Had it with epic fantasy

[Werthead]

You mean you hope he will finish it. So do I, for what it's worth. But I regret that I am not as optimistic as I would like to be, if that makes any kind of sense.

Not really.

If the book is in your hands, it is complete. That's why it's been published and is now in your hands.

If the book is part of a series, then the series may not be complete, but the individual book itself is. Otherwise it wouldn't be complete and in your hands.

 

[Corn! Corn! Corn!]

^ Ha, it's obvious he was talking about the series and not the particular book.

 

[Werthead]

^ Ha, it's obvious he was talking about the series and not the particular book.

The sentence doesn't parse if that is the case. You can't hold the full series in your hands either until it is completed. And if it is incomplete, you can easily find that out.

To a certain degree the whole situation is compounded by people not taking some degree of personal responsibility. If you start an incomplete series - any series - then you risk the series never being completed. The author might die from any number of causes (Frank Herbert, Robert Jordan, David Gemmell, Mervyn Peake), they might have a major personal issue at home and stop writing for ten years and then not feel able to return to it (Melanie Rawn), they might just stop for absolutely no reason at all and move onto other projects (David Gerrold) or they might suddenly start taking decades between volumes (Jean Auel).

If you don't want to be put in this situation then wait for the series to be finished before starting it. As understandable as the problems are with ASoIaF, the situation with that series and JV Jones' Sword of Shadows sequence has made me somewhat reluctant now to start a series until it is finished.

 

[Clansman]

Yes, Ms. Jones is taking a loooong time between the books of that series. I have read the first, have the third on my shelf, do not have the second, but will pick it up someday. I won't be reading further until she is done writing the whole schmeer.

 

[rai]

Let me say this about that.

First, I am currently reading AFFC so I am not in as dire shape as some of you guys that read it years ago.

At the end of that book (in 2005) Martin said he had written so much he needed to break off a chunk to make 2 books.

That leads me to believe he'd have the next book polished off in 2006 or 2007 and here we are 2010 and the book is still not out.

It leads me to believe Mr Martin is what I call semi-retired.

It does not take 5 years to round up a few more chapters (he said he already had a ton of stuff, too much for one book so he needed to break it into two.)

It's like I said in the other thread, this series is starting to lose focus big time. In fact AFFC was too much about, little kids, overweight timid guys, un-attractive women knights, epileptic 8 year olds etc..

It's not as though GRRM is not talented, but he really should self-edit. these two books AFFC and ADWD should have been one book (IMO) like his first instinct was.

IMHO he should be done with the whole story already and onto a prequel with young Ned and young Jamie and young Robert and all that, those are the real men I would like to read about not snot nose young lords (Tommin, Joff, little lord Robert and company) and girls just about 'to flower' as Martin would say.

I was just reading "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck. He wrote that book in 5 monhts. There is no real reason for 5+ years for rounding up part-B of AFFC.

I know there are a million books out we can read in the meantime in the next 12 years while the 60+ year old Martin is writing a book every 6 years. But what the frustration is that people don't expect a 7-book series to take 24+ years to write. Something on the order of a book every other year is reasonable like the first three books were doing before Martin semi-retired on us.

 

[The Imp]

Let me say this about that.

First, I am currently reading AFFC so I am not in as dire shape as some of you guys that read it years ago.

At the end of that book (in 2005) Martin said he had written so much he needed to break off a chunk to make 2 books.

That leads me to believe he'd have the next book polished off in 2006 or 2007 and here we are 2010 and the book is still not out.

It leads me to believe Mr Martin is what I call semi-retired.

It does not take 5 years to round up a few more chapters (he said he already had a ton of stuff, too much for one book so he needed to break it into two.)

It's like I said in the other thread, this series is starting to lose focus big time. In fact AFFC was too much about, little kids, overweight timid guys, un-attractive women knights, epileptic 8 year olds etc..

It's not as though GRRM is not talented, but he really should self-edit. these two books AFFC and ADWD should have been one book (IMO) like his first instinct was.

IMHO he should be done with the whole story already and onto a prequel with young Ned and young Jamie and young Robert and all that, those are the real men I would like to read about not snot nose young lords (Tommin, Joff, little lord Robert and company) and girls just about 'to flower' as Martin would say.

I was just reading "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck. He wrote that book in 5 monhts. There is no real reason for 5+ years for rounding up part-B of AFFC.

I know there are a million books out we can read in the meantime in the next 12 years while the 60+ year old Martin is writing a book every 6 years. But what the frustration is that people don't expect a 7-book series to take 24+ years to write. Something on the order of a book every other year is reasonable like the first three books were doing before Martin semi-retired on us.

