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Would you say ASOIAF is your favorite book series? Why or why not?


Mwm

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ASOIAF are the most immersive books I’ve ever read. I think the characters and dialogue are second to none... It made me feel like reading is an “event”. And instilled in me a love for history when before I couldn’t stand the subject.

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8 hours ago, Mwm said:

ASOIAF are the most immersive books I’ve ever read. I think the characters and dialogue are second to none... It made me feel like reading is an “event”. And instilled in me a love for history when before I couldn’t stand the subject.

Yes to all of this and it's the only series I keep wanting to come back to. I love rereading only a few books (To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride & Prejudice, The Awakening) but those are classics. This is totally different.  There are foreshadowing clues I didn't pick up on during my first or even third read that fascinates me about GRRM. These are also the only books I've highlighted, underlined, written notes in the margins, etc. because I notice either a pattern, wordplay from the author, hints towards theories and so on...(gave me flashbacks of law school, but those were my favorite years in school).  I think his ability to weave in historical events, with fantasy elements, in a medieval world is by far beyond EPIC.

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1 hour ago, fire&blood said:

Yes to all of this and it's the only series I keep wanting to come back to. I love rereading only a few books (To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride & Prejudice, The Awakening) but those are classics. This is totally different.  There are foreshadowing clues I didn't pick up on during my first or even third read that fascinates me about GRRM. These are also the only books I've highlighted, underlined, written notes in the margins, etc. because I notice either a pattern, wordplay from the author, hints towards theories and so on...(gave me flashbacks of law school, but those were my favorite years in school).  I think his ability to weave in historical events, with fantasy elements, in a medieval world is by far beyond EPIC.

Despite any misgivings I have with the guys other views-I total agree with D. B. Weiss in that these books are crack on paper. This is a book series where I can open at any page and immediately find the same joy I had when first reading. I read all of them every year. And have yet to find a series I could place anywhere near it. I practically had a seizure over the World of Ice and Fire, and have preordered TWO copies of Fire And Blood(kindle and print)/same with the world book. I also have a kindle and three different print versions for every main book in the saga.

Its also very nice to see Elio and Linda doing all those videos, because you see other people who love the books on the same level and discussing it with such passion...

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13 hours ago, Mwm said:

ASOIAF are the most immersive books I’ve ever read. I think the characters and dialogue are second to none... It made me feel like reading is an “event”. And instilled in me a love for history when before I couldn’t stand the subject.

I love reading, always have. But I have peculiar taste, never really took to Tolkien,David Eddings, Discworld or Harry Potter, but loved Marion Shimmer's Avalon-books.

 

Like, I mostly read old dead swedish authors books about primitive farmlife, bleakness and social injustice - which is exactly what GRRM is serving up, with five hundred great side-dishes.

 

edit: ASOIAF is absolutely my favourite book series though

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42 minutes ago, Sigella said:

I love reading, always have. But I have peculiar taste, never really took to Tolkien,David Eddings, Discworld or Harry Potter, but loved Marion Shimmer's Avalon-books.

 

Like, I mostly read old dead swedish authors books about primitive farmlife, bleakness and social injustice - which is exactly what GRRM is serving up, with five hundred great side-dishes.

 

edit: ASOIAF is absolutely my favourite book series though

I always read a few nonfiction books, but grew up on, and largely always preferred, movies... Until I read ASOIAF and saw what literature could really be.

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2 minutes ago, JaneSnow said:

Right now yes. When it comes to books series, shows, anything really I'm never a casual fan. I go all in full-on obsessed. Like losing sleep kind of obsession. 

This is the big thing that ASOIAF did for me. There’s just so much depth and complexity....

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Just now, Mwm said:

This is the big thing that ASOIAF did for me.

I'm like that with all fandoms pretty much. I'm autistic so obsessing is kind of a talent of mine. I'll forget to eat, sleep, anything if I'm immersed in something. 

