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Is the text worth it, besides the artwork?


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Negative reviews be damned!! Long live GRRM!!! Got my shipping confirmation today so should be enjoying the book by Friday!! whoop whoop :bowdown:

I received a "We're so sorry that we haven't shipped your preorder!" e-mail today from Amazon. I think I felt how I would have felt when I was a kid if someone told me Santa Claus had died and Christmas was cancelled.
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One other thing about some reviews I've read that astounds and humours me both, is the fact that there are actually people who bought the book without knowing what they bought.

As someone who does what others describe as exhaustive research before I buy something ( like a car, tv, dog, and yes, also when I have to choose between 10 different books on 1 topic) I can't believe there are people complaining that this is not the next ASOIAF novel, or that is not the same length as the books in the regular series.

How little effort can you put in finding out what you add to your shopping cart? It is extremely clearly laid out what this book is on the book flap, or synopsis, or even what you can glean from the cover and back cover. And still there are living, breathing human beings who manage to buy this thinking they bought book 6 in the series.

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I ordered of Barnes and Noble. My history with Amazon is sketchy and didn't want to have an "issue". First time ordering off barnes though so we shall see.

I usually only have a problem with Amazon when it's something I really want that was preordered a fairly long time in advance. Of course that had to apply in this case. Other people I know don't seem to have this issue with Amazon. Amazon just really loves me I guess!

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Again, I strongly recommend TWOIAF. But ultimately, everyone will do whatever they feel is best for their wallets and consciences. :)

Hear hear!

So now it is time to re-read the whole series with the book in mind.

The whole series! I think I can do that in a week!

After reading tWoIaF its puts breaking guest right into a truly brutal light. The Red Wedding shall be much more vivid now.

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If it's still the same thing that existed years ago, it's a sort of 'movement' grown out of the 'angry anticipation of ADwD' thing. I really thought it would have died in 2011, but apparently not.


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One other thing about some reviews I've read that astounds and humours me both, is the fact that there are actually people who bought the book without knowing what they bought.

As someone who does what others describe as exhaustive research before I buy something ( like a car, tv, dog, and yes, also when I have to choose between 10 different books on 1 topic) I can't believe there are people complaining that this is not the next ASOIAF novel, or that is not the same length as the books in the regular series.

How little effort can you put in finding out what you add to your shopping cart? It is extremely clearly laid out what this book is on the book flap, or synopsis, or even what you can glean from the cover and back cover. And still there are living, breathing human beings who manage to buy this thinking they bought book 6 in the series.

You know that is pretty stupid, if someone was ever a fan of Martin's would try to keep up to date with his work, a simple google search of Martin and you can a description of what this book was going to be. And I love how they say Martin did 10% or L&E put their maester style to it. Total fakes, if they weree true fans they would have known this was down the exact same way as Rogues and TPATQ. I mean seriously, just stop. If they are going to pretend they know Martin's work when they see it, just do some research.

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There will always be people saying that Star Trek isn't Star Trek if Roddenberry isn't involved*. I'm of the idea that is not the same when someone takes what other author has written before, but in some cases, it's completely acceptable, specially when such author is creatively involved. I suppose this is one of the cases.

About the "prose" of the book, well... it's a freaking encyclopaedia, a recollection of data and information. And considering this was for Robert Baratheon, let's rejoice on the fact it's not written with crayons.

The boycott the post above me talks about is ridiculous. And it's ironic that these people do nothing but criticises GRRM for wasting time instead of writing book six while they take so many time in actually boycotting him. What a waste of energy, tbh.

*that doesn't apply to the new reboot.

Star Trek was at its best whenever Roddenberry had as little involvement as possible, i.e. his episodes of the original series mostly aren't very good, other people like D.C.Fontana developed the majority of the better ideas (such as the Vulcan culture, or the complexity of Spock's character as opposed to Roddenberry's idea of a one-dimensional rational character), and it's common knowledge that his ideas only held The Next Generation back and that the show got better when it was free of them.

Among Trek fans who don't worship him, it's a pretty commonly accepted that he was a visionary, but not a very good writer. The first season of TNG represents his ideas in their purest form, that says it all.

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George wrote 250,000-300,000 words -- most of it on the Targaryens -- and we just couldn't use it all. Besides the Aegon's Conquest material, all the Targaryen stuff is our stuff, mixing our own drafts with synopsized versions of what George wrote. So, a lot of details fell by the wayside as we tried to fit it into the space alloted. If Fire and Blood is published, I'd say 75% of the material he wrote for the book will be published in their complete form, leaving just the non-Targaryen stuff to need some venue.

There was once talk of a second edition many years in the future, but I don't know if our conceit really works..

Why Ran? WHY? Please by the Drowned, Forest, Storm and Seven, give us the sight the Targaryen kings.

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I think one of the criticisms of the work is that they are simply labelling it as "fanfiction", when it has been some kind of bad opinion about it before (GRRM saying he doesn't like it, etc).



I agree on the idea of a work not being "the same" if anyone continues the work of an author when this is not involved (for whatever reason, like death). But this isn't the case. First, it's not like Linda and Ran did everything and GRRM say "yeah, it's ok" without checking. As far as I know, Martin was severely involved with it, and it's more of a group work. I think that is enough to dismiss any notion of "fan fiction", because in this specific case, it's not.



I've been through a similar case few years ago when one manga I follow was relaunched and two spin offs were also included. In this case, the two authors were simply given some directions or had the basic opinion of the main author about what they were going to do, but they were free to write and draw whatever they wanted. As the main author and one of the others were writing about the same events but under different perspectives, the spinoff was terribly bashed as "fan fiction" (as the author had been a fan of the original work since it was first published in the 80s), non-canon, unworthy, terrible, and more by the most radical fans, when (at least at first) the work was much better than the original. In years to come, the fanbase wars become in nothing but "I can' believe you like what I don't like!", as the original work was becoming more terrible with every edition (really, the author seemed to have been drawing it with his feet...), and its fans were becoming more enraged with the other works gaining fans and even an anime adaptation (one of them).



I think that's kinda the feeling I see happening in the other troll site. It's like they are bitter about certain decisions GRRM has taken and they believe that by us not caring about it, we're encouraging his behaviour, so, it's OUR fault that he doesn't write ASOIAF, and they believe themselves more "true" as seeing what we can't see, because we're blind and oblivious. The thing is that we all are mad that he's not finishing ASOIAF any sooner, we're just not so rabid about it.


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Wow, five minutes on that site was enough for me. It's fine if you don't like something, but I saw no signs of intelligent debate or discourse anywhere.


Plotting to post negative reviews without having read the book, and then telling others how to do it? Yeah, your credibility is fucked, trolls.


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