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Kyll.Ing.

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Everything posted by Kyll.Ing.

  1. Keep in mind that they are comparing what Sanderson and GRRM have written since A Dance with Dragons. Nothing of ASoIaF goes under that definition, although some minor spin-off stories do. By the way, one more week now (March 16, to be precise), and The Winds of Winter will have taken longer to write than A Clash of Kings, A Feast for Crows, and A Dance with Dragons combined. Just mentioning it here because there doesn't seem to be any other active discussions on the matter at the moment. On the official ASoIaF boards themselves, nobody has made a substantial post in the TWoW forum for almost two months. That shows how dispirited the fans have become at this point. I mainly come here to check the news about other series now.
  2. Illustrating how badly the hope for TWoW seems to have died in here: this two-word post that could just as effectively have conveyed its message by reacting to the post to which it responded instead of quoting it, was the only post in the TWoW forum made in the past month. EDIT: Now it turns out that my post pointing this out was the only post made in the TWoW forum for the whole of the next month too. Oh well, at least there's a milestone coming up soon. On March 16, 2024, the wait between books 5 and 6 of this saga will officially have been longer than the wait between books 2 and 5.
  3. This is partially why I'd be perfectly fine with discarding the idea that "the real conflict" is that with the Others. To be blunt and frank, if they haven't been important until this point of the series, they don't really need to be important as we go forward either. There's that famous GRRM quote along the lines of "the only conflict worth reading about is that of the human heart struggling with itself" or something to that effect, and having the series ultimately be about a war against the inhuman ice zombies runs quite contrary to that. So far, the most captivating moments of the series have been those where people have fought other people for the Iron Throne. The Others, and everything associated with them, has been lurking in the background. For all I care, it can stay there. It doesn't need to suddenly become the focus point of the series. As it were, this was always about the Game of Thrones. Sure, it might be underwhelming if the Others mainly turned out to be a rather localized problem for the northern half of The North, and that most of the characters in the series had their thoughts on other problems without ever being bothered by them. But if there's no way to write the series into an "everyone vs. the zombies" showdown, then let it stay that way and focus on what is actually working. Then again, I've always held that Daenerys' story really should end with her letting go of Westeros, where she has never set foot, where her army can't fight and where she has no extant character relations, and focus instead on the continent where she has actually built an empire of her very own. Sometimes, the short way to finish the story may simply be the best one. There's no need to cram the entire expansive saga into a dime-a-dozen-fantasy war of Humanity against The Evil Monsters, when the depiction of very human politics has always been the series' strongest suit.
  4. Smeared ink? Ink? Oh, you sweet summer child ... don't touch that!
  5. It just has to exist, really. Just something to show that 1) at least snippets of the book have been drafted, and 2) that Rothfuss can keep to his word. Failure to deliver would instantly make a lot of people suspect that neither were true, so it should have been a top priority to sort it out very quickly once it had been promised. I mean, nobody obliged Rothfuss to publish a chapter before he told us he would. He could have said nothing, then done nothing, and status quo would have been comfortably maintained (some would have continued to low-key curse the prolonged silence, but at least it would only be because of the prolonged silence). But as soon as that promise was made, expectations were raised, and the failure to deliver became vastly more prominent. And the baffling thing is, there's no way he didn't see it coming. Promising a chapter was a power move. It raised the stakes. Created expectations. He must have known that he needed to follow it up, or there'd be a great backlash. And there was. Backlash that previously had no reason to exist. There's a very straightforward cause-and-effect thing going on, and it seems to have been set up on Rothfuss' own initiative. So now we've got the worst outcome for the worst reason, as it were.
  6. Conversely, promising it and then not delivering it was pretty much the worst thing he could have done. I mean, when a rather substantial part of the follower base had doubts that even an outline of the third book ever existed, it seems like a monumentally bad idea to seemingly substantiate their claims by failing to deliver even one chapter after promising it. At the very least, it gave the naysayers a whole lot of traction. He should not have made that promise without having a sample chapter ready, or at the very least he should have cobbled together something and written disclaimers all over it.
