George RR martin faults...

[Seventh Pup]

The only problem I had with 'nuncle' is that Terry Pratchett mercilessly ripped the piss out of it in Wyrd Sisters, which took me out of AFFC a bit whenever I saw it.

I have the exact same problem. When I would read the word I would always wonder if Greebo was going to show up or not. Of course it's not GRRM fault that Pratchett used the word first, but it did kind of bug me that he suddenly started using it in AFfC so frequently.

[Sheepslayer]

Reading all this makes me concerned that all those small, unnoticeable flaws will prosper, and that the last book will absolutely, and totally suck.

I'm scared... :cry:

[Ormond]

I can see that, because it's a fairly common name nowadays, but Russell is a gaelic name, I believe, that means "red-haired". Maybe it's Saxon, I'm not sure. But it's a fairly old name that originated from the middle ages. It also makes since that Taena would name her son that, since her husband is a red-head.

Russell was not Gaelic; it was originally an Old French diminutive of rous, meaning "red". It became a surname because it was a nickname given to someone with red hair, and in that way became a family name (surname). But there is no evidence that it was ever used as a given name (first name) until about 300 years ago. This is the problem with just looking at the information found in most baby name books about first names; they will give the original "meaning" of the name in its original language, but that is no guarantee that the name has actually been used as a first name by speakers of that language for a long time. So Russell as a nickname originated in the Middle Ages, but no one gave a baby Russell as a first name at birth during that time period.

For a more modern example -- most baby name books will correctly tell you that "Mignon" was originally a French word that meant "dainty" or "pretty". What most of them won't tell you is that Mignon was not created as a first name in France. It was originally turned into a given name by the German author Goethe. It then became a given name in Germany and in the USA among German immigrants. So though Mignon was a French word, it is actually historically a German name.

[Bob]

A few things I dislike about Martin's writing:

- The deliberate mispelling of certain words to make us believe its a fantasy world eg Ser, serjeant etc.

I read a passage from the Bible most days. Today I was reading from Acts, in the King James translation, and I noted a funny spelling of sargeant in Acts 16:35:

And when it was day,the magistrates sent the serjeants, saying Let those men go.

I hadn't even noticed it in ASOIAF, but it jumped out at me from Acts.

"Ser" bugs me, too. But apparently "serjeant" is a legit spelling from early Modern English.

[Mandiric]

From a technical standpoint, the man uses too many adverbs for my liking. He asked lightly. She smiled sourly. She shook her head stubbornly. Catelyn lied glibly.

Stylistic preference, yes, but I think most of the time the adverb in question is implied by the preceding passage. I admit I'm biased. I don't care for adverbs.

He's also overfond of cliffhangers, as Maia pointed out. This one really pisses me off because it's a cheap device and Martin's better than that. So are his fans. I guess he wrote for Hollywood long enough that it's ingrained in him now. But come on -- was it really necessary to end three POVs this way in Feast? Bad, bad call.

[Ser Vlad]

From a technical standpoint, the man uses too many adverbs for my liking. He asked lightly. She smiled sourly. She shook her head stubbornly. Catelyn lied glibly.

Stylistic preference, yes, but I think most of the time the adverb in question is implied by the preceding passage. I admit I'm biased. I don't care for adverbs.

He's also overfond of cliffhangers, as Maia pointed out. This one really pisses me off because it's a cheap device and Martin's better than that. So are his fans. I guess he wrote for Hollywood long enough that it's ingrained in him now. But come on -- was it really necessary to end three POVs this way in Feast? Bad, bad call.

Cliffhangers are fine every now and then, but Martin is starting to really overuse them, and it makes the writting very stale for me, and removes what many laud him for doing after AGoT, i.e. removing the feel of invincibility around main characters. Another thing Martin did away with since AGoT was the uncertainty of prophecies. Martin is building up more and more magic-related elements in his story, and that hurts many of the strengths of his series.

The way in which Martin has started to really coddle Daenerys and push her as the chosen saviour of Westeros is bothering me - where before, we had Bran and Jon featured as possible heroes, Daenerys now seems to really take the forefront. A few AFfC complaints, but those are minor points and tie into the problem with Daenerys and the prophecies.

Martin also seems to get too bogged down in the first arc of his story - the games of thrones - and this makes Daenerys feel more and more as the inevitable agent of fate.

[Slynt]

The word "Ser" instead of "sir" was also used historically, likewise "Syr" (which I use in my roleplaying games).

