Come On Hbo !!

DeannaBelle said:
Well, I'm not about to read anything where the situations of the characters gets progressively worse and worse and worse and worse. I just cannot take that kind of crap.
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What?!?! Do the words House Stark ring a bell? When I start every book, I wonder if it will get even worse for them.

DeannaBelle said:
Any ideas on a series?
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That's a loaded question. Many of us have suggested series, books, and various authors all over this forum. So before I load you up on my tired choices, let me post GRRM's suggestions on his ASOIAF update page.

Until then, let me suggest that you check out HUNTER'S RUN, the new SF novel I wrote with Daniel Abraham and Gardner Dozois, and INSIDE STRAIGHT, the first volume in our new Wild Cards triad from Tor. They are not A Song of Ice and Fire, true, but I'm very proud of them both and I think a lot of you might enjoy them. Both books will be on sale in January in hardcover. And if it's more epic fantasy that you're yearning for, there's never been more good fantasies being published than there are right now. Try Daniel Abraham, try Scott Lynch, try S.L. Farrell and David Anthony Durham and Peter S. Beagle, try Lisa Tuttle and Robin Hobb and Ellen Kushner, or any of myriad other authors whose work is making fantasy such an exciting genre to be a part of... and if you want a change of pace, hop over to historical fiction and sample some Bernard Cornwell, some Cecilia Holland, some Steven Pressfield, some David W. Ball. You'll be glad you did.


I like the fact that Martin suggests that we read some of his favorite authors.

Let me just say that I've read Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire... and I enjoyed it. It's not as fantastic as 300, but it felt real and authentic to me. Pressfield wrote The Legend of Bagger Vance which was made into the Damon, Smith, Theron, Redford movie.
 
Boaz said:
What?!?! Do the words House Stark ring a bell? When I start every book, I wonder if it will get even worse for them.
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Well, yes. The Sword of Truth series takes suffering far beyond natural human limits, however. At least the Stark's are human enough to pass away after a certain point.

Richard and Kahlan just keep on suffering, moaning and groaning, and saving that world, even though it is hardly worth it. Every other character is an evil leech sucking the good out of life.
 
viZion said:
Have you ever wandered into the Star Wars/Star Trek/Tolkein subforums on this site? Their geekiness makes us all look like rock stars.
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Ohmygod, no, I haven't drunkenly or bravely stumbled into those forums.

But that does remind me of something. A few months ago my husband and I went to Shari's (NO, not for the nasty food, but for the nasty coffe and because I like the booths; lame, I know). Anyway, apparently that time of night is apparently the hoppin' hour for broke young folk and other weirdos. There was this group of people that was composed of the stranged individuals my husband and I had ever seen. They were hilarious. No spikey or purple hair. Not punk-rock strange. But... Dungeons and Dragons groupie strange.

None of these young people (my age, early twenties) knew how to match their clothing. Male or female, none seemed aquainted with a comb. Their voices, in a addition to their appearances, were comical. And my husband and I tried so hard not to laugh. But I swear, we totally witnessed a meeting of a science fiction club or something. That was the only explanation I could offer for them. It's so rare that such a big group of true dorks get together like that.

Anyway, yes, we are rock stars. Or at least you guys are. I am comfortable with being "eccentric" ... or "unique" as my familly calls me. I prefer eccentric. Makes me sound rich.
 
Thank you, Boaz. I ended up not buying a book today. Couldn't decide online, and didn't get around to the bookstore. I had my man take me to Indian food instead. Not that we're big on holidays, but we use any excuse to spend money on Indian food. ;)

I am going to see if any of GRRM's recommended authors are on ebooks.com. I know tomorrow I will regret not having gone to Powells today.
 
viZion said:
Terry Goodkind writes the "Sword of Truth" series which, much like Robert Jordan's series, is currently on its 38th book. The first book, Wizard's First Rule, I actually enjoyed quite a bit. Beware though, there's a lot of "adult" content which can be gruesome but nothing anyone that reads ASOIAF shouldn't be able to handle.

Anyway, the gist of the series is that Goodkind has these two characters, a male and a female, and he tries to make them as miserable as possible as often as possible. Anytime anything remotely good happens to these characters, Goodkind will pile on at least 3 or 4 horrible events to make sure that you, the reader, fully understand that this is a bad bad bad world they live in. This cycle repeats over and over again and reading the series starts to resemble what I like to call "a chore". There's no intrigue; it's just waiting for the next horrible thing to happen. The main characters aren't even particularly likable. I stopped reading about halfway through the 4th book (the only reason I lasted that long was because the first book was pretty entertaining although it follows the prototypical LOTR/Star Wars fantasy formulas).

Enjoy!
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Yeah Goodkind is right up there with Jordan. I would add the adjective 'excruciating' to 'a chore'. I only read the first book coz he did write a pretty good short story in one of those fantasy anthologies once.
 
viZion said:
Anyway, the gist of the series is that Goodkind has these two characters, a male and a female, and he tries to make them as miserable as possible as often as possible. Anytime anything remotely good happens to these characters, Goodkind will pile on at least 3 or 4 horrible events to make sure that you, the reader, fully understand that this is a bad bad bad world they live in. This cycle repeats over and over again and reading the series starts to resemble what I like to call "a chore". There's no intrigue; it's just waiting for the next horrible thing to happen. The main characters aren't even particularly likable. I stopped reading about halfway through the 4th book (the only reason I lasted that long was because the first book was pretty entertaining although it follows the prototypical LOTR/Star Wars fantasy formulas).

