Fan from 1996?

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

So, my mother is 66 and recently retired and she knows what a huge fan I am, and obviously I continually try and convince her that she should start reading the series.  Recently, however, I've been rethinking my suggestion, especially since now it seems like it'll be a miracle that Winds of Winter will be released in 2017, for the honest and pragmatic reason that there is no guarantee she'll be alive by the time the last book is released, and that, at least in my opinion would be a tragedy...to go to your grave having never known the conclusion which made me start thinking.  Like many, I become disappointed every time the new book's release is postponed, but, then I think, well, I've only been a fan since 2012.  I'll admit, I had never read or even known about the books until after seeing the first season of the show, the major reason being that from watching the show, I could tell there was way, way more detail to "planetos" than the show could ever include, and I was hungry to know every detail about the world and its history so I veraciously read the books (recently completing my fifth re-read).  Anyway, every time the new books release date his postponed, I try to put things in perspective and say to myself, "Well, at least I haven't been a fan since 1996, those people must be way more disappointed and upset than I could ever be..."  So now, I'm kind of curious, has anyone here been a fan since A Game of Thrones was published?  What's it like to have been waiting 20+ years for the conclusion?  it's difficult to wrap my head around that thought, because by the time the series is finished, it could be 25 years of wait...so, what's it like desperately awaiting the conclusion of your favorite series for a quarter of a century?

[Amris]

58 minutes ago, AnarchoPrimitiv said:

So, my mother is 66 and recently retired and she knows what a huge fan I am, and obviously I continually try and convince her that she should start reading the series.  Recently, however, I've been rethinking my suggestion, especially since now it seems like it'll be a miracle that Winds of Winter will be released in 2017, for the honest and pragmatic reason that there is no guarantee she'll be alive by the time the last book is released, and that, at least in my opinion would be a tragedy...to go to your grave having never known the conclusion which made me start thinking.  Like many, I become disappointed every time the new book's release is postponed, but, then I think, well, I've only been a fan since 2012.  I'll admit, I had never read or even known about the books until after seeing the first season of the show, the major reason being that from watching the show, I could tell there was way, way more detail to "planetos" than the show could ever include, and I was hungry to know every detail about the world and its history so I veraciously read the books (recently completing my fifth re-read).  Anyway, every time the new books release date his postponed, I try to put things in perspective and say to myself, "Well, at least I haven't been a fan since 1996, those people must be way more disappointed and upset than I could ever be..."  So now, I'm kind of curious, has anyone here been a fan since A Game of Thrones was published?  What's it like to have been waiting 20+ years for the conclusion?  it's difficult to wrap my head around that thought, because by the time the series is finished, it could be 25 years of wait...so, what's it like desperately awaiting the conclusion of your favorite series for a quarter of a century?

I read the first book back in 1996 or 1997 and the follow-up books when they appeared so I can anwer your question.

The wait between the books in and of itself wasn't so bad for me. And the reason for that is:

I wasn't as impressed by the book series back then as one might assume! 

Heh.

Or as impressed as I am now for that matter. I only have come to really cherish the books through the film series. (crazy, eh? But the film series really helped me because it pulled things together and made it easier so see the whole scope of the thing.) Anyway: Back then when the first four books appeared, one after the other with years of wait in between it was just 'another fantasy series' for me. And while the next book was missing I simply put the whole thing out of my mind.

By the time A Clash of Kings got out I had mostly forgotten what had happened in A Game of Thrones. All I really remembered were the names of 3 or 4 main characters and that Ned had been beheaded. I did not reread because I hadn't been all that endeared with book 1. Which of course meant I was missing a whole ton of details and hints in book 2 which only make sense when one really reads the books closely after one another.

The same thing happened again when A Storm of Swords got out. In fact it was worse since the story had become more complicated  with a crazy amount of secondary and tertiary characters and tons more plotlines (I still think GRRM has too many characters and plotlines but maybe that's just me). Be that as it may: With no real memory of the details of books 1 and 2 80% of Storm of Swords simply went over my head. That I still read it through completely is a testament as how good the book is.

And then - 5 years later - A Feast for Crows came out.

You can imagine I hardly remembered anything at that point.

All I recalled was the Red Wedding, Ned's beheading and that I had loved Jon's, Dany's and Arya's plotlines and hated Brienne's and Davos's.

And guess what? No Jon, no Dany, no Arya (up until very late in the book, too late for me) - instead tons of Brienne getting nowhere as usual.

I was so pissed by book 4 that halfway through it (inmidst of a particulary annoying Brienne chapter) I literally threw the book into a corner (no hyperbole: my wife has witnessed it haha).

And that would have been the end of ASOIAF and me if the film series hadn't come out.

Once I saw season 1 of the series I was so impressed that I did pick up A Feast of Crows up again finally.

I then read book 5 - and actually loved it! (it still is my favourite and I read it multiple times). And reread the earlier books, especially A Game of Thrones. The book makes so much more sense in conjuction with the other books and when one knows all those descriptions and seemingly random conversations aren't just filler!

It's been a thorny ride.

 

 

[Walda]

Not a 25 year fan, just wanted to point out that, unless your mother has an active cancer or some such terminal thing, she has every reason to look forward to a full score of years ahead of her. Yes, it is a fair bit higher than average female life expectancy at birth for all countries except Japan, but that is because she wasn't born yesterday, and has managed to survive 66 years already. In fact, the probability that she will survive to read the last book is higher than the probability there will be a last book to read (which is still much more probable than not).

Although, I'm telling friends who are thinking of reading the books to wait until the publishers announce the publication of Dream of Spring before they start. There will be enough lead-time to read all the other books more than once before then, and they will still be able to claim they read the series before the song was sung, before everyone knew how it ended, while it was still open-ended.