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First review of ADWD


Werthead

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So from what others are saying, the Tyrion part of the review is a big spoiler? Dangit, I regret reading it now. :bang: I was unspoilered, aside from reading the chapters on GRRM's website and Theons amazon.com chapter.

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Just as bad!

Part of what I liked about the earlier books was how tightly written they were. GRRM frequently put major events off-screen, so to speak, to keep the focus on the main characters. With AFFC this changed. As someone said in another thread, if GRRM had written AGOT in the style of AFFC, we'd have had a bunch of Stannis, Tywin, and other random POVs.

ADWD has 18 POVs, so Martin isn't changing this from how it worked in AFFC.

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So from what others are saying, the Tyrion part of the review is a big spoiler? Dangit, I regret reading it now. :bang: I was unspoilered, aside from reading the chapters on GRRM's website and Theons amazon.com chapter.

It doesn't seem like a big spoiler to me, more like something that happens early in the book. If that's a big spoiler, ADwD is a damned uneventful book.

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I think plague will be another threat to Meereen. Although it is interesting that the review seems to confirm something from Anne Groell's snippets. I'm going to tag them just to be on the safe side:

That the Iron Fleet is caught in and battered by a storm at sea

Good call, I agree that this seems confirmation. Wonder what land armies will have a similar experience; that may be up north, or concerning the promised plague (presumably in Essos).

It doesn't seem like a big spoiler to me, more like something that happens early in the book. If that's a big spoiler, ADwD is a damned uneventful book.

It's a spoiler in the sense that none of the material already read out (or otherwise leaked on the board) gave a hint about this. I guess most readers would expect a relatively straightforward journey to the east, but - guess not.

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and of course we have to endure a multi-year wait for that volume.

Why? Once the Meerenese knot has been cut, the avalanche of Martin's story will begin.*

What made me really depressed right now is the realization that there are still 38 days to go until publication -plus 5-7 for delivery here. The way things are going I'll most probably have the twins before then. No real time for all-night reading and certainly no time to read all the threads here and discuss the book with you all.

Fear not! I doubt this slightly unfortunate issue of timing will actually be depressing given the circumstance. :grouphug: Unless DalThor rubs it in of course. Then again, I expect he'll be in a similar state as yourself. ;)

* Granted, I'm a charter member of the "Books 6 and 7 will be written in an avalanche of easy prose" theory.

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I'm beginning to think that I'm part of a small minority that actually expected ADWD to = AFFC, but with Dany Jon and Tyrion.

I mean, all of this material was originally supposed to happen during the five year gap and be relayed to us in flashbacks. Major events weren't going to happen anyway. When GRRM realized that the five year gap wasn't going to work in flashbacks, he decided to accelerate the story a bit. But that didn't mean that he could just jump into the last act- he still had to position everyone.

When I first read AFFC, I was disappointed. Then again, what book could ever live up to ASOS? The next few times through I was able to appreciate it for what it was - a masterfully written middle act where exposition needed to outweigh action. I still don't think it was anywhere near as good as the first three books, but I understood that was merely a function of resetting the story. So I have always fully expected ADWD to keep roughly the same pace for the other characters. The primary difference is that these characters (or at least the events surrounding them) are far more compelling and important to the primary story (i.e., the Others).

I am 100% in the camp that the huge delays in these two books were a result of GRRM trying to make the middle act believable and interesting. Although I'm not expecting the next book in 2012, I do think that TWOW and ADOS will come along far more quickly now that GRRM has supposedly put his players into the position where they would have been after the original five-year gap.

Besides, after all this time, I cannot help but feel pure elation about this book, regardless of the action quotient. After all, the last time I read a new Jon, Dany or Tyrion chapter was the freaking year 2000. Whatever it is, bring it on.

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Granted, I'm a charter member of the "Books 6 and 7 will be written in an avalanche of easy prose" theory.

I must believe this as well, for the alternative is just too terrible, and that way lies madness.

I'm beginning to think that I'm part of a small minority that actually expected ADWD to = AFFC, but with Dany Jon and Tyrion.

My biggest issue with Feast was the absence of some of my favorite characters (Jon, Davos) and favorite to read about (Jon, Davos, Dany, and Tyrion), along with the multitude of material from people I was wholly uninterested in. Jon, Dany, and Tyrion together make up ~1/2 the book, so that's good. Arya is also in this book, and I like her chapters, as well as several others who promise to be interesting, including Davos. So for me, Dance has to be better by the very inclusion of some of the best (in my opinion) characters.

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I'm one of the strange ones who really liked Feast on my first read but find more and more problems with it as I re-read it. I still think it's a good book, mind you, but the first half of the book has a lot of mediocre/and boring. I'd argue you could cut out the first two or three Ironborn chapters, combine Brienne's first four into one, make many of Cersei's (and even Arya's) chapters more concise, and you'd have a much stronger book. Even better if Martin had continued many of the storylines- if Cersei and Brienne and Sam had gotten a few more chapters, since they're stories really start to pick up only in their last chapter. So much potential, not only to make the book stronger but also to wrap up events to make sure this series also gets done in seven. But that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of good and great in Feast. I dislike Brienne's early chapters but her last four are fantastic and some of the best written in the series. Jaime is consistently great, albeit with a bit too much backstory. I like the later Ironborn chapters a lot.