You might want to do a little research on this and other forums before talking about GRRM being semi-retired. in fact, based on this and other posts of yours I'd recommend that you abandon reading ASOIAF. You've really done nothing but complain in nearly every one of your posts.

 

[Culhwch]

I know it has been so far, but I just wanted to throw in a reminder to keep things civil in here, and the 'Meandering' thread. Personal attacks, as always, will not be tolerated.

 

[viZion]

Hey, if you want a lovefest you should head over to the other ASOIAF boards or GRRM's blog. You're not even allowed to think about a dissenting opinion or criticism of GRRM over at Westeros (last time I was there at least) and they ban you from the *entire* internet if you dare to dissent at his blog site! I hope this place doesn't turn into that, Imp. Rai has a few facts wrong (like about how long the books took to write) but he also has some good points (like GRRM should have cut out some of the fat and found a way to make AFFC and ADWD into one book).

Seriously, a lot of the Cersei and Brienne and Sam and every Iron Islands POV and every Dorne POV in AFFC could have been trimmed down with no loss to the story. They do kind of remind me of Robert Jordan's epic low point in The Crossroads of Twilight where it takes THREE chapters for Elaine to take a bath.

tl;dr: I think there's room for every viewpoint without "if-you-don't-like-it-don't-read-it" copout arguments.

 

[Ursa major]

As the person who said

(If I thought a book was plodding, let alone very plodding, I'd put it down and read something more to my taste.)

in that other thread, I was merely stating what I believe to be good advice and was not wanting to be (or to appear to be) uncivil.

Is it not good advice? Now I know that some people will finish a book, come hell or high water, but a series? Of tomes?



(By the way, the same question has been asked of TV series; Torchwood comes to mind. This is rather different as episodes are often written by different screenwriters and even when they're not, they can - through the influence of others - improve as did Torchwood (in many people's opinion) when it moved to a five-episode, one-story format. While I'm sure publishers, editors and agents could have some sort of small say with a book, an author who brings in big sales numbers is far more free to "plod on" as they wish. Expecting such an author's work to suddenly change seems somewhat unreasonable. For instance, what if most of the sales are to people who like the series just the way it is?)

 

[Fried Egg]

Aw man, reading through this thread makes me so glad I didn't bother reading this series after "Game of Thrones". I learned my lesson years ago with Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series and I shalln't make that mistake again.

Basically, never start reading a series in which the books don't stand alone until the series is complete. That way you can know that it got finished before you start, assess the overall quality to see whether it's worth reading and you can read them all as quickly as you like without having to wait for the writer to finish.

Mind you, I don't have much sympathy for the authors that embark on these enterprises either. I'm not saying that they're milking it necessarilly, only that the pressure is essentially self-inflicted. Is it any wonder that legions of impatient fans (if it's successful) will constantly badger you for each next installment? If they didn't want the hastle and pressure, they shouldn't have started it.

Considering something by Feist costs pretty much the same as something by Martin, is half as long and a quarter as good. (I am a big Feist fan but he's more of a cash cow milker than Martin will ever be).

It's interesting how some people seem to think quantity of pages is a good thing (i.e. more the merrier). Personally, if a book's too long, it puts me off.

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

Mind you, I don't have much sympathy for the authors that embark on these enterprises either. I'm not saying that they're milking it necessarilly, only that the pressure is essentially self-inflicted. Is it any wonder that legions of impatient fans (if it's successful) will constantly badger you for each next installment? If they didn't want the hastle and pressure, they shouldn't have started it

That's slightly harsh. How many writers know they have a success until after the event? Using that thinking it's best not to write anything except standalone novels or short stories at all. And even then, if that's a roaring success you'll be pressurised by fans to write more novels in that world using the same characters and so wind up creating a 'saga' anyway.

Perhaps it's inevitable that hassle & pressure comes on authors to produce their work faster but it's disingenious to say you can avoid it by not attempting it. That's like something Homer Simpson would say.

 

[Fried Egg]

That's slightly harsh. How many writers know they have a success until after the event? Using that thinking it's best not to write anything except standalone novels or short stories at all. And even then, if that's a roaring success you'll be pressurised by fans to write more novels in that world using the same characters and so wind up creating a 'saga' anyway.

If it wasn't a success, they wouldn't be allowed (or paid at least) to write any more anyway.

But sorry, I have no sympathy for those who write books that have no conclusion, they are bound to leave readers frustrated and champing at the bit for the next installment. Something that is never going to happen to anywhere near the same extent with stand alone novels (no matter how successful they are).

