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

[garth]

Not very excited at all about the next book. The first half will be closing up this book (I *hope* it is only half of it) before we get into anything exciting happening in plot development. Do I really want to read aFFC/ADwD Part 3?

This is especially true since the author does not seem to think there is anything wrong with this book and it is just the best work ever. he may just be putting on a brave front to help sell things, but it does not bode well for the next book. The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one!

I'll be venting some of my frustration here for another day or so and then put the series down. Sometime after the next one comes out (assuming I haven't croaked by then), i'll check in here to see whether it is worth picking up that one, but I am not hopeful.

Until then, anyone got any good authors to recommend whose books are not all fluff and cliffhangers?

[Dreamlife]

I am more excited than I was before ADWD. I miss Sansa and Sam---and I imagine there are big things in store for both of them. Also I am eager for more Brienne, Jaime, and Lady Stoneheart. It has been ages since we last read about Rickon. I've just got to know what he's been up to with Osha and look forward to Davos meeting up with them. Not to mention finding out what really happened to Jon (and Stannis) and what Dany will do next after that amazing final chapter for her character. Yeah, I can't wait for WOW. Plus, the title suggests Winter has Come, which means scary stuff will be going on beyond the Wall and spilling into the 7 kingdoms.

[Fenway]

My anticipation is quite high. I expect TWOW will be front-loaded with plot resolutions, at least for Boltons/Stannis/The Wall, Stoneheart/Freys/Jamie and Lannister/Tyrell/The Church. The events in the Iron Islands and Dorne will fold into the other plot strands, as will Sam, Sansa and Ayra's adventures. Dany will eventually be ready to cross the ocean with Tyrion in tow. Finally the central conflict of Westeros vs the wights can be front and centre for book 7.

How this will all be able to unfold in the tv show is another matter.

[Tyrion's Wench]

I've never had to wait for a GRRM book before so... I'm having a very different experience. I started reading the books in April/May

I understand all of the criticism for Feast and Dance but even with the plodding pace of one and the timeline retread of the other, I still enjoyed them both.

I'm very excited for Winds of Winter. I agree with the person who hoped that the series would be expanded to eight books. I'm ... it's difficult to imagine everything being wrapped up in only seven. But of GRRM CAN do everything justice in only two more books, that would be even better.

I'm eager for the next book but I'm content to wait. While I'm waiting I get to read the Hedge Knight stories (just read the first and really enjoyed it) and I get to watch the television show. I'm also excited for that concordance exploring the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. So even if it takes six years for the next book, I'll have lots of fun exploring the world.

[Lord Damian]

I am very new to the series. Thanks to HBO. So, it is very exciting to me because it is new. I also have seen what has happened time wise with the last two books. he has written two books in the same time span since Bill Clinton was President. This could take a long time to play out and I just hope George lives long enough to finish what he has started.

[Lugez]

It's about as big as it was for ADWD. I waited two years for it, but was never REALLY hyped for it like some people here were.

AFFC felt like book 3.5, and I expected ADWD to be the next .5 of that. So I wasn't deeply disappointed. But the storyline finally seems to be converging, so hopefully book 6 will be a little more eventful.

[Faint]

I enjoyed ADwD more than most readers but I still find it hard to get excited about a book that the writer won't even get to until next year.

[CrypticWeirwood]

It's about as big as it was for ADWD. I waited two years for it, but was never REALLY hyped for it like some people here were.

AFFC felt like book 3.5, and I expected ADWD to be the next .5 of that. So I wasn't deeply disappointed. But the storyline finally seems to be converging, so hopefully book 6 will be a little more eventful.

Do you mean that both AFFC & ADWD each felt like a half a book, or do you mean that ADWD felt like half of AFFC, making it half of a half and therefore a quarter of a book?

Because if so, then I fear we may be trapped by Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, which as we all know is not a convergent infinite series.

And this might not be one, either. It sure doesn't feel like it is at this point.

[Tarthking]

My anticipation is big, like a pickle.

Are you ticklish?

[Lord Godric]

I'm not too excited right now knowing that Martin won't even begin writing new material until next year. But I am sure once completion gets closer I will be very excited (even though ADwD was a bit of a let down, I imagine the last two books have to be epic if this story is ever going to finish). I just picked up the series last year so I had a reasonably short wait for ADwD, so it will be interesting have that couple* years wait.

*I hope it's only a couple. And not a few or a bunch.

[Tarthking]

I'm not excited about it yet. I've been reading this series since ACOK came out, so having gone through both long waits for AFFC and ADWD, I know it will be a long time before the next one drops. Right now, I am enjoying going through all of the new information that we've learned in the new book, and revisiting the earlier books. While ADWD was not as exciting as the first three, I thought it did a superior job in bringing together some of the themes of the series, such as the responsibilities of the ruler to the ruled with the Dany and Jon chapters. It also gave us additional information on some central mysteries, added new characters and new twists, and made me notice a few recurring images that I hadn't noticed before. I was satisfied with it, and I am looking forward to the next one, but I know it will be a long time, so I can't get too excited.

[Calibandar]

I would say my anticipation for Winds of Winter is through the roof. Mainly because my anticipation for ADWD was very high and ADWD, while a pleasant read, proved to contain very little of what I had anticipated would happen in ADWD prior to the books's release. It now turns out that I had been waiting 11 years for Winds of Winter rather than ADWD, and Winds of Winter is 3 years off at a minimum. Though 3 years off also strikes me as a maximum if George wants to finish his books before the tv series comes to an end, in fact it would be far more ideal for him if he could do Winds of Winter in 2 years.

I think he is deluding himself is he thinks HBO will split ASOAS and ADWD into two separate seasons because the books are bigger than the others. They will not.