  7. Ah, Jon Fosse. Scourge of any high school class of Norwegian literature. Let's just say his writing style is a bit peculiar. Like modernist gray-box architecture or foul-smelling cheeses, it's probably genial if you're into that sort of stuff, but from the outside perspective, it stands out as monumentally boring. The average high schooler would find more entertaining reading on the nutrition label of a packet of peanuts than a play by Jon Fosse. We had to read and discuss one of them in, I believe, 12th grade. It was like watching paint dry. Monotonous, un-engaging, and endlessly repeating to stretch a five-minute story into a two-hour play. The high school curriculum is never going to get rid of him now.
  8. Kyll.Ing.

    Board Issues 4

    Finding out that you need to exempt certain threads from the questionably justified "lock threads and start a new one after 20 pages" rule because it makes it a hassle for the moderators to stay up to date on them, is a pretty shining example of this in action. I would also have quoted Gorghan of Old Ghis, but that wouldn't be as family friendly. Same thing applies, though.
  9. Kyll.Ing.

    Board Issues 4

    As I once again missed five pages of discussion because the thread I was subscribed to was locked, and a new one opened to continue the exact same topic for no discernible reason, I have to ask ... ... why wasn't this thread locked sixty pages ago?
  10. Audible keeps bestowing upon me more tokens for audiobooks than I know what to do with, so I decided to give the new Discworld recordings a try. I've read all the books, some multiple times, but having them read to me is quite nice too (it's difficult to read a book properly while doing the dishes or vacuuming). So far I like them, mostly. I do wonder if the narrator for Guards! Guards! is overdoing it a bit on the growly voice, though. Sometimes he makes polite conversation between two relaxed, civil characters sound like Sauron and Ganondorf making threats to each other. For the longest time I was wondering whether they had Peter Serafinowicz, who voices Death in every book, do the whole narration (in the same voice), but apparently it's a different guy according to the credits. The book is still excellent, though.
  11. Classic Mormon morals and self-censorship, I've heard. There can be intricate descriptions of people being maimed and mutilated in the most horrible ways, the novels can delve into twisted minds that take gleeful pleasure in gruesomely depicted suffering and mass destruction, or feature blood-dripping scenes where soldiers and civilians are slaughtered like cattle (even by the good guys). But on the other hand, nobody speaks a single word more nasty than "darn", or even imagines doing anything more intimate with their loved ones than a little peck on the cheek, and that's only if the characters are like madly in love, alone, and destined for each other. Flaying the faces off characters while they are alive and conscious is a-OK, but the line is firmly drawn well ahead of acknowledging that some characters may have genitals.
  12. To be honest, that happened to me when I first picked it up. I liked the writing, but the episodic nature of the plot wasn't too appealing, and I ended up leaving the series for a couple of years before I bought the next book. As I said up above, the middle half of the book essentially goes nowhere. After leaving Ankh-Morpork, there's an interlude, our two heroes enter an ancient temple, meets Hrun, escapes temple, new interlude, nobody speaks of the temple again. Then they go to the dragon mountain, leaves Hrun there, new interlude, nobody speaks of the dragon mountain again. Then the story picks up when they hit the edge of the Disc and go to Krull, but even that is mostly an episodic adventure that gets resolved early in The Light Fantastic, and nobody speaks of Krull again after that. Still, the book gives the best introduction to the 'verse and setting. It has that going for it. But I wouldn't recommend starting with it unless you skip some parts then launch immediately into The Light Fantastic, which is much better structured.