And I don't have a problem with series, as long as each part can be read on their own. By all means, have a story arc that spans multiple volumes. But if very little is concluded at the end of each part, you're asking for trouble.

 

[The Imp]

Hey, if you want a lovefest you should head over to the other ASOIAF boards or GRRM blog. You're not even allowed to think about a dissenting opinion or criticism of GRRM over at Westeros (last time I was there at least) and they ban you from the *entire* internet if you dare to dissent at his blog site! I hope this place doesn't turn into that, Imp. Rai has a few facts wrong (like about how long the books took to write) but he also has some good points (like GRRM should have cut out some of the fat and found a way to make AFFC and ADWD into one book).

Seriously, a lot of the Cersei and Brienne and Sam and every Iron Islands POV and every Dorne POV in AFFC could have been trimmed down with no loss to the story. They do kind of remind me of Robert Jordan's epic low point in The Crossroads of Twilight where it takes THREE chapters for Elaine to take a bath.

tl;dr: I think there's room for every viewpoint without "if-you-don't-like-it-don't-read-it" cop out arguments.

I don't expect a "lovefest", but I do expect that posters here are, for the most part, fans of the series. If someone thinks that ASOIAF is a long, meandering, fluffed up, boring, inane, etc. series they have ever read they can find an appropriate thread to post that on and then move on, or start one if they like, and THEN move on. I've been a moderator on a very high volume message board (sports related) and I understand the difference between a fan of something and how a fan posts, and someone who hates/dislikes the thing or subject that the board is about, and how THAT type of person posts. If someone is consistently complaining and whining I call it trolling, even if that isn't their intent, and I invite them to leave. BTW, there have been plenty of regular (including me)and even not so regular posters here that have complained about the Dorne and Iron Islands POVs in AFFC. There have been people that have implied that GRRM is juggling too many projects and should only be working on ASOIAF. Everyone though is clearly a fan of the series, has read it at least once, will read the next book, loves most of the characters and plot lines, and will stick it out until the series is done. These people are fans. If someone thinks the series is too long, all over the place, constantly mentions items of clothing that they find objectionable, has many POVS that they hate, etc i don't see why they're here other than to have a forum to complain on and ruin a positive experience for the vast majority of posters that don't feel the way they do. Such people have been given a tremendous amount of respect BTW, much more than they would have gotten on almost any internet message board I have ever seen. There have been NO personal attacks, and I don't expect there will be, at least not by me, BUT, one does reach a point where enough is enough and people need to be told that.

 

[Werthead]

Hey, if you want a lovefest you should head over to the other ASOIAF boards or GRRM's blog. You're not even allowed to think about a dissenting opinion or criticism of GRRM over at Westeros (last time I was there at least)

That's extremely disingenuous.

We spent three years cleaning flamewars and banning people on both sides of the argument before having to enforce a policy of no discussion of ADWD's release date. It was necessary because it was starting to drag the rest of the board down and because people were joining purely to rant at that issue and not engage with the rest of the forum. It was a tough decision and has been relaxed (somewhat) since GRRM started posting more regular updates on the books, but was necessary to keep the forum working.

That's about it. If you want to criticise other elements of the books or GRRM's writing, that's absolutely fine. We just had an interesting big discussion on AFFC during which lots of people wailed on the book, and there were no issues there. There are a lot of posters in the Lit section who've given up reading ASoIaF because of various issues (or have never read GRRM at all and have no plans to do so) and don't get warned off every time they say they hate ASoIaF. It certainly isn't a thought-policed Goodkind board, that's for sure.

At the end of that book (in 2005) Martin said he had written so much he needed to break off a chunk to make 2 books.

That leads me to believe he'd have the next book polished off in 2006 or 2007 and here we are 2010 and the book is still not out.

It leads me to believe Mr Martin is what I call semi-retired.

That note from the back of AFFC is responsible for a hell of a lot of problems over the years and it should have been removed when it was supersceded by later developments.

Most, if not all, of the material GRRM had written for the other characters during the writing of AFFC was eliminated or so thoroughly rewritten it might have well have been discarded. Little of that material from 2005 has survived into the current version of the book.

It does not take 5 years to round up a few more chapters (he said he already had a ton of stuff, too much for one book so he needed to break it into two.)

It does take five years, however, to rewrite those chapters, write the rest of a very large book from scratch and overcome massive structural and timeline issues that are towering in their complexity.

Something on the order of a book every other year is reasonable like the first three books were doing before Martin semi-retired on us.

