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A Timeframe of Ice and Fire: Two Books, Too Many Upcoming Conflicts Left To Go


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On 10/29/2016 at 7:57 PM, PCK said:

Here's some sad news. If you consider AFFC & ADWD to be one book, then that means it took him 11 years to finish all of it. What does that mean for Winds? 

1. We get another book with half of the POVs.

2. Winds is still another 5 years away. 

3. Alot of characters will get killed off in Winds.

You know what is sadder? Feast/Dance wasn't really finished. I mean, if one goes back and reads George's note in Feast, he says he'd rather have two novels that complete the story arcs for the characters (half in Feast, half in Dance) than have one novel with all the characters where the plots don't get finished.

The sad thing is, the plots didn't get resolved in Dance. Meereen is still under siege. Winterfell is still under siege. Stannis is still starving. Jon Snow's fate is a mystery. Cersei and Margaery haven't had their trials. And the Maid of Tarth and Jaime and Pod are still running around the Riverlands. And Tyrion is still in flux. As is Victarion. And Theon. And Davos. As is Sansa. As is Arya. So too the Cave. Yes, the plot moved along some. And I'm not saying there has to be resolution in ALL plot lines at the end of a novel. SOME would have been nice, however. Jon/Dany/Tyrion all up in the air was a joke. Especially considering the reason for splitting the novels in the first place. VERY UNSATISFYING.

And then we heard that the ending was there, it just didn't fit. Good news was a ton of Winds should already have been written. Five years on, those words seem nothing but wind themselves.

Look, GRRM doesn't owe us a thing. I'm not trying to come off as entitled here. Just stating the facts as I see them. 3 awesome novels followed by two OK ones that lack any sort of resolution (well written, however) followed by a ton of side projects and commercialization and a huge TV hit and critical success and fame and fortune. Which is all great. No more novels (in this series), however.

I don't anticipate we'll see a novel like Swords again in this series, if it even gets finished, at this rate. I hope I'm wrong there and GRRM is wanting to make Winds special, and different from the show, and a complete novel, with some resolution and an end point.

 

 

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On ‎10‎/‎29‎/‎2016 at 4:52 PM, ssls6 said:

Once a week I go to "not a blog" and it's either football or wildcards.....

I used to check it daily. Now, it's down to once a month because it's just depressing. When he would go a few weeks between posts, I used to think he was working hard on Winds, but then he would post about how he was out of town for some Con or something about Wild Cards, the theater or football.

It's his blog and he can choose to write what he wants, but I in turn don't have the heart to read it anymore.

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11 hours ago, YouKnowNothingJonSnow said:

You know what is sadder? Feast/Dance wasn't really finished. I mean, if one goes back and reads George's note in Feast, he says he'd rather have two novels that complete the story arcs for the characters (half in Feast, half in Dance) than have one novel with all the characters where the plots don't get finished.

The sad thing is, the plots didn't get resolved in Dance. Meereen is still under siege. Winterfell is still under siege. Stannis is still starving. Jon Snow's fate is a mystery. Cersei and Margaery haven't had their trials. And the Maid of Tarth and Jaime and Pod are still running around the Riverlands. And Tyrion is still in flux. As is Victarion. And Theon. And Davos. As is Sansa. As is Arya. So too the Cave. Yes, the plot moved along some. And I'm not saying there has to be resolution in ALL plot lines at the end of a novel. SOME would have been nice, however. Jon/Dany/Tyrion all up in the air was a joke. Especially considering the reason for splitting the novels in the first place. VERY UNSATISFYING.

 

 

 

Not to mention, most of the released chapters from Winds were just holdover chapters already written that couldn't fit into Dance. He's released something like 11 chapters from Winds and I think about all of them were already written when Dance was published. And none of them really move the plot forward. So assuming Winds is the same number of chapters as A Storm of Swords, which had 82, then he has already released about 1/6 of the book. So 1/6 that has not really progressed the story, and 5+ years of nothing new. If anyone thinks this story will be done in 2 more books, I have some magic beans to sell you.

