A Song of Ice and Fire (GoT "I read the book" thread)

Its not bad at all.

Just come to terms with the fact that only half of the characters are covered in it, and be thankful that you didn't read it when it came out so you had to wait six years to get the other half.

It is a good book. People were just upset because there were no Bran, Arya, Jon, Tyrion, ect. There is no drop off in writing. You do have to endure Asha Greyjoy though

ETA: The worst part of AFFC was that Roy Dotrice didn't do the audiobook.

I found that I had to put it down at times and come back to it. It still held my interest, but I wasnt dying to see what happened next like I was with the other books.

What it is missing the most is humor. I really think if the next book ever comes out it will be one of the best because alot has been set up.

Book 4 is not bad per se. But like others have said all of my favorite characters do not appear in it. Next book should be sick though.

Jaime, Baelish, and Doran Martell were the only captivating plot lines for me in Feast. The first two are very intriguing, especially Jaime's.

quote:

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Martin is having a very difficult time finishing the series. Would love to hear some of the guesses as to why.

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I would venture that he wrote himself into a corner. Too many goddamn characters, too much character development on characters we really don't need to know so damn much about. Some of it is interesting, yes, but most of it is not. There are so many subplots that the stories can go any which way...most books devote more emotional investment to the protagonists, but he's trying too hard for antagonists and you're not sure of what to feel sometimes.

By constantly blurring the lines between good and evil he is making a world where it doesn't matter who wins or loses; there will be no storybook ending. Kind of like a bad form of motivating employees: one can praise them, then slap them down, then praise them again with another slapdown, but the end result is a numbness of sorts. Does this make sense?

He needs to leave some of those other characters out (that he mostly spent too much time on in Book 4) and focus on the ones we've all invested in emotionally and are rooting for (or not). Bottom line.

Having said that, I disliked the 4th book, but still enjoyed it to a degree...the parts that I didn't skip over. I got the gist of the character or situation but just skimmed through that shite.

One thing I don't like about Cersei in book 4 is that she went from shrewd and crafty to in-fricking-sane and delusional with no real cause or build to it. It just was there.

Jaime's dramatic character change at least was a process that readers got to follow...

Great points CCT, I agree that Martin's created too many characters with too many plots and even too many subplots for him to control.

One of my friends has an excellent theory. He says Martin doesn't know how to finish the Bran chapters because Martin doesn't know how to get his hands around the magic in the world. Almost every other fantasy series has a magic that is subject to certain rules. Martin's doesn't and he does not know how to develop Bran's character in relation to the powers Bran will need. In short, Martin doesn't know how to handle Bran's storyline.

SPOILERS

I can definitely buy that idea.

Not sure if I agree with the idea of too many characters/plots though.



What is really out of place? Brianne is all I can think of, and even that is tied to the Stark plot, and comes back into the fold of it at the end of book 4, giving a look into what Cat has become.

You take out Cersei, and you basically remove King's Landing from the story, in spite of all the stuff going on there, and how the Lannister hold of the kingdom is weakening....I suspect that will be a VERY important point in the 6-7th books.

I agree with the earlier post about Cersei's descent into paranoid insanity. If she was so concerned about that prophecy why is it all of sudden becoming a big deal? I do understand her father getting killed and joffrey and her realization that Jamie is someone different, but still... And Brienne's story just dragged and dragged on and on. What this book needed more than anything (aside from the other charact POVs) was to be edited down.