I’ll keep this spoiler free, don’t worry. Just a quick not to say: I’m absolutely loving the latest book. Totally worth the wait (admittedly I only read the other Song of Ice and Fire books last year, but still…) Mr R R Martin’s story has such incredible scope, action, intrigue, convolutions and resolutions – it’s an amazingly satisfying read. Creating the tableau of the Seven Kingdoms was complicated enough, but delivering such a wide range of characters which the readers can find themselves invested in (who thought anyone would care what would happen to Theon Greyjoy after the events of the previous books?) is a truly remarkable feat.
I tip my proverbial hat to you sir.
As I get to within the last couple of hundred pages (yes, it’s a long book) my only worry is what to read next to take away the pain of the wait until volume six comes out…
I’m experiencing two different timelines for Game of Thrones at the moment – the TV’s first season / first book, in the early days of the War of Kings – and the latest book, A Dance with Dragons, as I read through it on Kindle. It’s a bit surreal; as ever, I am enjoying both, although a point Amanda made to me rings through – the number of characters Martin creates in depth in the books is very hard to keep track of, and I’m struggling to remember who all the random Mereen are around Danaerys at the moment. Will need to find a quick-ref summary.
Scalzi has a fun analysis on why this book has taken so long for George R R Martin to write – at over 400,000 words, in essence, it is the length of four or five lesser books, which a man might have churned out at a rate of one a year. So he’s basically written 4 regular sized books, or two jumbo sized fantasy epics, in one. Sterling effort, my good man, sterling effort.
Armand David's personal weblog: dadhood, technology, running, media, food, stuff and nonsense.