So yeah, even my worst estimates for plot progression had not allowed for Dany still being in the very middle of the Meereeneese knot by book's end, or Tyrion's incessantly wandering chapters. I had assumed he would have caught up to her by the middle of the book for sure.

On other hand, the storyline in the North, while robbing us of a climax between the Boltons and Stannis, has still progressed notably. So that seems to imply that either Dany's coming to Westeros will simply happen much later in the overall story than we had ever thought, meaning that GRRM never planned for her to spend much time in Westeros before the series ends, or that things will be happening very quickly in the early Dany and co. chapters in Winds of Winter.

Having said all that, I find myself very much in agreement with the point raised by Joy Lannister:

The biggest flaw of those two books is the change in GRRM's mindset, I think, and maybe even writing style. He has lost something essential to the greatness that were aGoT, aCoK and aSoS - the sense of what is important and what is not, of what he should put an accent on and what should be merely told in a paragraph or two. Back then, he was still descriptive, the world-building was still vivid, but the story was alive too, and the chapters had purpose.

And then also, very much in agreement with the second statement, which are my thoughts exactly: worrisome. GRRM seems to be revelling in the good criticism and sales of ADWD, whilst turning a massive blind eye to equally valid criticism being launched his way from thousands of voices who are more critical of the last two efforts.

I only hope that, despite his answers to criticism on his blog and what I consider to be willful blindness, he'll manage to get back to the way he wrote the first three novels, because those novels won my love, support and loyalty, and those novels made me recommend the series to anyone who I judged could be even remotely interested.

[Windsor]

As others said, will be more excited when he actualy starts writing. I found a few to many scenes in Dance with Dragons that I wondered, is this needed in the books or written for HBO?

If the 2012 Presidential election does not go as he wants we may see anouther 5yrs before the next book. GRRM completly melted down when President Bush won his second term (he was not happy with the entire Fl vote recount, I remember all his blog post) - or however, you want to describe it. Something happened there with his view of polotics that I think strongly impacted his writing and makes the difference between the first three books and everything that followed.

[Rydis]

nope, im not stocked or anticipating. Such lengths between his books now and the closures and plot advancement has left a..whatever feeling to me. Sure ill buy it when the next one comes out..but other then that..its mostly lost its appeal by now. I am disappointed in Martin and how he is doing the series now.

[Prince of Braavos]

About the cliffhangers, I don't think there were as many as everyone says. Mainly, I don't actually think that Jon and Dany were left in cliffhangers. I think the non-resolutions to the Meereen and Winterfell battles were stupid, as well as that useless Brienne/Jaime second-cliffhanger, but Jon and Dany's cliffhangers specifically were really proper plot ends for what they were doing. They both seemed more like the ending of AGOT, which ended Daenerys' time as khaleesi while setting her up as the Mother of Dragons. It's a cliffhanger, but not a "Brienne shouted a word" cliffhanger. Maybe I'm trusting GRRM too much, but I really think that he just needed all that Meereen political stuff in this book to get his ducks in a row in Essos. Now that he's all set (and he wouldn't have released 1,000 pages of plot if he wasn't sure he was good to go), I think things are ready to MOVE into the final portion of the tale, and I can't wait.

[Prince of Braavos]

Oh and by the way, I think it's really funny that among the fans of the books there's this disappointment, when in the outside world these things are blowing up. Seriously, I know I'm new to the boards, but I actually read the first four a few years ago and the exposure and new fans that they're picking up right now thanks to the HBO show is staggering.

[Greywolf2375]

finished it yesterday and I'm looking forward to a reread. Very much looking forward to a new book, but since there are still parts of this one I need to reread and redigest, I don't NEED to have it out now. I think that in a year or so the anticipation is going to grow after all of the who's, what;s and theories are hashed out again and again.

[rue721]

Wrong thread, nothing to see here!

[The Dude]

About the cliffhangers, I don't think there were as many as everyone says. Mainly, I don't actually think that Jon and Dany were left in cliffhangers. I think the non-resolutions to the Meereen and Winterfell battles were stupid, as well as that useless Brienne/Jaime second-cliffhanger, but Jon and Dany's cliffhangers specifically were really proper plot ends for what they were doing. They both seemed more like the ending of AGOT, which ended Daenerys' time as khaleesi while setting her up as the Mother of Dragons. It's a cliffhanger, but not a "Brienne shouted a word" cliffhanger. Maybe I'm trusting GRRM too much, but I really think that he just needed all that Meereen political stuff in this book to get his ducks in a row in Essos. Now that he's all set (and he wouldn't have released 1,000 pages of plot if he wasn't sure he was good to go), I think things are ready to MOVE into the final portion of the tale, and I can't wait.

I don't think it's so much the numbers as it is the specific situations and build ups that should have been resolved in this book. I kind of agree about Jon and Dany's plots. Winterfell's is just woeful. Compare Stannis' plot line from ACOK to what we get in AFFC/ADWD. It's almost laughable. It would be like ending Clash just before the Battle of Blackwater. Even that may have been tolerable if it felt like we accomplished and saw a lot progression with the other characters.

That's one of the biggest difference between 4/5 and 1-3. The other obviously is pacing. Pacing and resolution happen to be very big parts of storytelling.

Now, don't get me wrong - I really did enjoy both Feast and Dance, but they are still both disappointing compared to the first 3. I do understand that these last 2 books were very difficult for GRRM, and unfortunately it does show. It has sapped some of my enthusiasm for book 6, and it's mostly due to feeling cheated by the Brienne "appearance" and the lack resolution at Winterfell. Also needed more Bran.

[tyrions sliced nose]

the next book in the greatest story ever told?

yeah you can say im pretty anxious