ASOIAF ruined other fiction books for me.

[Werthead]

On 07/08/2016 at 8:54 PM, Darth Richard II said:

Alas, no one outside these forums knows who Stover is, and if they do, its because of Star Wars. Doesn't help that the books are impossible to find in any print format.

You can get all four on Amazon US quite easily right now (Blade will probably vanish again any second though).

[Talleyrand]

On 16/08/2016 at 8:06 PM, Darth Richard II said:

Right, and when good authors, cough cough Cornwell cough cough, change things around a bit, there's always an explanation at the end for what hey changed and why.

And hey don't feel bad about ranting, there's a few books/authors I could rant about for entire threads.

It's also why Iggulden's inaccuracy is so hilarious to me. In most his books similar to Cornwell he has a historical note at the end explaining that he fiddled with the dates a little bit here and there and condensced two events into one and such but then just neglects to mention the pretty massive inaccuracies like the fact that Caesar and Brutus didn't grow up in a farm together or the fact he wrote Jamuka out of history.

[The Arthur Smith]

On 8/17/2016 at 5:50 AM, SeanF said:

My favourite was the criticism of A Game of Thrones for depicting several different breeds of horse in the same cavalry unit.

Wait? There's an actual criticisms of that?  Like Buckwheat stated, what's wrong with showing different breed of horses? It's not like every person has the same horse and honestly, most novels don't pay attention to the fact that not all horse are good in horseriding the same way not all cars function the same way.

[The Arthur Smith]

On 8/16/2016 at 3:06 PM, Darth Richard II said:

Right, and when good authors, cough cough Cornwell cough cough, change things around a bit, there's always an explanation at the end for what hey changed and why.

And hey don't feel bad about ranting, there's a few books/authors I could rant about for entire threads.

I don't know about this Cornwell dude, but i'm up for some Viking tales!

[Jo498]

On 19.8.2016 at 10:57 PM, The Arthur Smith said:

Wait? There's an actual criticisms of that?  Like Buckwheat stated, what's wrong with showing different breed of horses? It's not like every person has the same horse and honestly, most novels don't pay attention to the fact that not all horse are good in horseriding the same way not all cars function the same way.

Was this already linked? by the great Poul Anderson: horses are no motorcycles...

http://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/on-thud-and-blunder/

I did not find clear information about this, some say that the color did not matter, only size and strength, others say that sometimes they wanted matching colors to look better on parade... And this is about the Napoleonic age around 1800 (link below, only German unfortunately). I am pretty sure that it was quite different in the middle ages or early renaissance. And I guess that quite a few armies from the periods closest in most respect to typical fantasy settings, say ca. 1200-1600 AD (which again spans a very diverse period, even restricted to Europe, Richard Lionheart through Shakespeare) would appear rather hodge podge to the generals of Frederick of Prussia or Napoleon.

http://www.forum.napoleon-online.de/archive/index.php/t-380.html

[SeanF]

3 hours ago, Jo498 said:

Was this already linked? by the great Poul Anderson: horses are no motorcycles...

http://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/on-thud-and-blunder/

I did not find clear information about this, some say that the color did not matter, only size and strength, others say that sometimes they wanted matching colors to look better on parade... And this is about the Napoleonic age around 1800 (link below, only German unfortunately). I am pretty sure that it was quite different in the middle ages or early renaissance. And I guess that quite a few armies from the periods closest in most respect to typical fantasy settings, say ca. 1200-1600 AD (which again spans a very diverse period, even restricted to Europe, Richard Lionheart through Shakespeare) would appear rather hodge podge to the generals of Frederick of Prussia or Napoleon.

http://www.forum.napoleon-online.de/archive/index.php/t-380.html

Good essay.  Although, I'd disagree about cavalry.  Cavalry was an important arm of battle at various points, pre-6th century.  Parthian and later Sassanid horse-archers and cataphracts were formidable, and the Romans raised similar cavalry forces to counter them. Further back, Claudius Marcellus and Pompey first gained their reputations as cavalry commanders.  Stirrups certainly made the job of cavalrymen easier, but high-backed saddles enabled cavalry to charge with spears without falling off (and really good horsemen could hold on with their thighs).

IIRC, the criticism of AGOT was that the different breeds of horse come from different parts of the world, and Westeros would not have been importing horses from other parts of the world.

[Jo498]

Sure, but faced with the actual problems of getting enough trained horses and the fact that nobody but a few horse experts would even realize that there are breeds from different continents, even less care, this seems truly nitpicking. Compared to Ygritte holding a bow for two minutes without releasing, unwieldy zweihanders worn on the back, a half-naked Ramsay with two daggers killing armed and armored opponents by the dozen and other bullshit recognizable for anyone with a bit of knowledge of historical weapons, different breeds of horses really seem a minor point. There are probably a handful of more nonsensical or at least problematic things in every episode of GoT (if one wanted to nitpick such things) before one gets to the horses breeds

[Buckwheat]

True. Also, again, different breeds of horses come from different parts of our world. Even if one recognises different breeds of horses, it can be easily explained that those breeds of horses are all traditionally bred in Westeros because it is another world, different from ours - and our geograpy does not play a role in it.

[Jo498]

With horses the question seems who should enforce a standard?

When the Stark vassals are called to the banners, there will be just a bunch of knights and other horsemen coming together from all over the North with their respective horses. There is no "Old Imperial Guard" or no XIth Polish Uhlan battaillon or whatever permanent drilled regiments might have been there either in some ancient armies (like the Praetorians) or in the 18th and 19th century in Westeros, for all I remember. Some of the great houses might have something like it but we are not told about it and we should not expect it in such a decentralized feudal world, I think.

[Equilibrium]

Fiction? Or did you mean fantasy?

If it is the second, so what, why would you need to read it anyway? There are some good series, I never compared much of it to Martin because it was fairly different. Read the SF, start with Asimov and Clarke, straight to the best stuff, fill with Heinlein and Gibson later, maybe Bradbury if you are inclined.

And if it is the first, well there are bunch of contemporary European thrillers, try Donato Carrisi or Jo Nesbø. Or back to the classic literature, say Chekhov, from gun fame, everyone goes for Dostoevsky of Tolstoy, but Chekhov rules, especially later works. 

 

[Darth Richard II]

Yeah, fantasy is for nerds.

[SeanF]

18 hours ago, Jo498 said:

With horses the question seems who should enforce a standard?

When the Stark vassals are called to the banners, there will be just a bunch of knights and other horsemen coming together from all over the North with their respective horses. There is no "Old Imperial Guard" or no XIth Polish Uhlan battaillon or whatever permanent drilled regiments might have been there either in some ancient armies (like the Praetorians) or in the 18th and 19th century in Westeros, for all I remember. Some of the great houses might have something like it but we are not told about it and we should not expect it in such a decentralized feudal world, I think.

 

18 hours ago, Jo498 said:

 

It was a silly criticism of the series.

Really, if you were Lord Stark or Lord Tyrell, would you care what horses your cavalry turned up on, provided they were good enough?