So I'm willing to take the optimistic path. If Dance is a bit more focused thematically, like Feast at its best, and it's alike to Feast in that there are a greater number of new POV characters, then I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. It could be, if it's not particularly well written or if the setup is of the early Brienne chapters of AFFC variety rather than the early Tyrion chapters of ASoS, and if all of our POVs spend the entire book traveling to one destination and only get there in the last chapter, ending their storylines in cliffhangers as things start to get interesting. But I think, and seriously hope that this will not be the case, and that Martin took the reception of Feast a bit too heart.

Also agree with Wert that this book needs to seriously advance the main two plotlines to fulfill expectations. Dany needs to at least be leaving Essos at the end (this would also allow for a gap of a few months until TWoW, which might be helpful). The Others need to start invading in somewhat full force. Anyway, let's hope for some longer and more better reviews soon. It's impossible not to overanalyze this review, since I've been waiting six years for this book and much more for a Jon/Tyrion/Bran chapter, but Publisher's Weekly ain't exactly the height of the art of reviewing.

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All long Fantasy book series seem to hit a lull in the middle.

Should Dany reach Westeros at the end of this book then we could feel reasonably confident

that there will be only 2 more books in the series and it will be 'gloves off' from then on

Having Tyrion in this book should make this ok for me.

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I am going to be cautiously optomistic that "the feel of AFfC" doesn't mean we have a character wandering all over Essos. I was so angry about AFfC that I sounded off quite strongly. Ran straightened me out (little trip to the woodshed as we say in the Midweet), And I finally got to the point (after many reads) that there were some good POVs in Feast.

The spoilers sound fun. I wonder it Tyrion ... nah, he's too old to become an Unsullied

So I will just wait for Time and a few others to review it, and by that time, it will be here.

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Wow, this review really killed my enthusiasm. After originally being a bit skeptical about ADWD, the fact that at least 1/3 of the 1500 page book would take place after AFFC gave me hope that we would get some mayor plot progression. Hearing that this is in the same tone as AFFC, only with a more interesting cast, is really disappointing after such a long wait. I don’t really see how any story needs 2000 pages of mostly build up to work(if that is in fact what ADWD is). Hopefully it’s a lot more to the book than what’s summed up in that one paragraph :-). I will give GRRM the benefit of the doubt.

It feels so weird though, that after the introduction of "The Others" in chapter 1 of GOT back in 1996 and the idea of Danny invading, 5 books and 15 years later we probably still won’t have gotten to that part of the story

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I mean, all of this material was originally supposed to happen during the five year gap and be relayed to us in flashbacks.

IIRC, this isn't true with ADWD. George has stated in the past that Jon, Dany, and Tyrion's stories just seemed "ready to go", and didn't require a five-year gap to set them up. So all the stuff we'll be reading in ADWD is stuff he originally intended to occur after the five-year gap. That's why he's still able to call it A Dance with Dragons.

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I am going to be cautiously optomistic that "the feel of AFfC" doesn't mean we have a character wandering all over Essos. I was so angry about AFfC that I sounded off quite strongly. Ran straightened me out (little trip to the woodshed as we say in the Midweet), And I finally got to the point (after many reads) that there were some good POVs in Feast.

"Feel" could be anything from reading similarly (ie, all the random POVs) to evoking the same feeling (sadness, anxiety, curiosity, whatever this reviewer felt of Feast).

The spoilers sound fun. I wonder it Tyrion ... nah, he's too old to become an Unsullied

Thank you for the funniest image of the thread.

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"Feel" could be anything from reading similarly (ie, all the random POVs) to evoking the same feeling (sadness, anxiety, curiosity, whatever this reviewer felt of Feast).

Thank you for the funniest image of the thread.

:lmao: yeah I just pictured some innkeeper cleaning some mugs behind the bar, when he notices the spike of a helm moving alongside the bar.

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I mean, all of this material was originally supposed to happen during the five year gap and be relayed to us in flashbacks. Major events weren't going to happen anyway. When GRRM realized that the five year gap wasn't going to work in flashbacks, he decided to accelerate the story a bit. But that didn't mean that he could just jump into the last act- he still had to position everyone.

Not 'all' of the material in AFFC and ADWD, no. The stuff GRRM needed to include from 'inside' the five-year gap was stuff like Brienne's adventures and the stuff on the Iron Islands and in Dorne. Pretty much everything else was going to happen post-five-year gap anyway (Cersei's downfall and the return of the Faith Militant, most notably, plus we can assume most of Jon and Dany's adventures in ADWD).

IIRC, this isn't true with ADWD. George has stated in the past that Jon, Dany, and Tyrion's stories just seemed "ready to go", and didn't require a five-year gap to set them up. So all the stuff we'll be reading in ADWD is stuff he originally intended to occur after the five-year gap. That's why he's still able to call it A Dance with Dragons.

At the same time, I don't think 'all' of ADWD will take place post-five-year-gap anyway. The first few chapters for each character I suspect will be the material left over from AFFC that took place 'during' the gap. However, I suspect that the amount of post-gap material will be dramatically higher in ADWD than in AFFC.

Why? Once the Meerenese knot has been cut, the avalanche of Martin's story will begin.*

I don't expect the next book to take 6 years again, but I do expect it to take a minimum of 3-4 years, which is still a multi-year gap.

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