[ADWD SPOILERS] After ADWD, how big is your anticipation for the next book?

[Lord Garth Formerly Izar]

One would presume that becuase this has now become a full blown phenomina (which means cash cow) that both the Publisher would presnt a greater sense of urgency to get the next book to print in a timely manner. Just a guess but I wouldn't be surprised if we see the next book within a couple years and the preorder hype to commence after the next season of shows concludes.

That is not to say that George may not have his own schedule but this is now a franchise and audiences are a fickle people. The millions of fans who have recently jumped on the bus are not likely to be patient enough to wait years between releases. The fanboy community is a relatively short attention span community to begin with. That kind of potential money and interest can be a powerful motivating force for a much faster release

That said I am jonsing for the next book. This one featured much exposition and little revolation. We are left with not one but a laundry list of major cliffhangers to resolve. Stannis, Jon, Aegon, Dany, Cersei,Tyrion and Jamie and Brienne. And there are many minor headscratchers to resolve as well. Sandor, Gregor, Theon/ Not to mention the coming winter purge.

[rue721]

The fanboy community is a relatively short attention span community to begin with.

So many people use the word "fanboy" instead of "fan" -- how come? Is the Ice&Fire fandom much heavier on males than females? And even then, why not just "fans"? I ask because I feel like I'm missing the connotations.

[Lord Garth Formerly Izar]

It's not meant to be derogatory it's like mankind doesn't denote one gender or another if we have to sink into the stagnant pool of hyper political correctness

[rue721]

It's not meant to be derogatory it's like mankind doesn't denote one gender or another if we have to sink into the stagnant pool of hyper political correctness

I'm not saying it's a bad thing that people use the word "fanboy" I'm just wondering why.

[Lord Garth Formerly Izar]

Dunno

I always thought it was a dumb term anyway we need to make a new one

[Duskfire]

The main problem really is that we waited six years for a book that didnt have a resolution. I think thats the main concern; half a decade for something that while overly long felt like another half a book. My anticipation is still big because of my love for characters and the setting and the general writing style, but it no longer has the pace it set in the first few books. Theres just too many characters, too much going on everywhere, that each book more and more povs need to be pushed back into the next one, and resolutions are held off so the novel doesnt span 1500 pages.

People who think the netx book will be out in a couple of years are extremely optomistic. The amount of POVs that are around, and the amount of styuff that is happening, its going to be nigh on possible before 2014.

[Nihilist]

I'm not saying it's a bad thing that people use the word "fanboy" I'm just wondering why.

Hmmm MANkind would like to have a word with you.

[freakinmayhew]

Hmmm MANkind would like to have a word with you.

'Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word

itself: "Mankind". Basically, it's made up of two separate words -

"mank" and "ind". What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's

why so is mankind.'

Jack Handy

[powree]

Hiya all, just joined here. :)

I just started reading ASOIAF after I watched the HBO and liked the tv series. I was grateful in a way that I didn't have to wait long for ADWD like other people in this forum, but at least we'll all be waiting for WoW together (I sure hope it didnt take as long as LOTR lol).

Personally I like each books, but I disliked AFFC because it didnt contain some POVs from the previous book, and I don't know how the HBO series will handle AFCC+ADWD later on. While great for building mystery and making things more complex, I felt like running (reading?) in circles.Unlike the first three books which solves things rather quickly. While ADWD isn't pushing the story much in time line either, I still love it.

So I still wait eagerly for WoW. I only hope HBO is able to entice GRRM to slash the production time for WoW. There's only two more books, GRRM.Please make it move forward in strides, not steps... I still dont understand what Arya and Sansa's roles supposed to be. I'd hate to see the two books crushed by too much plots without conclusions.

For now I'll just reread the books and see things I've apparently did not notice until I see the topics in this forum lol...

[freakinmayhew]

Is it just me or does it seem like the people who are new to the series like AFFC and ADWD better than those who have been waiting a long time for the books to come out? I think that's kind of telling that people are judging through a veil of anticipation and expectation rather than by the qualities of the books themselves.

[Brucolac]

A question for those who think that ADWD is significantly better than AFFC. What brings you to that conclusion?