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On ‎6‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 10:04 AM, fire&blood said:

Yes to all of this and it's the only series I keep wanting to come back to. I love rereading only a few books (To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride & Prejudice, The Awakening) but those are classics. This is totally different.  There are foreshadowing clues I didn't pick up on during my first or even third read that fascinates me about GRRM. These are also the only books I've highlighted, underlined, written notes in the margins, etc. because I notice either a pattern, wordplay from the author, hints towards theories and so on...(gave me flashbacks of law school, but those were my favorite years in school).  I think his ability to weave in historical events, with fantasy elements, in a medieval world is by far beyond EPIC.

Exactly! I'm doing my 1st reread & my mind is blowing up over places/characters that are mentioned in passing who're important later. I literally said "Oh cool" when I saw Mirri Maz Duur mention Marwyn. The foreshadowing is beyond belief as well....some things seem so obvious but even on a reread I'm still enjoying it and feeling the same feelings I did back on my 1st reading 6 years ago. I'm almost done with AGOT and was just as annoyed w/Sansa as the first for instance. The characters jump off the page and just when you think you know everything about an event/character GRRM throws you for a loop and makes you like them, Jaime could be used as an example (I still hated Cersei after getting in her head lol). In addition to all this however is the vast history that precedes the main series to not only include the Targaryens but the First Men, Children of the Forrest, etc. We get novellas showing Egg who's Maester Aemon's brother, we're getting Fire and Blood that could produce untold numbers of novellas. I'm going on too much. It's such a good series, bar none.

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49 minutes ago, TyrionFan82 said:

Exactly! I'm doing my 1st reread & my mind is blowing up over places/characters that are mentioned in passing who're important later. I literally said "Oh cool" when I saw Mirri Maz Duur mention Marwyn. The foreshadowing is beyond belief as well....some things seem so obvious but even on a reread I'm still enjoying it and feeling the same feelings I did back on my 1st reading 6 years ago. I'm almost done with AGOT and was just as annoyed w/Sansa as the first for instance. The characters jump off the page and just when you think you know everything about an event/character GRRM throws you for a loop and makes you like them, Jaime could be used as an example (I still hated Cersei after getting in her head lol). In addition to all this however is the vast history that precedes the main series to not only include the Targaryens but the First Men, Children of the Forrest, etc. We get novellas showing Egg who's Maester Aemon's brother, we're getting Fire and Blood that could produce untold numbers of novellas. I'm going on too much. It's such a good series, bar none.

That’s what stood out for me; that rereads are just as good as the first time I’ve read the series.

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24 minutes ago, Mwm said:

That’s what stood out for me; that rereads are just as good as the first time I’ve read the series.

And w/all the extra material to aid your understanding like YouTube channels to maybe help you pick up stuff you missed it makes it even better because there's SO much to it, so many layers.

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To be honest, I had been thoroughly immersed in worlds like Middle Earth, Middlemarch, Earthsea long before I read GRRM, and while this is also incredibly immersive, I woudn't say uniquely so, or more than the above.

ASoIaF poses, if anything, a mild affront to my love of history.  It is based more on popular fictive concepts like Merrie England and the Norman Yolk. That and fictional sources like Maurice Druon's  Accursed Kings, and the efforts of modern re-enactors. Compare it to Chaucer, or any authentic medieval story - it is far more relatable, far more racy, for a reader of our era.

If you had asked me four years ago, or even two, I would have told you it was my favourite series. GRRM had become my favourite author. Now, it is my least favourite series. Because it isn't finished. And GRRM my least favourite author, until Winds of Winter is actually in my hands. Possibly even then, or especially then, because there is every chance it will be another Feast for Crows, with heaps of brand new points of view and characters we are not invested in , and with the ones we know and love and want to know about either dossing around, wondering where whores go, or being killed right off. 

I think the really unusual thing about GRRM, is that he isn't afraid to do things readers will hate him for, if it makes for a better story. Not afraid to do the things that will have them flinging the book across the room in frustration. That does seem to be a unique talent. He is a great storyteller, with an eye for what will add drama always. Also, he has found a  way around any editor that woud make him write in a safer more conciliatory style. There is no denying that he is really good at what he does. I just wish he would do more of it. Now.

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