Martin and Jordan?

[Boaz]

Sorry, G2... Jon's POV is good, but I do not like Jon. All POVs are good. I liked the Greyjoy's POVs also, but I was in a rush to "get back" to my favorite/familiar characters. Martin has done such a great job of story telling, that I have been sucked into the characters from the first three books... I am slowly embracing the new characters and POVs, ie. Greyjoys and Martells.

 

[Aegon the Unworthy]

I agree with ya Boaz, when the new guys are talking I feel like Im missing something in the other parts....so I power through those in hopes the story doesnt move on without me....irrational? Yes I know.

Why o why are we comparing Martin and Jordan?....you do realize it was about the 4th book (for me anyhow) that Jordan became a little less interested in telling the story and a little more interested in making women and men look stupid in their own special ways....you trying to jinx this series?

 

[the smiling weirwood]

Praise be to Boaz! His most puissant powers of disection have revealed the true nature of Robert Jordan and his so-called books. Though I have disagreed with Boaz in the past over some issues(okay, a whole lot), I must beg him to please allow his paragon of a post to grace the Jordan forum and illuminate their clouded eyes and deliver them iniquity! Uh...I mean bad writing...

 

[Boaz]

Thanks tsw. I'm sorry for trolling a few weeks back, rereading mys posts I was definitely trolling and not playing devil's advocate like I fooled myself into thinking. I was wrong. (Why do I ever post when I am not in a good mood? It just comes back to bite me.) By the way, you can use the ignore function and ignore me, though that would kind of bother me if I did it... I'd always be wondering "What did so and so post?"

Back on topic...

Honestly, I had not expected any positive feedback from my post (it helps that it's in the Martin forums ). No, I have not been published, nor have I ever attempted to write anything approaching what Jordan has done in The Eye of the World. So perhaps I should tread a bit more lightly...

One more thing, I love Edgar Rice Burroughs' stories of John Carter, I love Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, I love all of Tolkien's works, but I read them all when I was thirteen and fourteen. I daresay, that if I read them now for the first time at <cough> age 40 <cough> that I'd not have the same appreciation for them. John Carter is pure post Victorian Era pulp... it's not well written and the characters are all one dimensional, but the images of this fantasy seared into my thirteen year old brain like grill marks on a T-bone. Conan is darker, grittier, and more gory than John Carter, but it's also highly dependent upon the same formula... Man stands for justice, evil guys kidnap girl, so Man kills them all and takes the girl home. And Middle-earth has elements of fantasy that probably would not inflame and inspire a middle-aged man the way it does a middle school boy. So in fairness to The Wheel of Time... I might have really liked it if I'd read it twenty-seven years ago. And vice-versa, AOIAF would not have appealed to me as much when I was younger.

What stimulates my mind now is the constant intrigue, the maneuvering, the deceptions, and the deaths of main characters. All of this coalesced in the first book with Ned's death. I did not see it coming... I was inured to the traditional fantasy formula. Martin hooked me for the entire series by killing Ned off.

I don't need massive amounts of duels, battles, or gratuitous fighting. What I wanted to read, when I picked up the first book with the picture of Jon on the cover, was what the title read... and it was just like the title said, A Game of Thrones.

 

[the smiling weirwood]

I think that AFFC is very accurately named. It wasn't about war or action, but about the aftermath of blood and chaos and all the infighting and political maneuvering that entails. Some people seem to miss all that action and fast-paced stuff, but I liked it just fine. Actually, I had a far easier time reading it because in the others I kept getting caught up in the action and had to backtrack to make sure I had got everything. My, we do seem to have an inability to stay on topic around here, no?

 

[Jinglehopper]

Thought I'd put my 2 cents in on Boaz's post.

All your pros and cons about Jordan are taken from the first book. And I agree with all of them. The opening is very derivative, and the story is not enough to push past the cliche. I disliked Eye of the World and only finished reading it when a friend told me the series got much better. And it did. Books 3-6 are good. After that, Jordan gets bogged down. Some characters don't leave a city for FIVE NOVELS. Nothing is pushed forward, the story feels stagnant. New characters are introduced which you don't care about. Old characters don't do anything but complain about women. It isn't until this last book, vol. 11 i think, which feels that Jordan is coming to some kind of an ending.

I think what a lot of the posters in this thread are worried about, is that AFFC felt a lot like books 6-10 of Jordan's series. Nothing really happens. Old characters don't really do anything (Cersei, Brienne.) New characters are introduced but you don't really care (Dorne.) This is especially evident given the breakneck pace of ASOS.