Is it that it has more of your favored characters? Or is it something else? For the record, while I did enjoy ADWD, I actually would rate AFFC and ADWD about the same and slightly prefer AFFC. Because it continues the KL plotline and has more of the characters I enjoy in it. Whereas I really liked the Northern plotline in ADWD, but it seems somehow even more cliffhanger-centric than AFFC (which is annoying) and the organization of POV characters is a bit wonky.

I like them both, I see them both as middle books and not on a par with the first three (though still very enjoyable) but I reread AFFC a couple times and I don't really see myself doing another complete reread of ADWD anytime too soon. Of some specific plotline chapters, yes, of the whole book, probably not.

AFFC is a way better book than ADWD. Yeah, it doesn't have the POV's that people like, but it does have things like plot, better resolved endings, editing, and it only has a fraction of the empty description/repetitive language/gratuitous language that was used as filler in Dance.

[grom]

And yes, the reader is to blame for his or her own expectations and a sense of entitlement. People aren't mindless sheep, they can form opinions on their own, just as they should own up to them and defend them. [ETA: and to be fair, I have read plenty of thoughtful criticism] If anything, I found his Not A Blog pretty open about the struggles he had with Dance and, far from over-hyping it, it made me realize how difficult a process it was.

In this age, companies BUILD expectations as a marketing strategy, and make money from it. Martin included. How's the reader to be blamed again?

In one thing we agree, people can, and they do, form opinions and share them. Then why I have read about the "trolls of amazon", "false sense of entitlement", "newcomers to the series" etc., in order to shot down critical opinions of the book?

In my opinion, the book is much lower quality than the first three (I even enjoyed AFfC more than ADwD).

Given the amount of time that took Martin to complete this last work, I do not expect to be awed by the next book in the series, if it ever comes.

And that's all, really.

[The Girl in Winterfell]

I'm very eager. I just read all the books and plan on doing a re-read next year but adwd was the one that changed my views on a lot of the characters so I wanna see how it goes. Also the plot needs to start moving again.

[Miguel Tonnies]

A question for those who think that ADWD is significantly better than AFFC. What brings you to that conclusion?Is it that it has more of your favored characters? Or is it something else? For the record, while I did enjoy ADWD, I actually would rate AFFC and ADWD about the same and slightly prefer AFFC. Because it continues the KL plotline and has more of the characters I enjoy in it. Whereas I really liked the Northern plotline in ADWD, but it seems somehow even more cliffhanger-centric than AFFC (which is annoying) and the organization of POV characters is a bit wonky. I like them both, I see them both as middle books and not on a par with the first three (though still very enjoyable) but I reread AFFC a couple times and I don't really see myself doing another complete reread of ADWD anytime too soon. Of some specific plotline chapters, yes, of the whole book, probably not.

Better POV's. That is the sole reason I prefer ADWD to AFFC. I cannot stand Brienne, neither have I reconciled myself with Cathelyn's "death and cut throat ressurection".

Haviong said that, AFFC has better parts than Dance, namely, and imo, the Iron Throne developments.

[alguien]

In this age, companies BUILD expectations as a marketing strategy, and make money from it. Martin included. How's the reader to be blamed again?

Because if a reader blindly accepts all marketing ads as gospel, they're not using their critical thinking skills. Failure to disseminate ad copy or allowing yourself to have unrealistic expectations is no one's fault but your own.

In one thing we agree, people can, and they do, form opinions and share them. Then why I have read about the "trolls of amazon", "false sense of entitlement", "newcomers to the series" etc., in order to shot down critical opinions of the book?

Look, there are trolls out there. Not a lot, but there a few and some are abnormally loud. They even have a website, bizarre as that may sound.

It interesting, because even in this thread, there multiple posts by people who just started the series, experienced little-to-no wait, and found no discern-able drop in quality in ADWD.

People have every right to criticize the book, as I've said now, perhaps ad naseum. I myself have some criticisms. (I think including either the ice or fire battles would have helped ENORMOUSLY) But if the delay is brought up as a reason for criticism, I take reviewer a whole lot less seriously, as I believe their false sense of entitlement gives them a skewed perspective when evaluating the work.

In my opinion, the book is much lower quality than the first three (I even enjoyed AFfC more than ADwD).

