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George RR martin faults...


Devil Hanzo

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My only criticism is that he should be putting out more books with shorter gaps between releases. We've all seen other great authors get stuck trying to find a final solution, yet after ten or more books the end is nowhere in sight and many years are wasted. Grrm should just cut loose and tell as many stories as possible. Production of his novels need not be so cumbersome.

Of course, GRRM may have finished writing ten years ago and his publishers are just messing with us. I have personally bought multiple copies of the first three, having lent them out, broken their spines, and have converted many to the ASOIAF universe.

Bring on ADWD and the rest ASAP!

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I too dislike Dany, and dread her chapters. She is flat, boring.

I think so too, so it's surprising to see what a solid fan base she has. I guess you'd say de gustibus non est disputandum, which I think is latin for "there's no accounting for taste." ;)

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I'm not too fond of his love for cliffhangers (after all, there are enough reasons for the reader to read the next book without them).

But the only major flaw ASOIAF has is that much of it seems pointless and aimless at times. As long as things moved quickly in the first three books I shrugged it off, but A Feast For Crows left me worried. Excellent writing, excellent dialogue, excellent desciptions, (mostly) excellent characterization, but what did it all have to do with either ice or fire?

I hope GRRM will prove me wrong, but I fear the series will end up overlong despite all of its virtues.

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I could do without some of the cliffhangers (AFFC is particularly disturbing in this case because there is so little pay off) and sometimes the sexual descriptions go further than I would need.

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Most of the things that bother me have been discussed already; all from the language ticks (nucle, groat/2) to overuse of certain tropes (the bear and the maiden fair, the endless detail with dishes, everybody peeing themselves).

Above all, though, and this isn't a problem with Martin's writing in general as much as it is with ASOIAF, is his love for children POVs. I hit fast-forward whenever I encounter it, and I had hoped he'd kill them all off, but he's been nuking his grown-up POVs instead.

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:agree: about the urine spraying around when the not-so-brave characters are confronted with imminent violence. Also TMI on Tyrion's relationship with his member. And we got the message already about anything female getting raped and mutilated in wartime... Sometimes it feels like a fine line between gritty realism and rubbernecking. But it's a small criticism in such an impressive tapestry. What impresses me the most is the way that in the first three books, this huge meandering river of a story still managed to have a satisfying shape, with a conscious rounding-off of plot points and character arcs at the end of each book.
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In my view, the biggest flaw of ASOIF -not pertaining to other Martin's writing- was that he sat to writing it with insufficient planning. I reffer to the famous "gap" thing, that was present in his initial plan, and was later scrapped. I feel that this decision was a mistake.

The other thing that was mentioned already, if jokingly, is the length of the books.

When I read the Dunk and Egg stories, it is especially noticeable, how Martin, trying to keep to the format edits and cuts, leaving only the best and the brightest in. Basically, the Song of Ice and Fire -to me- reads as a bunch of interconnected short stories, and some of them are as good (or better) than the Dunk and Egg, and some are well... worse, much worse. There are chapters I woould have stopped reading if they were stand-alone short stories, some I would have swallowed. I wish for more of those bright ones, and less of the "have to be there to pad the story to 1000 pages".

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The 'Americanisms' in a story written in a medieval style: they really get on my tits. English people don't calls trousers 'pants'. They don't call their mother 'mom'. I'm sure there are other glaring errors that I can't think of right now. But would it be so hard to get an English person to proof-read the MS for language usage?

No major complaints other than that.

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As far as gramatical stuff the phases such as “for half a goat†and “useless as nipples on a breastplate†come to my mind also “Nuncle†“Cozâ€. Why is it that no one ever said these things before AFFC?

As far as plot stuff it annoys me that the Lannisters are ALWAYS self absorbed and the Starks are ALWAYS idiots in terms of the political situation.

1st the Lannister thing has lead to some hilarious moments such as Joff wanting to lead the city watch against Stannis or more recently in AFFC when Cresi kept killing people and then wishing she hadn’t done that. This can be seen in the case of the prison guards, the high septon and the Stockworth family.

The Starks are the complete opposite true they are not used to playing the game of thrones the way they do it in the south but it is all just so tragic to watch.

Ned was too busy trying to be cunning to remember the first rule of politics never trust a snake (especially when the snake’s name is littlefinger). Be honest people when you were first reading AGOT didn’t you see the name “littlefinger†and think to yourself oh no bad guy!! Ned run away!! But Ned didn’t listen to us and that was the reason his head was copped off.

Little Wolf suffered from the same problem he was to busy bitching about Robert Glover to notice Bolton sharpening his best stabbing sword.

I can see the scene Martin tossed out now

Robb: Oh hello Lord Bolton what are you doing meeting with Lame Lothar in the middle of the night?

Bolton: Oh its just a surprise gift for Edimires wedding.

Robb: Oh ok. I have to go have sex with my new wife now. We’re going at it three and four times a day and nothing is happening. I wonder why.

When I get back from work I’m going to have to post my comments about John and Dany.