[Agema]

Cliffhangers are fine every now and then, but Martin is starting to really overuse them, and it makes the writting very stale for me, and removes what many laud him for doing after AGoT, i.e. removing the feel of invincibility around main characters. Another thing Martin did away with since AGoT was the uncertainty of prophecies. Martin is building up more and more magic-related elements in his story, and that hurts many of the strengths of his series.

The way in which Martin has started to really coddle Daenerys and push her as the chosen saviour of Westeros is bothering me - where before, we had Bran and Jon featured as possible heroes, Daenerys now seems to really take the forefront. A few AFfC complaints, but those are minor points and tie into the problem with Daenerys and the prophecies.

Martin also seems to get too bogged down in the first arc of his story - the games of thrones - and this makes Daenerys feel more and more as the inevitable agent of fate.

Cliffhangers when used right do seem to be rather useful, but they are a really delicate process that he does not seem to use in the best circumstances.

An example of a poor one:

SPOILER: AFfC

Arya going blind. It ends simply with "Arya woke up blind". There is no real context for us to wonder about what happens to her next. If she becomes a beggar, if she serves meekly, or if the blindness lasts eternally. if this is just another test, or if her story will end with her being a cripple like this. It is too open ended a cliffhanger, and leaves the reader to presume too many questions with not enough fact

Generally, when they are used and we have almost no context in which to consider what will happen next, it's a bad cliffhanger. I think some of the worst was in either A clash of Kings, or a Storm of Swords, I forget whichs ending seemed the most threadbare.

And you took the words from my mouth Ser Vlad. The prophetic, messiah-like angle given to Dany has really worried me about the ending of this novel, as did the ominous comment of Sam needing to get back to the wall soon after forging his chains.

I disagree with imbuing the Targaryens of some mystic and 'world saving grace', as it may turn out to be. The beauty of the War of the five kings, and the very history that occured after Robert's Rebellion, is that the reader is able to choose the side of whom he personally feels is the rightful heir. By giving that much power to Dany, her right to rule is crammed down our throats.

I don't want to see the ending of the final novel to be Dany setting Westeros to right, and a golden age/reinassance donning upon this war ravaged kingdom. I have the faith in GRRM to deliever something better than that, and give us the pepetual realism mixed with fantasy that has made this novel so good..

Because we'll build a trebuche and put Edmund Tully's son in it, and launch it at him if he gives us a "Return of the King" ending.

[Aerys]

basically, his fantasy spelling, using ser and the constant cliff hangers which make you not want to stop reading. and how the other languages just seem to be completly made up, wth little actual grammar relevance and accuracy, unlike Tolkien who actually made up whole languages. I expected better from someone who is able to write so compellngly. At least he tries and this isnt really a major fault.

[Sijjvra Visz]

Keep in mind Martin is the only "fantasy" author I can stand to read, and I love ASOIAF a lot.

But;

Dany. Boring. Annoying. Too "good"...dragon princess of prophecy. Too campy.

Jon - same. Too noble. Too boring.

Bran - could be more interesting, his chapters usually are dull for me.

UnCat - zombie cat's just a bit too cheesy for me to really get into.

But those are kind of minor things in the bigger picture. Considering I wanted to vomit when I tried to read WOT (no offense to fans, I'm just hard to please and I know I'm over critical ) Tad William's stuff, those Pern novels, or just about everything else (I don't even really dig Tolkien all that much. It's ok but...eh. ) GRRM has done what no other "fantasy" author has been able to yet when it comes to my tastes; make a series I actually really enjoy and read.

I can't complain too much for a few little quirks.

[Ser Skywalker]

Would not change a thing but the wait in between books.

[pwdiii]

You know I think the reason that too many cliffhangers bother so many people is that it takes GRRM so long to finish a book. With the first couple of books he basically set up enough suspense to take us through the entire series. Yet the books don't really end in a bunch of smaller cliffhangers. Thus we get a small sense of closure in each one. Dany hatches her Dragons in the first, Bran and Rickon were hiding in the crypts in the second etc. We still had larger questin left unanswered like what happens with the Others, who are Jons real parents and so on. It struck a good balance. with his next couple esp AFFCs almost every POV seems to end with a cliffhanger. With at least a couple of years between each book its very frustrating to the reader. To make it worse consider that AFFCs only tells about half of the story he at first wanted it to. Half the POVs didn't really even get mentioned. So what that amounts to is Two things. First we will probably end up with twice as many cliffhangers after the next book. Second it will be YEARS yet before any of them from AFFCs are ever addressed.

