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Joined: 4/28/2011
Posts: 60
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So I sped my way through a Dance with Dragons and have concluded that the 5th installment of A Song of Fire and Ice (or is it Fire and Ice? I can never remember.) is much better than the 4th book. I'm bummed, however, that it ended with such cliffhangers, mostly because I know it's going to be another 10 years before the next book comes out. Okay, so that's a bit of an exaggeration, but if this last book is any indication, it's going to be a damn long while before we get any sort of closure with this story.
What did the rest of you think of A Dance with Dragons? Good, not-so-good, okay, fantastic?
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Joined: 2/27/2011
Posts: 353
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I'm halfway through it and can't wait to discuss it with some of the Book Country members. We may need to start a "safe" thread so we can discuss spoilers! =)
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Joined: 3/13/2011
Posts: 222
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I'm not going to read it. I'm burned out just -hearing- about all the character deaths. I can't commit to a book where there aren't any characters that, like, survive. :/ Kind of a pity, really.
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Joined: 5/10/2011
Posts: 88
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My boyfriend bought it for me as a surprise this weekend, but I was half way through the first book of a trilogy, so I haven't started it yet. Once I finish the trilogy I'm working on I'll be all over that book!
I'm a little worried to hear that there are cliff hangers at the end though... I thought this was supposed to be THE LAST book of the series?
@RJBlain I don't know about this last book, but up to the end of book 4, there were about 1/2 of the original characters that remained... and in my opinion, they were/are the better characters...
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Joined: 4/28/2011
Posts: 60
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@Lisa, no he's got two more books planned. I think, originally, it was supposed to be 5 books but then he couldn't fit everything he wanted to say into those five and expanded it to seven. So, considering he needs to write and publish two more books, I estimate we'll be waiting another 10 to 14 years for this thing to end.
Someone pointed out that Martin published the first book when Derek Jeter was a rookie. I think, by the time he finishes, Jeter will already have been elected to the Hall of Fame.
And RJ, he didn't kill ALL the good characters. Just some of them, though I do understand your frustration. The good ones never seem to catch a break. Martin has been compared to all kinds of writers, but with each book his work reminds me more and more of Candide.
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Joined: 5/10/2011
Posts: 88
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Oy, 2 more books after this?! I think I might die of impatience... Knowing that, perhaps I SHOULD wait before I read the next book instead of devouring it as previously planned. If I'm going to have to wait another year at the absolute least for the next book...
hmmm..
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Joined: 4/29/2011
Posts: 3
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We're beating around the problems Martin presents to his readers.
First, because the books in this series come out so many years apart, it's hard to remember who all the characters are, who's allied with whom, etc. I'm in the middle of Dance and at times want to throw up my hands and put the book on my shelf until the series is done and then start again with book one.
The second problem for the reader, but not obviously for Martin, is that there are no protagonists in this book. Everyone is grist for his mill, which again makes it hard for the reader to feel engaged.
That said Martin of course is a genius at story crafting and can turn a phrase with the best of them.
Writing about Jon Snow on page 472, he writes "Jon Snow had dreamed of leading men to glory just as King Daeron had, of growing up to be a conqueror. Now he was a man grown and the Wall was his, yet all he had were doubts. He could not even seem to conquer those."
It's lines like that that keep me reading.
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Joined: 3/17/2011
Posts: 88
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Hey all,
One thing I gotta get off my chest. Martin's LATEST two books took 5 years to complete each because he was in continuity jail--woe unto thee if you get sentenced to continuity jail! There is no commuting the sentence and you never know how long you're in for until you're out! I just did a stint of a mere 2 months and it nearly broke me. Anyway, the man's first three books in the series all came out within two years of each other, as planned. So, c'mon, chill out about this whole, HE TAKES SOOOOOO LONG stuff. He was stuck on book 4, ended up having to split it in two and still had to wrangle with huge continuity issues. I figure if you write a series as fine as his you'd be damn lucky not to hit some serious continuity issues after some 2,000 pages or so.
Me, I loved the first 2/3 to 3/4 of Dances but the last bit with him flogging the Danni story to death and the uncliffhanger involving what's-his-name (*cough*plotarmor*cough*) was all kinds of anticlimactic.
Still, brilliant series and brilliant 4 hundred or so pages of Dances.
-Kevin
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Joined: 8/21/2011
Posts: 394
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I'm painfully reading my way toward the end of the 4th book. I have no idea how many pages I have left; I bought the e-books as a 4-book bundle and just see a percentage at the bottom (I think I'm up to 96%). I say "painfully" because, although I agree there are many wonderful aspects to Martin's writing (his phrasing is lovely in many, many places and his details with respect to place and history - although burdensome at times - are amazing), this book seems to be so slow-moving compared to the first three. He introduced so many knew characters, killed off so many others, and basically "abandoned" several others. I have Dance with Dragons, but I don't think I'm going to read it just yet. Time to take a little Martin break.
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Joined: 8/21/2011
Posts: 394
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Actually bit the bullet and decided to read A Dance with Dragons. Liked it MUCH better than the previous two books (especially book 4), but, to be honest, am getting pretty tired of the building up, building up, building up - and TO BE CONTINUED. There was a thread on this site a few months ago about loose ends in series. I don't mind a few - they whet my appetite for the next book - but the Song of Ice and Fire series is nothing but loose end after loose end. There were times while reading the series that I wanted to say, "Enough already! I have plenty of other books to read!" So, when the next one comes out (and I'm not placing any bets on an estimated date), I'll decide then if I want to invest time in reading it - especially since Martin has expressed that he thinks the last two books will be around 1500 manuscript pages EACH.
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