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Rothfuss XVI: Books? What books?


Kyll.Ing.

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So much that happened in the volume, the one with Ned Stark as a character, was not written with any plan or strategy for the future volumes.  Which is why so little can be reconciled by either readers or writers, whether the latter are either the author or adaptors.  Which proves yet again very long works don't work well with seat of the pantsers, unless starting already as saggy bags of epics with no particular need or even objective to fulfill plot arc.  GRRM didn't realize that and just merrily continued to generate cash but due to his inexperience with the long form beyond slimmer stand alones, got lost and now doesn't know what to do.

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1 hour ago, Zorral said:

So much that happened in the volume, the one with Ned Stark as a character, was not written with any plan or strategy for the future volumes.  Which is why so little can be reconciled by either readers or writers, whether the latter are either the author or adaptors.  Which proves yet again very long works don't work well with seat of the pantsers, unless starting already as saggy bags of epics with no particular need or even objective to fulfill plot arc.  GRRM didn't realize that and just merrily continued to generate cash but due to his inexperience with the long form beyond slimmer stand alones, got lost and now doesn't know what to do.

I think anyone who is basing an epic fantasy series off of historical writings has to be a pantser.  So much of history doesn't have a feeling of a beginning er an end. Id rather him develop more insights or variations of historical ideas and characters and then use that than characters who bend over to fulfill a silly plot arc mapped 30 years ago.

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3 hours ago, Zorral said:

So much that happened in the volume, the one with Ned Stark as a character, was not written with any plan or strategy for the future volumes. 

Citation needed.

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

Which is why so little can be reconciled by either readers or writers, whether the latter are either the author or adaptors. 

Citation also needed.

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

Which proves yet again very long works don't work well with seat of the pantsers, unless starting already as saggy bags of epics with no particular need or even objective to fulfill plot arc.

REALLY citation needed.

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

  GRRM didn't realize that and just merrily continued to generate cash but due to his inexperience with the long form beyond slimmer stand alones, got lost and now doesn't know what to do.

Other than writing 3 huge books that are some of the most successful of all time? Did he get 'lost' writing ASOS? Please. 

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16 minutes ago, lysmonger said:

Perhaps the 'he got lost' was the planned five year gap. And the ever evolving elastic time frame of getting everyone everywhere

I get that he got lost in the path along the way, but he has had for something like 3 decades the precise thing he wants as far as an ending goes, and was able to communicate that to the showrunners as well. And they also adapted things based on those ideas. There are very specific beats that we know he has had for years and years and years planned out - and the Red Wedding is one example that we know of. The idea that he's been just making all of this up and now has no idea how to end it is just not backed by anything. In particular, the idea that he didn't know what was going to happen with Ned dying and didn't have that planned out at all is really, really stupid. 

There are a lot of problems with his writing, and his writing process - but the notion that he didn't have an idea of where he was going with this is simply not backed by facts. Hell, if you want you can actually go and read his plot outline he had of  the whole god damn thing that he wrote in like the 80s. It kind of sucks and is not the same as what we have, but it's there. 

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On 8/7/2020 at 5:54 PM, Werthead said:

GRRM didn't redefine anything, necessarily, but he did consolidate a whole bunch of ideas.

I agree with alot of your points, but he certainly redefined the level of mainstream success a modern fantasy author was thought to be capable of. Before the juggernaut that was Game of Thrones, I dont think anyone really suspected that the pop culture appeal of a fantasy series outside of The Lord of the Rings could really reach that kind of level of success. That was absolutely the biggest show on TV while it aired, and in turn has caused him to be the biggest celebrity the fantasy genre has ever known outside of Tolkien. I mean, did any of us ever think that an epic fantasy writer was gonna have a  guest spot on a late night television show?

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2 hours ago, bms295 said:

Before the juggernaut that was Game of Thrones, I dont think anyone really suspected that the pop culture appeal of a fantasy series outside of The Lord of the Rings could really reach that kind of level of success.

I mean, Harry Potter, obviously.

Even if you set YA aside, though, Pratchett was a bigger celebrity in the UK and in Poland for some reason but hasn't reached the same kind of mainstream appeal in America as far as I can tell coz y'all have terrible taste or something I dunno.

 

But also, the influence of aSoIaF as a novel series and the influence of GoT as a TV show are separate thing separated by years. Before the show came out, GRRM was not in the sales or pop culture awareness ballpark of a Jordan or (urgh) Goodkind, or someone like Neil Gaiman, although aSoIaF might eventually have caught up anyway given time and more books in the series. There's a pretty good chance that Jordan's sales will go back above GRRM's when the WoT TV show hits, though, since by Wert's numbers they're not far apart even as is.

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12 hours ago, lysmonger said:

I think anyone who is basing an epic fantasy series off of historical writings has to be a pantser.  So much of history doesn't have a feeling of a beginning er an end. Id rather him develop more insights or variations of historical ideas and characters and then use that than characters who bend over to fulfill a silly plot arc mapped 30 years ago.