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2 hours ago, SuperMario said:

Not to mention, most of the released chapters from Winds were just holdover chapters already written that couldn't fit into Dance. He's released something like 11 chapters from Winds and I think about all of them were already written when Dance was published. And none of them really move the plot forward. So assuming Winds is the same number of chapters as A Storm of Swords, which had 82, then he has already released about 1/6 of the book. So 1/6 that has not really progressed the story, and 5+ years of nothing new. If anyone thinks this story will be done in 2 more books, I have some magic beans to sell you.

Not moving the story?
Arianne heard about Aegon's invasion and battles and on her way to meet him.

Arya killed another person from her list and set her path to leave the Faceless Men.

Sansa started her relationship with Harrold.

Barristan and Tyrion and Victarion is probably ~70% of the battle of Meereen.

Theon heard about Stannis's battle plans and Jeyne is sent to Braavos.

Did you even read The Forsaken?! How can anyone read The Forsaken and claim that nothing happens?

What did you expect? The wall falling down and Daenerys' invasion?

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7 minutes ago, farerb said:

Not moving the story?
Arianne heard about Aegon's invasion and battles and on her way to meet him.

Arya killed another person from her list and set her path to leave the Faceless Men.

Sansa started her relationship with Harrold.

Barristan and Tyrion and Victarion is probably ~70% of the battle of Meereen.

Theon heard about Stannis's battle plans and Jeyne is sent to Braavos.

Did you even read The Forsaken?! How can anyone read The Forsaken and claim that nothing happens?

What did you expect? The wall falling down and Daenerys' invasion?

I'll give you Arianne, but most of the rest are in their same states. Sure, there has been some minor movements here and there, but for the most part, we are pretty much at the same spot with where we left off at the end of ADWD. Not to mention, most of these "plot movements" are with ancillary characters.

Of course I'm not expecting the wall to have come down or Dany to be setting sail, but when the author himself says that Tyrion and Dany won't meet until the end of the novel, and we've already had 2 Tyrion chapters, I don't see much movement for their storylines.

Do you remember reading A Game of Thrones where every single chapter was important and something gripping happened each one. By A Feast for Crows that just got away from him. Not to say that it's not enjoyable material, but it definitely lost it's punch. And from what I've read thus far from The Winds of Winter minus a few exceptions, I find it will be similar.

But I'll stop ranting as I feel my point got away from the original point of the post.

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AFFC and ADWD combined have 119 chapters.  From the release of ASOS until the release of ADWD was 128 months.  Counting the unpublished, but written, chapters, that means about 1 month per chapter.  Assuming TWOW has 80-85 chapters, minus the ones already written, would mean 6 years.  Or 7 if you don'[t count the unpublished chapters.  In any case that puts it summer 2017-summer 2018, or 6-18 months from now.  Clearly, I'm an optimist.:)

With respect to the preview chapters, I think they move the story as far forward as it can get without major revelations or spoilers.  It's clear that something major is going to happen soon in Arya's, Sansa's, and Theon's stories, for example.  Jon, Bran, Davos, Dany, Brienne, and Jaime have no preview chapters, and I think their stories will leap out of the starting blocs.

I am worried about whether it can be finished in 2 books.  In order to do so, the Others and Dany both have to be at the gates of Westeros by about the 2/3 point of TWOW, or it isn't going to work.  Any later doesn't leave time for those stories to play out.  It's doable, but actually doing it may be what is taking so long.  Authors have a tendency to fall in love with they have written, and don't want to take it out, even if it needs to go.  And, let's face it, AFFC and ADWD were both a bit bloated and could have used trimming.  I'm still going to be optimistic and hope for next summer for TWOW and around 2020 for ADOS.  :D 

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I think Dany is on her way to Westeros by the end of winds and the Others probably about to invade at the end . So in ADOS we will have the northern storyline dealing with the Others and in the south we will have war between Dany , Euron , Aegon and maybe the Lannisters. Then these two storylines is merged in the second half of ADOS.