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The 'Americanisms' in a story written in a medieval style: they really get on my tits. English people don't calls trousers 'pants'. They don't call their mother 'mom'. I'm sure there are other glaring errors that I can't think of right now. But would it be so hard to get an English person to proof-read the MS for language usage?

No major complaints other than that.

**WARNING** Martin apologist prose enclosed

IMHO it is quite intentional to make the story more easily broachable for the average Joe Six-Pack. A lot of the sexual innuendo is anything but medieval not to mention the liberal use of the word *F---" I think the things we like best about a lot of the characters is their modern sensibilities. At least that's true for me. If I had to read an endless tome filled with "thy" and "thou", I'm not sure how long I'd be able to maintain consciousness.

And I gotta admit, I just don't get the complaints about Martin's repitition of themes over and over again in his most recent books (ie: Bear and the Maiden Fair). In the hands of less gifted author it would be irritating. But with Martin, each time it serves a purpose; often seeing something from a different angle, or in a new and more ominous light. Each book is part of a whole; but each book has its own theme as well, which to some degree differentiates one book from the others. The constant tension of aSoS as opposed to the post-apocalyptic feel of AFFC.

And you don't like the cliffhangers. Are you kidding me? I mean I can't read Feist anymore because everything wraps up so neat and tidy, it feels like a packaged sitcom episode. Martin's the master of cliffhangers if I do say.

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Uhm, I do not understand the British English complaint, to be honest. Westeros is not set in Medieval England. It is a work of fantasy, and the characters are born to cultures that remind us of the real world, but are not of the real world. Do you want Martells to start speaking Spanish or something?

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Oh wait, ASOIAF doesn't take place in a 'real' medieval setting? It's a fantasy? No shit? I saw that one coming a mile off as soon as I made the initial post. Westeros is really a fantasy realm that uses random modern day American terms interspersed with medieval English ones? Of course! It's meant to be that way. It couldn't possibly be just a few anachronisms, could it?

Yes, the author a fantasy work can use whatever language they choose for their imaginary world. I was making the point that except for a few anomalies, the entire language tone is one of reasonably convincing English, i.e. OF ENGLAND, language.

I said ENGLISH, not British. There's a difference.

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Okay, I take back my comment. Maybe you native English speakers can see the difference, and have the problem with something like that. I am an ESL, and I have never been bothered by the "pants" vs "trousers" thing. I find both words interchangeable. :)

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Poor Isis- I can certainly understand your gripe. For instance, Rowlings HP(ducking just in case)

Is "reckon" a popularly used word in England. State side that's not a commonly used word by the educated. That drove me crazy throughout reading the books. So much that everytime I saw it I substituted it in my mind.

So I understand where you are coming from.

oh P.S. I have no complaints about the books other than I wish they were finished!!!

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IMHO it is quite intentional to make the story more easily broachable for the average Joe Six-Pack. A lot of the sexual innuendo is anything but medieval not to mention the liberal use of the word *F---" I think the things we like best about a lot of the characters is their modern sensibilities. At least that's true for me. If I had to read an endless tome filled with "thy" and "thou", I'm not sure how long I'd be able to maintain consciousness.

Medieval people were no strangers to sexual innuedo (Exhibit A: Chaucer), and said f-word is from the Anglo-Saxon and is a lot older than a lot of people seem to think. On the other hand, if your point is it's done in a more modern way, I'm not arguing. IMO he does a pretty good job of juggling word usage to both evoke a medival world and make it accessible, but I'm Canadian and thus in the middle when it comes to the American vs. British English issue.

My worst complaint about GRRM's writing is that he makes me despair that I could ever write as well.

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Isis - :agree: It is a real jolt to me as well to be coasting blissfully along in a mostly medieval setting (even if it's fantasy) and suddenly have phrases that sound geographically specific to the US. "Pants" doesn't bother me quite so much - just because modern Brits use trousers doesn't mean it's automatically the more "authentic" word, as in some cases American English has preserved archaisms that British English has lost. (Just don't ask me to name examples right now, as all I can think of is Appalachian folk music surviving in a form closer to the originals.) "Mom" on the other hand really bothered me - not so much because it sounds American, but because it sounds so late twentieth century American and goes with kids in sneakers. "Mum" would bother me almost as much by sounding too twee and English.

Perhaps I'm just unusually sensitive to this kind of thing as I'm American by birth but have lived in the UK for 15 years - after growing up in Italy watching films and television mostly dubbed into standard, unaccented Italian. It was a shock to me when later I noticed that everyone had an accent one way or the other, sometimes the wrong one. Suddenly medieval characters sounded American or British, and within British accents they began to sound regional or class-inflected; sometimes it doesn't matter, but sometimes it still sounds *wrong*.

The liberal use of innuendo and f*** when it fits the story doesn't bother me at all, and I don't think finding substitutes for the worst offenders (e.g. Mam for Mom perhaps?) would materially affect approachability for the average Joe. But then I didn't mind Nuncle at all, taking it as a slightly archaic word used to denote regional speech patterns.

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