Actually historical understanding has always involved the continuous imposition of a narrative onto the past which trails into the present. 

If you asked someone in Henry VIII's court to describe recent English history they would have started with the rotting of the Plantagenet dynasty in the figure of Henry VI (the lawful but incompetent heir) followed by the arrival of Edward VI as England's saviour.  Followed in turn by the infanticidal Richard III who usurped his brother's thrown followed in turn by Henry VII rescuing England from tyranny and uniting York and Lancaster. 

Each one of these sentences is highly contestable (except maybe that Henry VI was an unworthy King).  This narrative did not fully adopt with either the Lancaster or the Yorkist narrative at the time of the War of the Roses.  It was a melange that was widely accepted as truth. And it had a definite beginning (Henry VI descent into madness) and end (Henry VI ascension and marriage to Elizabeth of York). 

And you can do this with many, many definite periods of history including the conversion of Rome from a Republic to an Empire.  It's how humans think naturally, in terms of stories.  And the in-world history that GRRM has written in the books pretty much breaks up his narrative up into storytelling capsules.  

The problem is between the 20,000 feet view of a historian and ASOIAF's current status which resembles the Ganges at its most meandering is the compelling narrative of history as story, told from diaries, letters, dispatches and contemporaneous accounts. GRRM as a fiction writer can do even better and show us history from the perspective of its actors. 

He's not hitting that ideal form because in response to widespread adulation he's made the book a travelogue, a social commentary, an introduction to every character in Westeros.  It's as if the world is saying to him, George we want more.  We love your creation.  And GRRM's obliging response after all those lonely unappreciated years is to say, you want more. I'll give you more. I'll show you everything. There's no limit to my imagination. 

And the overall effect is that the writer has imprisoned the historian. 

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4 hours ago, polishgenius said:

But also, the influence of aSoIaF as a novel series and the influence of GoT as a TV show are separate thing separated by years. Before the show came out, GRRM was not in the sales or pop culture awareness ballpark of a Jordan or (urgh) Goodkind, or someone like Neil Gaiman, although aSoIaF might eventually have caught up anyway given time and more books in the series. There's a pretty good chance that Jordan's sales will go back above GRRM's when the WoT TV show hits, though, since by Wert's numbers they're not far apart even as is.

You're very much wrong.  Back in 2005 Feast for Crows sold 375,000 copies to Knife of Dreams 500,000 copies.  At the time, Martin's last book was A Storm of Swords and Jordan's last book was Crossroads of Twilight.  You can guess what the general epic fantasy fandom's opinion of the writers was at the time.

 

Comparing series total sales is silly when trying to establish pop culture reach.  WoT has 14 books, ASoIaF has 5.  Martin would need something like 3 times as many readers as Jordan to achieve parity of sales.

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3 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

If you asked someone in Henry VIII's court to describe recent English history they would have started with the rotting of the Plantagenet dynasty in the figure of Henry VI (the lawful but incompetent heir) followed by the arrival of Edward VI as England's saviour.  Followed in turn by the infanticidal Richard III who usurped his brother's thrown followed in turn by Henry VII rescuing England from tyranny and uniting York and Lancaster. 

They might also do a Shakespeare and "start" with Richard II.

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On 8/8/2020 at 9:54 AM, Werthead said:

GRRM didn't redefine anything, necessarily, but he did consolidate a whole bunch of ideas. We'd had "really long series" before (WoT), we'd have "fantasy with sex and swearing and morally ambiguous protagonists" before (Donaldson, Cook, Gemmell, Kearney), we had the whole "noble families clashing" thing (Dune, GRRM's historical inspirations) and so on, but GRRM rolled them all into one very accessible package. Tolkien did something similar, though his linguistic approach was more unique to him. A lot of the individual things GRRM gets credit for weren't really original to him, but he popularised them.

I think Martin's major contribution might be making the word "fuck" commonplace in fantasy. Pre-Martin fantasy swearing tends to be a bit different.

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5 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I mean, Harry Potter, obviously.

Even if you set YA aside, though, Pratchett was a bigger celebrity in the UK and in Poland for some reason but hasn't reached the same kind of mainstream appeal in America as far as I can tell coz y'all have terrible taste or something I dunno.

Pratchett was massive in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, quite a few European countries and did all right in Canada, I believe. The US started finally giving in towards the end of his life.

 

Quote

 

You're very much wrong.  Back in 2005 Feast for Crows sold 375,000 copies to Knife of Dreams 500,000 copies.  At the time, Martin's last book was A Storm of Swords and Jordan's last book was Crossroads of Twilight.  You can guess what the general epic fantasy fandom's opinion of the writers was at the time.

Comparing series total sales is silly when trying to establish pop culture reach.  WoT has 14 books, ASoIaF has 5.  Martin would need something like 3 times as many readers as Jordan to achieve parity of sale

 

A Song of Ice and Fire's sales surpassed Wheel of Time's around two years ago, when it passed 90 million. Wheel of Time itself has apparently also passed 90 million, so ASoIaF is ahead in both overall sales and also number of readesrs (because 90/5 is more than 90/15).