[The_BlauerDragon]

Would not change a thing but the wait in between books.

:bow:

It's for this reason that I will never again begin reading a series until after the very last book has been published. My heart couldn't take it again.

That being said, I could use a bit more sex and violence (need more fight scenes), a bit less cheese and predictability (UnCat, Dragon Princess of Prophecy, etc.), and a lot less cliffhanger endings. It'd really recharge my lust for these books if Dany bites the big one in the next book (and I aint talking about Tyrion's big one, either){Gods be good, I just got an image of a naked Tyrion as "Bob's Big Boy" flashing through my head}... Kill Dany, set her Dragons free to rampage... expose Jon as being Just a bastard, or the son of Ashara... and Bring on the Winds of Winter... Then I may have a good reason to want to Dream of Spring...

:fence:

[Craigopogo]

The only thing I can think of is the pacing of A Feast for Crows and the lack of forward movement in the narrative. It took a long time for not much to happen in AFCC. The whole book felt very transitory, and it had almost not hooks of its own. It didn't really seem to have a climax, it just had story lines that ended right before the climax. It felt like all I read was the first half of a book. Of course, it's the middle of the series, so it's not like anything particularly earthshattering can happen just yet, but AFFC didn't feel like it was its own book, it was more a lot of exposition leading to actual events without actually having them happen. I really hope the next one is a more solid novel, and not just a bridge between the first three books and the climax.

The first three in the series were all fairly self-contained, and moved the overall narrative at a good rate. With AFFC it feels like Martin's taking a break in the middle of an exciting story to ramble on about insignificant stuff.

[No Ser]

I biggest concern is that GRRM seems to be generating new characters and storylines at the expense of further developing his existing storylines and characters. Its almost as though he struggling to bring all his complex story threads and foreshadowing to a meaningful, coherent conclusion and his "resolution" is simple to start dropping storylines -- either by killing them or otherwise removing characters from the action (think Rickon, Theon, the Hound, and virtually the entire cast in AFFC) -- and starting from scratch with new characters. I will reserve judgment until DofD, but I have a niggling fear that GRRM may be one of those authors that can set a wonderful, wonderful table, yet may have trouble serving the main course.

That being said, even if GRRM gets writers block and never writes another word or even if my fears are realized and DofD is a disaster, I have thoroughly enjoyed and am very grateful the 4 books that he has written.

[Kalbear]

As mentioned elsewhere, I'm a bit annoyed by the excessive detail of the rape scenes and some of the violence scenes. It does work on some level because his world is hyper-described, but it also can really get to me.

The huge amounts of recipes are a bit insane too. Really, who describes that they took an abortifacent by describing every single ingredient in the tea? It's interesting, but he doesn't do it in a very natural way.

[davk]

In reference to a previous post, when WAS "mom" used in the books?

I can't remember seeing it at all.

[MyDogIsNamedDanerys]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but I almost didn't read the books due to the retarded names throughout. I love the guy, but GRRM's names sound like REALLY REALLY badly stereotyped Fantasy names. Either he 1) takes a regular name and alters it slightly it to make it look more fantasy-y or 2) he strings together a set of random letters (usually including at least one y) to get something "exotic".

Examples that particularly bother me:

1) Mispelled/altered

Robb (OMG I HATE THIS ONE SO MUCH WTF ROB-BUB!?!)

Catelyn

Tommen

Eddard

Jeyne

2) Random/Fantasy-y

Danaerys (this chapter heading made me put the book down and not pick it up for 6 months)

Tyrion

Cersei

etc.

It's especially frustrating because sometimes he uses the normal spellings for names (Jon, Brandon, etc). Why'd he feel the need to make shit up? I feel he should have spelled Ser Sir as well. He didn't write the rest of the book in middle english - why include that one?

[pwdiii]

As mentioned elsewhere, I'm a bit annoyed by the excessive detail of the rape scenes and some of the violence scenes. It does work on some level because his world is hyper-described, but it also can really get to me.

The huge amounts of recipes are a bit insane too. Really, who describes that they took an abortifacent by describing every single ingredient in the tea? It's interesting, but he doesn't do it in a very natural way.

Granted, but in his defence here I'm pretty sure those things where supposed to be disturbing after all.

[matt b]

Robb (OMG I HATE THIS ONE SO MUCH WTF ROB-BUB!?!)

actually, I have several friends named Robb, spelled exactly like that. It's a perfectly acceptable alternate spelling of the name, GRRM didn't make that one up.