or so...

I just hope he finishes the series before he dies! Hopefully it will get easier for him once he starts putting all of the characters in the same book again with The Winds of Winter.

He just needs to spend more time writing the novels, and less time editing story compilations, releasing short story collections, and writing pilots for HBO

He better finish this series faster than he's been writing the last few. I could be 30 by the it ends, fuck.

Can we agree to still put spoilers in spoiler tags and say which book they're from? I still haven't finished A Feast for Crows.

Let's do the spoiler tags, yeah, because I'm only 500 pages into Feast as well.

Euron Crow's Eye is a fucking awesome character. I hope to see more of him.
I've only just read the first bit he's in, at the kingsmoot.

Cool, spoiler tags added to my original post.

I like him as an antagonist. Honestly, hearing from reviews of the book, I expected the Dorne and Iron Islands bits to suck, but I've enjoyed them quite a lot and I'm hoping to see their perspectives continued.

Wait till you get to the chapter entitled "The Queenmaker" and I think you might agree with me.

Also, as far as POVs for A Dance With Dragons, it's highly rumored that

Quentyn Martell will be featured, so I might get my wish.

And I predict this will be a fun thread consisting of like 4 or 5 people having collective orgasms over the awesomeness of this series.

The next chapter I've got to read is The Queenmaker. I'll read it in a minute actually now that you've said that.

I am enjoying the Dorne and Iron Isles bits a lot. They're so different to the rest of Westeros. I like the way the ironborn are practically vikings.

Yeah, and I like the desert atmosphere of Dorne. The map itself is really huge though. Take this image for a rough example of how large it really is:

Any confirmation the Eastern Continent is called Essos? And what is Sothoryos?

I hope we get a map of the Eastern Continent in ADwD.

The map with Sothoryos mentioned is in A Storm of Swords in the front.

A Dance of Dragons is confirmed to have the first canonical map of these places though.

Oh awesome. I've been hoping for one. The Eastern Continent is really interesting.

I've been debating reading this. I really loved LotR and it's pretty much the only serious fantasy stuff I've ever tried. It just seems crazy to jump into a series with so many books that are each soooo long.

Read it now. Don't you trust me?

We're Lost/Breaking Bad buddies. It's very awesome and quite easy to get immersed in. Getting through the books can be trying because of their length, but it's more than worth it.

What's great is that, likely, by the time you catch up, the wait for the fifth book will either be over or else very short for you, so the fourth book won't be nearly as daunting as it is to some.

I was in the same position as you. I thought it was going to take me forever to read all the books, but it's taken me about 4 months because they're so amazing and engrossing.

I'm sure you're right, but... there are so many other books to read. I know that's a lame way to think about books (or music or whatever), but I just feel like however great the experience of this series turns out to be, I could've had like 10 different experiences in the same time.

EDIT: Just read Kathotar's post. Maybe I'll try the first one and see if it really is as quick a read as people say. I'm not the fastest reader. LotR took me like 5 months, during which time I wasn't reading anything else.

Again, same as me. I was never a fast reader.
But then I read A Game of Thrones in something like 3 weeks. It's impossible to put down.

Still, the first book will hook you I think. This series is just so different and better than all other fantasy (believe me--I've read loads of the stuff).

it's very grounded in a sense of reality with a very beautifully realized world and deep characters who are never just black and white cutouts. The characters develop so much over the course of the series...it's incredibly engrossing.

I hope you get involved with it.

I honestly cannot explain in words how great I think this series is. Truly truly incredible.

Fuck Harry Potter. This series should be required reading for people who even remotely like fantasy.

lol. I can't believe how many people over the age of 20 consider Harry Potter to be legitimate literature.

I'm really hoping we learn more about the Doom of Valyria.
Hell, I want GRRM to write a huge book on the history of the ASoIaF world.

I'm skeptical that he'll even live long enough to finish the series, let alone add on to its core

It's going to be the better part of a decade until it's completed, that's for sure.

We get A Dance With Dragons in 2009 (maybe 2010).
The Winds Of Winter - 2013 ish?
A Dream Of Spring - 2016/17 ish?

That would be my guess. I just hope he doesn't die too. That would be catastrophic.

That's ambitious I'd say. I reckon 2020 before it's finished.

Well, I imagine he'll pick up the pace a bit once he gets to using all characters in the same book.

Yeah.

There were only 2 years in between each of the first three books. Then five years in between Storm of Swords and Feast For Crows. But I'm assuming that was because once he realised he wasn't going to get everything into Feast For Crows, he had to rewrite a lot of stuff and change the order of stuff around and generally just do and redo a lot of stuff. And the same goes for Dance With Dragons, a lot of the stuff that will be in this book was initially written for Feast For Crows, so now has to be rewritten and rearranged so as to make more sense and is therefore taking so long (although nothing can excuse him for taking quite THIS long).

I hope he speeds up, and hope it doesn't take more than 10 years to get the next three books (well, two books as Dance With Dragons is largely almost finished now).

I suppose I can understand why Feast and Dance have taken longer than the first three. I just really, really hope he hasn't gotten used to this schedule and will go back to only leaving 2 years between them.

Just read the bit in AFFC where

Sam and Arya cross paths without mentioning anything to do with Jon or who she is. So frustrating!

I've gotten a friend of mine into this series. He's currently nearing the end of book 2 and loves it.

I've bought another friend A Game of Thrones for his birthday so he should be starting to read that in the next couple of months after his dissertation has been handed in.

The word is spreading hopefully!

Nice

I got a friend of mine into it as well

This series of books is the only fiction that has me genuinely hating characters. Seriously..........AGAGAGGGGGGRRGGGGGHHH!!!!!

I usually need a lot of breaks when I'm reading, but this series of books is one of the rare ones where I can't for the life of me put down the damn book. I can remember many nights where I intended to read a little before going to sleep and find myself still going at 4 AM or later because I have to know what happens next, and it's always something unexpected and awesome. ADWD can't come soon enough.

Have the POVs for ADWD been released anywhere? I'm really fucking hoping for Victarion. The Iron Islands chapters are becoming my favourites, although I've just read the last of them

I foresee epicness if and when Victarion and Euron come into contact with Dany.

I'm more than half way through A Clash of Kings now. This series is seriously addictive.

ACoK might be my favorite in the series so far.

Then again there's A Storm of Swords.........

I went out and bought ACoK the day I finished AGoT. I may do the same with the next in the series.

FUCK.

















FUCK.

FUCK.

I didn't know how close it was to actually filming. I've been looking forward to this news for a long time now!

Yeah I am very much looking forward to that. Best fantasy series ever becomes the best television series ever. HBO are too good to fuck this up.

Ian Rockett as knight #6.

Also I was supposed to pick up the first book at the library today but they didn't have it in English, so it'll have to wait a bit more. I do know most of the story though because my father used to read them when we went on camping trips and he told us the story in front of a campfire. That must have been 1999. lol.

Holy awesome. They could make this into such an awesome series.

I can't fucking wait.

This is great news

Damnit, I can't wait for the next book, and now for the TV series either!

I finished A Clash of Kings last night. FUUUUUUUUUUUU

The next book is in the mail.

ASoS...get ready for a fucking ride, man.