That's post-show, though. Pre-show, back in 2011, total ASoIaF sales appear to have been around 12 million and total WoT sales were around 70 million (estimated, because Tor didn't give us any hard sales figures for years and years), so WoT was the bigger deal back then.

 

 
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6 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I mean, Harry Potter, obviously.

Even if you set YA aside, though, Pratchett was a bigger celebrity in the UK and in Poland for some reason but hasn't reached the same kind of mainstream appeal in America as far as I can tell coz y'all have terrible taste or something I dunno.

 

But also, the influence of aSoIaF as a novel series and the influence of GoT as a TV show are separate thing separated by years. Before the show came out, GRRM was not in the sales or pop culture awareness ballpark of a Jordan or (urgh) Goodkind, or someone like Neil Gaiman, although aSoIaF might eventually have caught up anyway given time and more books in the series. There's a pretty good chance that Jordan's sales will go back above GRRM's when the WoT TV show hits, though, since by Wert's numbers they're not far apart even as is.

The first Harry Potter was after Game of Thrones wasn't it? And even then I'm not sure the series really started to take off as the giant it became until maybe the third book?

Or were you referring to the show?

56 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

I think Martin's major contribution might be making the word "fuck" commonplace in fantasy. Pre-Martin fantasy swearing tends to be a bit different.

Ha, this made me think of Neil Gaiman's Stardust novel with the singular use of "fuck" in tiny letters (I hope I'm not misremembering that)

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11 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

The first Harry Potter was after Game of Thrones wasn't it? And even then I'm not sure the series really started to take off as the giant it became until maybe the third book?

Or were you referring to the show?



I'm saying Harry Potter was a humungous behemoth before asoiaf/GoT was a humongous behemoth. I don't know when exactly Potter crossed the line into a giant, but while the first book didn't top the NY Times list till 1999 (so around when the third book as you say) that's pretty relative and I'm fairly sure it was selling plenty prior to that- it one hatfuls of reader-voted awards in the UK shortly after its release.

 

1 hour ago, Lord of Rhinos said:

You're very much wrong.  Back in 2005 Feast for Crows sold 375,000 copies to Knife of Dreams 500,000 copies.  At the time, Martin's last book was A Storm of Swords and Jordan's last book was Crossroads of Twilight.  You can guess what the general epic fantasy fandom's opinion of the writers was at the time.

How does an asoiaf book selling less than a WoT book prove I'm wrong that WoT was bigger than asoiaf?

 

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1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

How does an asoiaf book selling less than a WoT book prove I'm wrong that WoT was bigger than asoiaf?

Because you didn't say WoT was bigger.  You said they weren't in the same ballpark.  WOT and ASOIAF were pretty much the #1 and #2 Adult Epic Fantasy series for quite sometime.  Back in 2005, Time magazine (how's that for popculture appeal?) referred Martin as the "American Tolkien" and talked up how he was redefining the fantasy genre.  The idea that Martin and ASoIaF weren't well know before the show is silly.

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52 minutes ago, Lord of Rhinos said:

Because you didn't say WoT was bigger.  You said they weren't in the same ballpark.  WOT and ASOIAF were pretty much the #1 and #2 Adult Epic Fantasy series for quite sometime.  Back in 2005, Time magazine (how's that for popculture appeal?) referred Martin as the "American Tolkien" and talked up how he was redefining the fantasy genre.  The idea that Martin and ASoIaF weren't well know before the show is silly.

I didn't said he wasn't well known. I said he wasn't on the level of Jordan.

If you want to quibble with whether roughly a third less sales isn't a different ballpark is up to you, but leaving the semantic bickering aside the point was that it was the show that turned aSoIaF from a respectable but not genre-leading property into a giant. 

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12 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I didn't said he wasn't well known. I said he wasn't on the level of Jordan.

If you want to quibble with whether roughly a third less sales isn't a different ballpark is up to you, but leaving the semantic bickering aside the point was that it was the show that turned aSoIaF from a respectable but not genre-leading property into a giant. 

Except being the 2nd best selling Adult Epic Fantasy series and getting write-ups in major magazines about redefining the genre six years before the TV show aired would indicate that ASoIaF was in fact a leading the genre long before the TV show was around.

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2 hours ago, Lord of Rhinos said:

Except being the 2nd best selling Adult Epic Fantasy series and getting write-ups in major magazines about redefining the genre six years before the TV show aired would indicate that ASoIaF was in fact a leading the genre long before the TV show was around.

At the time the TV show launched, the books had sold 12 million copies. That was about five million copies less than Memory, Sorrow and ThornThe Belgariad and Riftwar, less than half the number of copies as The Sword of Truth, a quarter of the The Shannara Chronicles, and about a seventh of Discworld (which was the biggest-selling adult fantasy series for a very long time, before being pipped by ASoIaF and Wheel of Time, even if it has; all three are very close to parity in terms of sales right now).

ASoIaF was certainly not the second-biggest-selling adult epic fantasy series in 2011.

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