Enjoy!
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You almost made it to the best book in the series. "Faith of the Fallen" is one of the best books I ever read. He should stopped there though. all downhill from there. Like someone had a gun and a contract in his face the whole time.
 
viZion said:
Have you ever wandered into the Star Wars/Star Trek/Tolkein subforums on this site? Their geekiness makes us all look like rock stars.
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I was standing in line with my wife the first of the Lord of the Rings movie. In line in front of us were a series of Role Playing game t-shirt wearing adults. I painfully admit that I am something of a Star Wars geek and have played D&D more than a few times in my day, but the realities of adult life have taken me away from that lifestyle.....my wife though was suprised by the attire, rabid arguments, and general lack of cleanliness these people possessed.

So the din is quite loud, and of course it dies down just as she asks me in a loud clear voice "So, do you think any of these guys have ever actually known the touch of woman?"

Heads turned towards us from at least 30 ft away....she blushed and I couldnt help but laugh. Those closest to us took things in stride and we chatted at length....some of em admitted than my wife's remark wasnt too far from the truth.

Still a good memory
 
I am a completist, I have a severe compulsion to finish anything I begin, but I simply could not make it past Goodkind.

Like Jordan's series, the first book was good, but it should have ended with that book. The difference is Jordan is just boring after book 1, Goodkind is straight up awful.

As the series progresses it becomes less and less bad fantasy and more and more pathetically thinly veiled socio-political commentary. It's awful, I hated it. I actually made it all the way to the book after that one called Naked Empire, but I forget the title. I think I've managed to block it from memory.

It was agonizing, but it was the first time I quit a series before the end. I just couldn't see what kind of ending could possibly justify that series. The characterizations get worse and worse, the action is so pallid, and the plot goes in drug-induced stumbles around in circles. After reading it for a while you start to feel like you would rather gouge out your own eyes and dab an alternate version of events over the text in your own blood than read one more of his pathetic excuses for a fantasy story set in what is most likely Anne Coulter's private dreamworld.

Anyway, I would not recommend Terry Goodkind unless you are reading it out loud as some sort of sadism-masochism scenario. Seriously, horrid, despicable books. The worst part is that its not even well-written garbage, his prose sucks.
 
please, don't sit on the fence......

i tried. i borrowed em from the library. the plots blurred into one horrendous, amorphous blob of wretchedness.

i certainly wouldn't recommend em to someone who wants to explore fantasy writing
 
Just to put up a bit of an update:

Now the Writer's Strike is over, HBO can make a decision about the ASoIaF TV series. Obviously, they still have the option for some time and may decide to sit on it for a while whilst they see what's going on with the Arthur project. An interesting revelation made last year is that this project was Weiss and Benioff's baby. They went to HBO, got them really excited about and got them to stump up for the rights. Something I didn't know is that if HBO do let the option expire, then Benioff and Weiss are apparently keen to take it to another studio (although to be honest, only Showtime I think are in HBO's league to do this project justice).

Irritatingly, there's no way of knowing when there will be movement on this. Could be tomorrow, could be six months from now.
 
Werthead said:
Irritatingly, there's no way of knowing when there will be movement on this. Could be tomorrow, could be six months from now.
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Sounds like my grandfather after Metamucil... there's no way of knowing when there will be movement... could be tomorrow, could be any second.
 
Some interesting developments:

NBC have agreed to cooperate with the BBC on the creation of their new Merlin TV series. Whether this has a bearing on the HBO decision or not remains to be seen.

The head of HBO Drama has apparently left and been replaced by the guy who got the BBC involved with Rome. Again, this could have a major bearing on the decision, but exactly what remains to be seen.
 
David Benioff states here that the adaption of A Song of Ice and Fire is the project he is pushing forwards next. Whilst HBO were considering it, he was working on the Wolverine movie. With that in pre-production, it sounds like he is now keen to crack on with the ASoIaF TV series. Exactly what that means - if he's simply going to be on the phone to HBO saying, "What gives?" or even actively shopping it around to other studios for when HBO's option expires later this year - remains to be seen.
 
Benioff again reiterates that his next project is ASoIaF for HBO. When pressed for a soundbite description of it, he came up with:

"The Sopranos in Middle-earth."

Sounds about right to me.
 
If the Sopranos were in Middle-earth, Robbie "The Hammer" Baratheone would not die in season one. Fuhgedaboutit. He'd freakin' whack Tywin for not dishing over his percentage of earnings.

Actually Stannis' sessions with Melissandre are probably the closest to the Tony and Dr. Melfi relationship.

All comparisons break down after a while. Too many characters on The Sopranos are too reactive and not proactive. I think Martin has more proactive characters... i.e. Littlefinger, Tywin, Tyrion, Jeor, and Oberyn are just a few. Some of Martin's characters are in the process of switching from reaction to proaction... Arya, Jaime, Jon, and Sandor.
 
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