a Dance with Dragons

[WVMark]

I read his first novel, A Game of Thrones, and loved it. Had the start of a really great story. I read Clash of Kings and still was happy with both books. But then came A Storm of Swords and things started to read like Robert Jordan. I read A Feast for Crows and was thoroughly disgusted. Total trash of a novel unless you like Robert Jordan type writing. That whole book, Feast for Crows, could have been condensed down to a couple chapters. What happened, though, GRRM strung his "story" out to two novels: Feast for Crows and Dance with Dragons. In Feast for Crows, he tells the stories of the secondary characters and what happens with them. Dance with Dragons is supposed to be about the same time period, only covering the main characters.

Sorry, but GRRM lost me as a reader with the last two books. I won't be reading Dance with Dragons.

I'd recommend The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks instead. Much better than GRRM's last two novels. IMO, anyway.

[shawnsegler]

I disagree on the jordan parralel. They suck completely, just because you know, no one is ever going to get hurt...there's no real conflict.

Martins books have had a little wandering around, but with a long series of big books, that's kind of hard to avoid some of.

I loved the first one, thought the second one was kind of meh. Really like the third one...so bloody.

And the last one I thought was really good, but it's obvious that he cut a single book in half to make two books, and is unsatisfying, because It really needed some closure to some of the storie....butit was good enough that I'm happy to wait.

Martin himself brings up the analogy of the difference in time between the fourth novel in Jack Vances demon princes series: "The Face" and the fifth: "The book of dreams" which was like 11 years or some ridiculous long number....but they were really good and worth waiting for. I think he's taking the time to avoid some of the pitfalls that Jordan hurled himself into.

It's all a matter of taste though. No accounting for anyones sensibilities in that dpt. You like waht you like. I really like George RR Martin. Try some of his other books too. Fevre Dream is like one of the best vampire stories ever written.

Best,

S

[Josealb]

Ok.

Seriously, someone please give me a comparison between The Dark Tower complete series and this series up until the last book. No, not you Shawn, you never read the Dark Tower's last one.

Not a comparison in plot...but in quality, and depth. Thanks in advanced.

[Snow]

I just saw that HBO is coming out with A Game of Thrones. Sean Bean will play Ned Stark.

http://www.hitfix.com/articles/2009-7-20-sean-bean-plays-hbo-s-game-of-thrones

[nianfong]

Sean bean as ned stark... hm. could work. ned never had sean's sneer though... hm...

[josh]

Ok.

Seriously, someone please give me a comparison between The Dark Tower complete series and this series up until the last book. No, not you Shawn, you never read the Dark Tower's last one.

Not a comparison in plot...but in quality, and depth. Thanks in advanced.

Well, Dark Tower is one of my all-time favorite fantasy series, so take it with a grain of salt when I say that Martin's series (which I have enjoyed very much so far) is nowhere near as good, in terms of the complexity and depth of the story and characters... nevertheless, I think it is still very good. This may be a bit too simplistic, but if Dark Tower/LOTR are "A-level," then I would say that Song of Ice and Fire is solid "B-level" material (for me, comparable fantasy series would be Robin Hobb's Farseer books), and as much as I enjoyed it, I would place Robert Jordan's Wheel of TIme squarely in "C-level" territory.

[Mut]

you'd rate the wheel of time as 'c' grade... boy you are generous!

I love the first 3 books of this series, the forth is still ok but just a little ho hum. I think the new one if it ever comes will be very good!