Given the amount of time that took Martin to complete this last work, I do not expect to be awed by the next book in the series, if it ever comes.

And that's all, really.

And that's fine. I disagree, of course. I think this book is middle-of-the-pack. AGoT and ASoS are better, this one about ties with ACoK for me, and better than AFFC--mainly because of character POVs IMO. They're some frakkin' awesome scenes in ADWD but I didn't get these sense, as with AFFC and the rest, that structurally it was a complete book.

Of course, that begs the question if people would have been content to wait another 6 months or year to have both the ice and fire battles...

[Blaine]

Perhaps I should of been more specific. It is the #1 Message Board Fanboy Elitist defense. Better? Here let me quote the trash post you made.

Not sure why you want to strawman me into some "fanboy" vs "anti-fanboy" perspective, but sure, let's discuss.

What exactly are you saying here? Besides "people who have joined these message boards in the last few months look negatively at aDwD". You are STRONGLY implying that there is something wrong with new users posting negative feelings about the book. As if the amount of negativity coming from new users has to do with their ability to read. Which, btw, I see no evidence of at all. I see about equal number of new people throwing in posts about how good it was as I see posts declaring that aDwD was mediocre or bad. The general consensus seems to be a that the book was inferior to most of the others, but still a quality piece. I have not seen any hint that new users don't follow this trend.

I'm saying exactly what it says. From my perspective, there's a lot of new readers who seem to be eager to express their displeasure in the ADWD, while joining a community to talk about the books. The only implication is that this might possibly be a rush to judgment, as well as a little ironic.

Translation:"I'm not a fanboy, but these people seem like they don't know what they are talking about. Perhaps they should more closely study the material. Real fans, not all of course, but a lot, love the books."

See, this is where your problem is. I don't know you and I don't really think what I said needs your translation. If the fact that I've hung around this board since the old days automatically makes me some kind of fanboy, then I'm not sure you're going to interpret anything other than what you project onto it.

I've already made it clear that I don't think ADWD is a perfect book, nor do I think it needs defending.

They should learn from ultra gurus like yourself right?

You are basically saying that people who have recently read the books do not understand or appreciate them as much as they would if they had sat on them for awhile. Which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I read Feast when it came out and have waited for A Dance with Dragons for what seemed like forever. And I thought the length of time that went by actually made my view of aDwD far more negative. How exactly is reading the books consecutively without the wait making opinions more negative? Your underlying theory makes no sense.

Ultra-guru? Not sure how you can read that into a sentence as innocuous as "Take some time. Let it sink in. Pace yourselves. You don't have to go from n00b to uberfan to ultrajaded in the course of one summer, folks."

Oh, wait, yes I do know you could interpret it that way. You see yourself as some sort of angry rebel and you need a bad guy?

My underlying theory, that there "initial reactions" and sometimes they change over time is about as revolutionary as the idea of gravity. But go ahead, rage on.

I don't honestly care what your opinion of the book was. It was your message board elitism that annoyed me. And the mistaken theory that being new to a message board A. Means that you just read the books. B. That people who just read the books somehow see it more negatively then longtime users.

See, I actually do care what other peoples' opinions of the book are. That's why I'm here. That's normal discussion. Feel free to disagree with my opinion, but at least be intellectually honest about the fact that you have some sort of axe to grind with anyone who doesn't fit into the role of "fanboy" or "anti-fanboy." For someone who doesn't care what my opinion of the book is, you sure go a long, long way to try to paint me as some kind of guy who feels the need to defend it.

Just a suggestion, maybe you should care what my opinion of the book is, if you're going to make stupid allegations about me being something I'm not.

Then we probably shouldn't be making baseless assumptions should we? Oh wait you did just that...

The baseless assumption that out of thousands of new users, many of them have just read the books for the first time?

Also, the irony of you calling me out on baseless assumption? When you've wasted all this time projecting your rabid fanboy persecution fantasies on me? Pretty funny stuff.

There are absolutely more users. Because of both the Tv show and because this is the first book in quite awhile to come out. What I find offensive is the fact that you seem to think these users are overly negative in their reviews BECAUSE they MIGHT have recently read the books. Which is a completely ridiculous position to have.