  13. Just an addendum to this: Night Watch is very good, but I think it relies on the reader being familiar with the state of the Watch series up to that point, so it's not a book one should start with. Myself, I'm a fan of Wyrd Sisters, although it may not technically rank among the very best. Soul Music is a nice one too. And even as an early installment, The Light Fantastic is hugely enjoyable, although it relies heavily on the rather middling The Colour of Magic. Or, well, it's not middling, it's just that the middle half of the book goes absolutely nowhere, with two self-contained, "episodic" parts that don't move the plot forward at all. If you were to start anywhere with the series, I think I'd recommend reading the first quarter ofThe Colour of Magic (up until our heroes leave the burning Ankh-Morpork), then skip the next two quarters with Hrun the Barbarian, take it up again where Rincewind and Twoflower are adrift on the sea, then go immediately into The Light Fantastic.
  14. Not really, I think. Dany's story can be transformed into more of a parable on how one doesn't always have to follow one's "destiny". Daenerys has the ancestry going for her, she has built an army and is gaining experience as a ruler ... but she has literally never been in Westeros (knowingly, at least - lemon trees and all that). I wouldn't think any less of her story if she decided against invading Westeros, since Essos is where she has spent her life, where she has built a kingdom, and where the public adores her. Bran doesn't have to be king for his powers to be relevant. As long as he aids the battle against the Others - or help seal them away or something like that - his training would have had a purpose. He could basically end up as a sort of active defense mechanism for the realm, just as important as any king in a way, while someone else does the actual kingship. Sansa could end up ruling anywhere. As long as it's somewhere big and important it'd still be a worthy payoff. Winterfell is preferable, true, but she could also end up with Casterly Rock or Highgarden or a Free City or whatever and found her own house there. Arya is probably the one whose story is the most set down a specific path, but the others could plausibly end up with multiple outcomes that would all be a fitting end to their arc.
  15. I think the more pressing problem is that of the Others, as they have emerged as an urgent threat as early as the Great Ranging, and they are the main force driving the Wildlings south toward the Wall, practically snapping at their heels as they move. Once the Others have been set in motion with that show of force, it'd be a bit awkward for them to go back into hibernation for five years and wait for the rest of the plot to happen before they move again.
  16. Just finished Babel, or the Necessity of Violence by R.F. Kuang. Sad to see I missed a great discussion on it in the previous quarter's discussion thread, as I actually got the book for Christmas but found no time to read it before the Easter holiday. The book left an impression, but I don't think it was a positive one overall. It's well written and captivating. The author deserves some praise for constructing a magic system that runs on fluency in multiple languages, of all things. However, as the book progressed, I found it got increasingly preachy about the topic of colonialism at the detriment of everything else, and by the end it was pretty much a parody of itself by letting that message take over completely. Practically everyone associated with the university turn out to be evil (to the point that ... , practically every English character is shown to be either malevolent or ignorant, and the quartet of main characters play "More Oppressed Than Thou" with each other, each drip-feeding bits of their backstory about how badly they were treated by the Evil Westerners. At the same time, they utterly neglect to explain their struggles to the English girl "because she probably wouldn't understand anyway", while also refusing to even acknowledge that she has ever faced any struggles. It genuinely seems to be the author's opinion that being a (white) woman in 1830's England is so much less difficult than being a person of colour that the struggles of the former is completely negligible. The other main characters just berate her for failing to inform herself, as if literature on contemporary systemic racism could be picked up in every corner shop in 1830's Oxford. I mean, the book is bringing up some very valid points, but when they are delivered in a way that's increasingly reminiscent of the "help, help, I'm being oppressed" peasant of Monty Python and the Holy Grail by every turn of the page, the message is lost in the delivery. Again, it's well-written and a page turner, but it has this creeping feeling of something being off as the story progresses and the message is hammered in with the subtlety of a pile driver. I think my impression of the book was finally lost with the ending. Veering into heavy spoiler territory here, but I think I gotta rant for a bit. So yeah, my take-away opinion is that the book went way too heavy-handed with its message, to the point where you start to wonder whether it was such a good message to begin with. A book that made me think, but not for the intended reason.