After seeing the trend happen to Jordan, I for one am just worried that Martin might be succombing to the same temptation. To become more interested in the world than in the story is a dangerous thing. It's why the Silmarillion reads like a history book and LOTR reads like an adventure story. Sure, it's amazingly interesting backstory, but it's just that. I hope Martin turns it around in ADWD and has something unexpected happen like the Red Wedding, Ned's demise, Tirion's betrayal. It's those moments that has made ASOFAI great. None of them were in the last book.

And I'm reading LOTR again right now. I think it's number 6 for me, but you have a few years on me.

 

[Werthead]

I don't get the whole 'characters didn't do anything' thing. They didn't do as much as they did before, but there was far more plot advancement than in WoT Books 7-10, for example. We learned of the split in the Brotherhood Without Banners, Dorne's plans for Daenerys, the taking of Riverrun and Dragonstone, the rebirth of the Faith Militant, the ironborn's assault on the Reach, Euron's plans to seize Dany's dragon, some key clues on the Prince That Was Promised prophecy, Sam's overall role in the story becoming clearer, confirmation that Sandor Clegane was still alive, learned a fair bit about Littlefinger's overarching plans and so on and so forth. It was a transition and set-up book, but one that without which, the later books wouldn't make as much sense.

Is it the weakest in the series? Sure. But it's still better than most epic fantasy out there, but certainly ahead of either Knife of Dreams or The Bonehunters in quality.

 

[Jinglehopper]

I don't get the whole 'characters didn't do anything' thing. They didn't do as much as they did before, but there was far more plot advancement than in WoT Books 7-10, for example. We learned of the split in the Brotherhood Without Banners, Dorne's plans for Daenerys, the taking of Riverrun and Dragonstone, the rebirth of the Faith Militant, the ironborn's assault on the Reach, Euron's plans to seize Dany's dragon, some key clues on the Prince That Was Promised prophecy, Sam's overall role in the story becoming clearer, confirmation that Sandor Clegane was still alive, learned a fair bit about Littlefinger's overarching plans and so on and so forth. It was a transition and set-up book, but one that without which, the later books wouldn't make as much sense.

All of your examples are of chracters learning or finding out something, not of characters actually doing anything. That's my point. I understand that martin needed to set stuff up, but he did that in all the other books too. It's just that he did it through action and unexpected events. In AFFC, he set plot points up by telling us about them. Which isn't awful, as I said, it's just a dangerous trend.

 

[the smiling weirwood]

Okay, so they weren't waging war or fleeing for their lives, but you can't say they didn't do anything. It's not as if all the characters just sat around and talked. There was intrigue and sex and covert moving about and some killing(Brienne and Jaime) and some more sex and intrigue and some political backstabbing and a bloodless coup and some interesting sea travel. And some more intrigue and mystery with just a bit of love and passion thrown in. Oh, and loads more character developement! Lots of that! So there wasn't as much chaos and frenetic hooplah going on, but I don't care. The only way it could be improved is if the other characters had been there.

 

[Boaz]

Spoiler Alert for Eye of the World and AFFC

Jinglehopper, Yes, my opinions are all formed upon the basis of the first half of the first book. Perrin and Egwene and the Wolfman just evaded flocks of crows... Rand and Matt just left the gleeman to die... Nynaeve, the Warder and Morraine have just arrived in the city on the river looking for the others. I'm sure in terms of scope... that'd be like quitting LOTR after the first page. Bilbo is going to have a birthday party... well, that's enough of that.

I'm sure characters do different things later in Jordan's series, but as for AFFC I enjoyed the Brienne storyline. ASOIAF is supposed to be epic fantasy, yet it is not until the fourth book that the first knight (she's not even a knight) sets out on a quest. I enjoyed the seemingly mundane, pointless, and fruitless search for Sansa. But I learned the Hound is alive, Pod is loyal, Lord Tarly has a Zero Tolerance Friday everday, Brienne's emotional wounds go way back, Arya can stop praying for Rorge and Shagwell, and that Stoneheart is an oathbreaker.

I reread the part where Brienne swears fealty to Catelyn. Brienne fulfilled her duty to Catelyn by bringing Jaime to King's Landing (with a little help). Brienne did not fulfill her promise to bring back Catelyn's daughters, but that is due to circumstances far beyond Brienne's contol... in fact she was wounded near to death trying to find Catelyn's daughters. Stoneheart has not listened to Brienne or even tried to see the truth.