And GRRM can pull some twists and give us some shocking deaths . I will not be surprised if both Cersei and the Tyrells are dead when TWOW ends. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 31 October 2016 at 4:27 PM, SuperMario said:

I used to check it daily. Now, it's down to once a month because it's just depressing. When he would go a few weeks between posts, I used to think he was working hard on Winds, but then he would post about how he was out of town for some Con or something about Wild Cards, the theater or football.

 

I used to check this forum daily, then weekly, now its my first time in a few months and nothing. No news and very little discussion going on. The future is not looking good :(

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11 hours ago, aFeastForDragons said:

 

I used to check this forum daily, then weekly, now its my first time in a few months and nothing. No news and very little discussion going on. The future is not looking good :(

I had been gone from the forum for 3  years and still nothing new. I don't think GRRM will publish another book in this series before the show finishes. If ever.

On ‎31‎.‎10‎.‎2016 at 5:37 PM, SuperMario said:

Not to mention, most of the released chapters from Winds were just holdover chapters already written that couldn't fit into Dance. He's released something like 11 chapters from Winds and I think about all of them were already written when Dance was published. And none of them really move the plot forward. So assuming Winds is the same number of chapters as A Storm of Swords, which had 82, then he has already released about 1/6 of the book. So 1/6 that has not really progressed the story, and 5+ years of nothing new. If anyone thinks this story will be done in 2 more books, I have some magic beans to sell you.

I don't agree with you that the holdover chapters couldn't fit into Dance. They could have been added, easily.

Maybe the publisher believed the next book would be released sooner if they held them back. If they did, they were certainly wrong. And those multiple cliff hangers didn't add anything to the story. ADwD just seemed unfinished.

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3 hours ago, Tini said:

I had been gone from the forum for 3  years and still nothing new. I don't think GRRM will publish another book in this series before the show finishes. If ever.

I don't agree with you that the holdover chapters couldn't fit into Dance. They could have been added, easily.

Maybe the publisher believed the next book would be released sooner if they held them back. If they did, they were certainly wrong. And those multiple cliff hangers didn't add anything to the story. ADwD just seemed unfinished.

Yeah, I don't know why they weren't in there. I just said couldn't but wouldn't would work as well. For whatever reason, they weren't in there. I think it could be because he hadn't finished either the Battle of Mereen or the Battle of Winterfell, and since he knew those weren't going to make it into ADWD, he might as well end it there and then start the next book with those two battles early.

But I agree that we won't see another book until the series ends. My best guess is TWOW will be 2018 and ADOS we will never see.

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8 minutes ago, SuperMario said:

Yeah, I don't know why they weren't in there. I just said couldn't but wouldn't would work as well. For whatever reason, they weren't in there. I think it could be because he hadn't finished either the Battle of Mereen or the Battle of Winterfell, and since he knew those weren't going to make it into ADWD, he might as well end it there and then start the next book with those two battles early.

But I agree that we won't see another book until the series ends. My best guess is TWOW will be 2018 and ADOS we will never see.

That sounds very likely. GRRM is procrastinating. I think he's reached the point where the story requires him to kill off characters. To kill off characters in large quantities. Once their deaths are published, these characters are gone. And he still has ideas what he can do with them.

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19 minutes ago, SuperMario said:

Yeah, I don't know why they weren't in there. I just said couldn't but wouldn't would work as well. For whatever reason, they weren't in there. I think it could be because he hadn't finished either the Battle of Mereen or the Battle of Winterfell, and since he knew those weren't going to make it into ADWD, he might as well end it there and then start the next book with those two battles early.

But I agree that we won't see another book until the series ends. My best guess is TWOW will be 2018 and ADOS we will never see.

So grim! I still have hope. WoW March 2017 and DoS Jan 2023 lol....it COULD happen!

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  • 2 weeks later...

The simple answer is that GRRM isn't writing a Lord of the Rings book and everything won't just boil down to a boring and simplistic Great Conflict between good and evil.