  17. The first one just replaces "fat" with "enormous", which is no less of an insult when the context is retained. It comes across more as wanting to avoid one "buzzword" than actually addressing anything problematic in the text. If there's a problem with having an obese and insufferable kid in a story, it won't be fixed by swapping the words of his description with synonyms. Augustus Gloop will still be an obese and insufferable character, just as "offensive" as before, even if the words are different. It feels like a ham-fisted change made for the sake of change. As for the second, I think the line in question was rather botched by replacing a line that said something to the effect of "Don't you go around trying to pull the hair of old women, it won't end well" with "It's perfectly okay for a woman to wear a wig". It changes the meaning quite a bit. If the extra sentence was added instead of replacing the other, I think it would be much better. As it stands, it comes across as an inelegant attempt to take something away to make the "lesson" stand out more. I actually think there was a chance to improve something here, as the relevant paragraph basically says "Yes, the witches are bald, but checking whether a woman is bald is no good way to find witches." The line about there being plenty of valid reasons for women to be bald adds nicely to that message. But it's undercut by removing the line about how futile it is to look for witches by checking for baldness. The end result is that the message of the paragraph is taken away until only the "preaching" remains. In a way, I'm not sure if it can be called "nanny state", but it's certainly inelegant and needlessly preachy.
  18. You'd be surprised. These news made newspaper front pages in all the Nordic countries and elsewhere around Europe. A substantial chunk of the population grew up with the Disney comics over here, so Barks and Rosa are household names. The weekly comic magazines have been read by a lot of people (as late as 1986, the weekly Donald Duck magazine sold 250,000 issues on average in Norway, a country of four million people). Following the news, Don Rosa's books are now sold out in book stores across the Nordic countries, as people want to get themselves a complete version of Life and Times before it disappears from the market.
  19. I was unsure whether to bring this up in the Roald Dahl re-writing thread, as it pertains to much the same topic, or here. But I figured it'd derail the discussion if I put it in the other thread, so here it goes. The Walt Disney Company has recently announced - very stealthily - that some of their comic stories are to be put out of circulation. Among them are some of the most influential, classic stories about Scrooge McDuck. The world found out through comic artist Don Rosa, who passed on the news to his fans on his Facebook page when Disney told him that A Dream of a Lifetime and The Empire-Builder from Calisota would no longer be published. The one element these stories have in common is that they feature the character "Bombie the zombie", which quickly led fans to surmise that Carl Barks' classic Voodoo Hoodoo would also be banned. These stories are no small beans. Voodoo Hoodoo was a very early Scrooge story, before Barks really knew what to do about the character. It features an uncharacteristically dark deed by Scrooge McDuck, wherein he is mentioned to have evicted a voodoo tribe from their territory in Africa back when he was a youth travelling the world and building his empire. As a result, the tribe sends a zombie after him. And that's a zombie in the original sense of the world, not an Evil dead-style monster out to eat your brains. Simply an undead man who has no feelings and follows the bidding of his master without rest forever. Bombie is walking the world in pursuit of Scrooge, to deliver him a poisoned doll on behalf of the voodoo chief. Long story short, everyone end up okay, even Bombie eventually (the curse is said to be wearing off in a few decades, then he'll go on living as before). In itself, Voodoo Hoodoo is memorable, but we might have managed without it. However, the episode with the voodoo tribe as referenced in The Empire-Builder from Calisota is perhaps the most crucial part of Don Rosa's Scrooge saga, The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. It is portrayed as the darkest depth Scrooge ever sinks to in his life. Years of pursuit of money has made him cynical and cold, and when he is humiliated by the tribe he hires local thugs to chase them from their village in revenge. This is the point where Scrooge's sisters finally have enough and leave his side. Empire-Builder is the story that ties together the optimistic Scrooge of the rest of Life and Times with the bitter old man seen in the first Scrooge story, Night on Bear Mountain. This comic portrayed Scrooge at his very darkest, the