 

[AryaUnderfoot]

Ya know, I think the real issue people have with AFFC is that nothing blew up. I mean, the Tower of the Hand was burned, but there weren't any good explosions. No car chases, either. There was some Mortal Kombat, but the chick fighting wasn't even hot or scantily clothed.

Sigh.

At least, unlike most of Jordan's books, with AFFC you can't tear out the majority of the middle and still realize that nothing has changed.

 

[Dolorous Edd]

^^^

:d:d:d

 

[Aegon the Unworthy]

Personally Im still waiting for all the women of the world to decide to let the guy prophesied to fight the last battle actually fight the last battle. Seriously, I thought I had an understanding of women but either Im way off base or Jordan is...

I guess what my dad says is true....

Theres only two ways to handle women....

And nobody knows either of em

 

[the smiling weirwood]

^^^

:d:d:d

What does that mean? I thought there was a prohibition against things like that.

 

[the smiling weirwood]

Robert Jordan is just silly.

 

[Jinglehopper]

Robert Jordan is just silly.

Is that a much better response than Dolorous Edd's?

Up until these last books, I would have agreed with most of you. Jordan is a twit and Martin is the end-all be-all of fantasy literature.

But after reading both nearly right on top of each other, I found Jordan's book had more happen in it. Of course, that doesn't mean nothing happened in AFFC. You have all pointed out what did happen with wonderful clarity. But it's still not enough to get over my misgivings that Martin should have stuck to his guns and wrote one big book, instead of hacking it up into two dilluted volumes.

 

[Trey Greyjoy]

AFFC is only half a book in reality. I really dont think a true and accurate assessment can be made until you can read AFFC and ADWD back to back.
JMO

 

[the smiling weirwood]

Is that a much better response than Dolorous Edd's?

Up until these last books, I would have agreed with most of you. Jordan is a twit and Martin is the end-all be-all of fantasy literature.

But after reading both nearly right on top of each other, I found Jordan's book had more happen in it. Of course, that doesn't mean nothing happened in AFFC. You have all pointed out what did happen with wonderful clarity. But it's still not enough to get over my misgivings that Martin should have stuck to his guns and wrote one big book, instead of hacking it up into two dilluted volumes.

He couldn't write one big book. He has stated it would be physically impossible.

There's really not that much to say about Robert Jordan except that at least he's better than Goodkind.

 

[Dolorous Edd]

What does that mean? I thought there was a prohibition against things like that.

I was laughing at Arya's highly amusing post, but couldn't be bothered to write a proper "HAHA! Oh my god! That's SOOOOOOOO funny!" etc. response.

 

[Boaz]

SPOILER Alert for AGOT and AFFC

Regarding AFFC... was is really that slow? I felt it moved along as least as fast as AGOT. AGOT was the book where nothing happened... well, Bran got tossed from the tower, but up until Catelyn kidnaps Tyrion nothing happens.

When I say "nothing" I mean, like AU says, "nothing blew up". But plenty happened in character development and setting the plot lines. Now it seems to me in AFFC, that Martin has introduced a bunch of new characters and a bunch of new POVs. So he has to get us up to speed with their lives, ambitions, schemes, and circumstances.

AGOT's action:
Jaime tosses Bran
Jon and Ghost kill two wights
Catelyn kidnaps Tyrion
Bronn defends Tyrion
Jaime ambushes Ned
Drogo cowns Viserys
Robert dies
Wildlings attack Bran
Littlefinger makes Joffrey the king
Arya flees
Joffrey takes Ned's head
Mirri poisons Drogo
Rhaego dies
Dany hatches her dragons

AFFC action:
Aeron calls a Kingsmoot
Arianne kidnaps Myrcella who is almost killed by Darkstar
Areo kills Arys
Brienne kills Shagwell
People try and collect on Tyrion's bounty
Euron wins the Kingsmoot
Victarion defeats the Tyrells
Brienne fights Rorge
Jaime captures Riverrun
Littlefinger defeats the Lords Declarant
Sam has sex (This is monumental! Did anyone think this would ever happen?)
Stoneheart hangs Brienne and Pod
Margaery is arrested
Cersei is arrested
Arya is blinded

(My apologies if the chronolgies of these lists is incorrect.)

By the way, not much happens "off screen" in AGOT... okay, Robert is morally wounded, Gregor turns raider, and Nymeria is sent away, but plenty happens "off screen" in AFFC. Bronn becomes Lord Stokeworth. Davos is killed. Quentyn chases Dany. Robb's heir is aborted in the womb. Brynden escapes from Jaime. Lors is grievously wounded and mayhaps horribly disfigured in the assault on Dragonstone. Mace besieges Storm's End.

Just my two cents.