Fair enough. Disagree all you want. If you've never changed your opinion or critique of something over the course of time and reflection, you are probably not worth talking to in the first place.

But do me one favor, ok? Try not to assume everyone is here to argue? If you took that much offense at my suggestion that new readers might want to reread the books, see what they might've missed and just generally pace themselves since it will inevitably be quite a while before another book comes out, then you're offended WAAAAAAAY too easily.

[grom]

But if the delay is brought up as a reason for criticism, I take reviewer a whole lot less seriously, as I believe their false sense of entitlement gives them a skewed perspective when evaluating the work.

It seems this is the point we can not agree.

The long wait emphasizes the lack of quality of ADwD IMO. Because you can not argue that it was a rushed product, or somehow due to publisher pressure, economic needs or whatever.

ADwD was the best Martin could do in eleven years. Writing this makes me pretty sad.

[Lord Eddard]

AFFC is a way better book than ADWD. Yeah, it doesn't have the POV's that people like, but it does have things like plot, better resolved endings, editing, and it only has a fraction of the empty description/repetitive language/gratuitous language that was used as filler in Dance.

Thank you, thank you! Exactly my opinion! A re-read of Feast proved to me that is way better than Dance, story and writing wise. My favourite characters (Dany, Tyrion, Jon) were rendered dull (Jon), tired and repetitive (Tyrion) and completely boring and annoying (Dany) in Dance, so I rate this book as the least of the five.

Some nice scenes (Davos, Theon) prevent it from being utter drivel but I couldn't give this book more than 2 or maybe 3 stars on Amazon. Which is really a shame.

And a last word to The Wait which built expectations to Dance. Of course it did and the reader is entitled to these anticipations. Martin himself built the anticipation and the high expectation: "you can't rush art" "it's ready when it's ready to be the perfect book"

Pah, I say. It is rushed and bloated and mediocre, a crying shame.

[One Hand Clapping]

Thank you, thank you! Exactly my opinion! A re-read of Feast proved to me that is way better than Dance, story and writing wise. My favourite characters (Dany, Tyrion, Jon) were rendered dull (Jon), tired and repetitive (Tyrion) and completely boring and annoying (Dany) in Dance, so I rate this book as the least of the five.

Some nice scenes (Davos, Theon) prevent it from being utter drivel but I couldn't give this book more than 2 or maybe 3 stars on Amazon. Which is really a shame.

And a last word to The Wait which built expectations to Dance. Of course it did and the reader is entitled to these anticipations. Martin himself built the anticipation and the high expectation: "you can't rush art" "it's ready when it's ready to be the perfect book"

Pah, I say. It is rushed and bloated and mediocre, a crying shame.

Agree with every word of this.

How a book that's been in gestation for 11 whole years can be rushed is beyond me.

But according to George and his editors he delivered it 'down to the wire' and seriously over word count - which meant that Anne Groell who undeservedly gets a lot of flack here was given no time to reshape it and had no choice but to just chop off the final chapters to hit the publication deadline.

And after 11 years that's just not professional - in the end this is just a disposable fantasy series not War and Peace (which incidentally was written and published in magazine instalments in less time than George took to not complete ADWD).

In fact maybe that is part of the problem: like the TV writers George used to be the great Victorian novelists almost always published their masterpieces not in books but chapter by chapter in monthly or quarterly magazines with no options to miss a deadline - it was only after the magazine serialisation was completed that they got bound and published as expensive hardback books.

And in the early days of SF and fantasy this is how most what we now think of as classics were published as well.

Did the 'sense of entitlement' of magazine readers for the next fix of their serial novel ruin Dickens or Tolstoy or Bradbury or Asimov? No it kept them focused and connected to their work.

Having the freedom to take several year long sabbaticals is great for George but - again just in my and a whole bunch of other peoples subjective opinion which is every bit as good as yours - but has patently let him lose that focus.

And if he can't get it back then to be honest I'd rather he gave up than wasted his and our time.

[Silent_Hero]

My expectations for Twow are high,considering what DWD put me throug,but it seems that some major parts of it were removed and sent to Twow so it should be pretty high resonably the Davos and Victarion and Reek/Theon chapters made me not throw the book into the nearest wall,albeit it is the worst of the series but it's not that bad if you ignore the entire Essos chapters.