turning point in his life as he went from a fledgling tycoon to a lonely, rich miser. Without it, Life and Times is not a complete work, nor for that matter coherent. And Life and Times is seen as probably the most influential work in the Disney ducks comics 'verse since Carl Barks himself was active. Disney is really ripping gems out of the crown here. Dream of a Lifetime is also a fine story, a sort of cavalcade of Scrooge's life collected in one story. Its plot is eerily similar to the movie Inception, which was released a few years after this comic. The Beagle Boys invade Scrooge's dreams, hoping to find the combination to his vault door. However, they find Scrooge dreaming of his life and experiences, and have to chase him from dream to dream to find the information they are after. An encounter with Bombie appears in one scene. The ban on this story also takes away one of Rosa's key interpretations of Scrooge, his recurring "what if?" dream where he is separated from the woman of his life by accident. The intervention of the Beagle Boys prevent the accident from playing out in this dream, and we get a small glimpse of what could have happened in another timeline. It's sweet. But Disney's corporate zombies were apparently too offended by the portrayal of one (or, possibly, a "designated family friendly" Disney character interacting with an undead"), so off the story goes. It's sad. I know "sensitivity reading" and censorship of previous works are a big deal in the US, but the Disney comics are not. Over time, they have become a part of European heritage. It's sad to see the corporate drones at Disney HQ take this away, because they believe the stories are not "clean" enough to be associated with their brand anymore.
  20. Just read the four published books of Stormlight Archive. They are interesting books presenting an interesting world with a cool magic system. I didn't get that much into the constant references to the rest of the 'verse of the author, but I didn't feel like I missed out on anything either. There were just some moments where you think "this might have been a big deal if any context was provided first". One thing I noted, though, was that so much of the plot hinged on people not talking to each other at all. Shallan is one big bundle of worries over things other characters could easily help her with. Half of Kaladin's problems would vanish if he found himself a close friend. The second and third books would have been very short if anybody paid any attention to Renarin whatsoever. In that situation, wouldn't it be worth keeping a close eye on the guy with ominous visions of the future, especially after it is proven that his father experienced visions that were both factual and important? Renarin just seems way too important to ignore, yet all the characters constantly do. Another thing I noticed was how mild the swearing was in this universe. I guess it has something to do with the moral convictions of the author? In a world where storms are constantly blowing, I don't think "storms" would remain the sole swear word in common use. It's a very mild expression in that context, like "clouds" would be in our word. I'll be eagerly awaiting the next book in the series, however. The story is quite interesting, and it's difficult to tell whether the good guys or the bad guys have the upper hand as things currently stand, which leaves plenty of room for surprises. I hear the series is set to have a big time skip after the first five books, which means we're in for a series mini-finale in the next book. It sounds like it's still a couple of years away, however.
  21. There's a saying in software development: The first 90% of the work takes 90% of the allotted time, and the remaining 10 % also takes 90% of the allotted time.
  22. Even if he was approaching it from an entirely cynical perspective, he'd probably assume that it'd be really bad PR to pretend everything was normal and start a new fundraiser without having delivered on the goals of the last one. Not only would the fans be in a frenzy, this would be the sort of thing that would receive media attention. So I guess the strategy is to lay down low, regardless of whether shame is part of it or not. For the record, though, I think he's ashamed. It was a very high-profile announcement, of something that wouldn't seem like it would be hard to do (I mean, coughing up one chapter of a book he has ostensibly been writing for ten years?), and yet he failed. That's gotta be a real smack in the confidence right there.
  23. Happy one-year anniversary of this thread, and by extension Rothfuss' Tweet! Wait, not happy. The other thing.
  24. Picking up this for a moment: Given how popular that book will be, I think the bookstores are more likely to buy a new set of shelves specifically for TWoW than refusing to carry it.
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