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18 hours ago, cgf said:

The simple answer is that GRRM isn't writing a Lord of the Rings book and everything won't just boil down to a boring and simplistic Great Conflict between good and evil.

If you think that was the ending of Lord of the Rings, you are mistaken, there's quite a lot of pages left after that. Also, people make it sound like it was good v. evil, but it was one large group who didn't want to live under Sauron against a bunch of other folks who did, there were men on both sides, plenty of dwarves that didn't even care and most men didn't give two fiddlesticks either. People like to boil it down to what you apparently think, but just because we were focused on Gondor and Rohan (the two nations most affected by the conflict), we saw that conflict, instead of say, oh, most people not really caring. I am sure GRRM would have had a few POVs amongst the men serving Sauron, but Tolkien didn't roll that way.

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21 hours ago, cgf said:

The simple answer is that GRRM isn't writing a Lord of the Rings book and everything won't just boil down to a boring and simplistic Great Conflict between good and evil.

 

Well that's obvious……..wait actually no its not since there are so many Jon + Dany + Tyrion happy together theories. The show has taken a lot of liberties to simplify and happy up the story. No idea how anyone could think this story will have a happy ending. 

 

The main reasons:

  • Originally it was meant to be just a handful of POVs and it would wrap up in 3 books. Now we are looking at 7, maybe 8. 
  • He got completely lost with the Meerenese Knot and other stalemate plots. 
  • He was eventually pushed to release something which ended up splitting the books geographically and ADWD ending on a cliffhanger because a lot of it was cut and pushed to the next book. 
  • The show mainly. He took years off enjoying fame/money etc knowing he had plenty of time to get two more books out. However it did set him a deadline which he fell utterly flat on reaching as the show is now way past the books. It will spoil the ending of HIS story and as a result has put him under pressure from constant criticism. The backlash when the show ends will be enormous and only further delay the books. The most likely scenario is he never does finish his story. At this stage there isn't much hope. 

 

 

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On ‎12‎/‎1‎/‎2016 at 5:20 PM, cgf said:

The simple answer is that GRRM isn't writing a Lord of the Rings book and everything won't just boil down to a boring and simplistic Great Conflict between good and evil.

You way oversimplified Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's writing and over compensated for GRRM's. While LOTR is not quite as gray as ASOIAF, the story is not a black and white good versus evil story. There are several gray characters and scenes. Hell, even the heroes are tempted and commit bad acts.

And even knowing GRRM is writing a more nuanced, conflicted story, it's still his story that he knows how it ends. AfeastforDragons previous bulleted points sum up nicely the reasons the story is not being released. It doesn't have anything to do with it not being a pure good vs. evil story.

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On 12/2/2016 at 9:12 PM, aFeastForDragons said:

 

Well that's obvious……..wait actually no its not since there are so many Jon + Dany + Tyrion happy together theories. The show has taken a lot of liberties to simplify and happy up the story. No idea how anyone could think this story will have a happy ending. 

 

The main reasons:

  • Originally it was meant to be just a handful of POVs and it would wrap up in 3 books. Now we are looking at 7, maybe 8. 
  • He got completely lost with the Meerenese Knot and other stalemate plots. 
  • He was eventually pushed to release something which ended up splitting the books geographically and ADWD ending on a cliffhanger because a lot of it was cut and pushed to the next book. 
  • The show mainly. He took years off enjoying fame/money etc knowing he had plenty of time to get two more books out. However it did set him a deadline which he fell utterly flat on reaching as the show is now way past the books. It will spoil the ending of HIS story and as a result has put him under pressure from constant criticism. The backlash when the show ends will be enormous and only further delay the books. The most likely scenario is he never does finish his story. At this stage there isn't much hope. 

 

 

Totlally agreed, its looking more and more likely that d&ds ending will be the only conclusion we get and all because grrm wanted to pimp out Wildcards to his waiting and weary audience.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just finished re-reading ASOS, well actually listening to the audio book this time around. It took a couple hundred pages for things to pick up in that book, save for a couple POVs. It depends on how many people die in Winds. 

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