Except that GRRM started writing the series in 1991 and AGoT was split into two volumes because it was too big, with the second being broken off and massively expanded into ACoK. The current writing situation in the series is not unprecedented.

 

[IlliferThePenniless]

Wert-

Has five years per book been the average? I came to the series shortly (9 months maybe) before AFfC, so this is the first I've really waited for.

 

[Clansman]

Illifer, AGoT came out in August, 1996 (all facts herein taken directly from Wikipedia). That is fourteen years ago, and we had four books in our hands in 2005. That is an average of 2.25 years per book, not counting the writing period for the first one. However, add the five years since AFFC, and you have an average span of 4.25 years per book, again, not including the writing period for the first one. Admittedly, ACoK came out "quickly" (at least by GRRM's average standard), in November 1998, because according to Wert's info, it was largely written with AGoT. ASoS came out in August of 2000. AFFC almost five years later.

So, the first three came out fast, at least in comparison with AFFC, which took five years from ASoS. ADWD appears to be on the same track, albeit slightly longer. So, taken from the 1991 writing point, and assuming a release date in 2010, five books in 19 years. 3.8 years per book, on average, though it is the last two that really skew the whole thing, as they account for more than half of the writing (or not writing) time.

I think some of the criticisms of AFFC, in that it expanded the detail of the story far too much, are fair, and have led to GRRM's current problems, naming solving the Meereenese knot without needing five other novels to resolve the plot lines. Authors have a tough job. Their stories are not immutable, and if they make an error of judgment (not a mistake) in how a particular part of the story is written, then it can take a very long time to deal with that part of the story, unless one employs a ham-fisted and unliterary device like a sudden death of a major character (actually, Brandon Sanderson got rid of a minor, annoying plot line and character at the beginning of The Gathering Storm, in such a manner (it worked very well), but this kind of device won't work for a major character when there are major unresolved plot lines (imagine asking yourself "he's dead? Then why did I read four novels about him? and he didn't finish the thing he was supposed to!). I think that is what GRRM is struggling with now. He doesn't want to expand the story (that's my guess, anyway), and after AFFC, is under fan and personal pressure to tighten the story considerably.

I don't think anybody, least of all GRRM, wants ADWD to continue to expand the story. His difficulty now is resolving his current plot issues in a manner that tightens the story and tips it towards resolving the plots in the upcoming 2 books beyond ADWD, and does so in the style and literary ability which we all expect from him. Not an easy task.

 

[Werthead]

Five years isn't the average, no, especially because you can choose what stats you want to use. Do you say 'production time' or 'writing time'? In the case of the former, for example, AFFC took five years and two months to produce (August 2000 to October 2005). In the case of the latter, AFFC took three years and eight months to write (September 2001 to May 2005), because of the abandoned volume GRRM tried to write inbetween. What is of more value in determing how long future books will take to appear?

Clansman also outlines some of the other problems, in that a very large chunk of ACoK was already completed (and, the crucial difference to the ADWD situation, was left intact and not rewritten) when GRRM handed in AGoT, whilst GRRM wrote some character arcs from ASoS during the writing of ACoK (for example, he appears to have written, at least in rough draft, Tyrion's entire arc from ASoS before ACoK was handed in, as he'd already written the scene where Tywin dies before submitting ACoK for publication), which helps explain why ASoS came out so damn fast compared to the other books in the series. In that sense, the fast publication times for the first three books were somewhat illusory compared to the amount of writing time that went into them, although still significantly faster than AFFC/ADWD.

The same thing is true, to a lesser extent, with other writers. Robert Jordan had completed the second Wheel of Time book and was well into writing the third before the first came out due to the publishing schedule. It's not that Books 1-6 took much less time to write than 7-11, but more that between Books 6 and 7 publication time finally caught up with his writing time, and he lost the lead time he'd built up from the first three books.

 

[southron sword]

I dont understand how people can say how long a book SHOULD take. Are you G.R.R.Martin? Have you written ASOIAF before? If not then you would have no clue how long a scene, a chapter, a book takes to write for the series. Obviously it takes 5+ years. Its all about what IS happening, not what SHOULD happen.

 

[Culhwch]

I know it has been so far, but I just wanted to throw in a reminder to keep things civil in here, and the 'Meandering' thread. Personal attacks, as always, will not be tolerated.

Urse and Imp - please take note that I never said any one had been uncivil, nor did I say there had been personal attacks, so please do not feel the need to jump on the defensive so quickly. It might give us pause to think you have guilty consciences. It's my job as a moderator of these forums to head off any trouble before it starts, and that was merely what I was doing here. A gentle reminder to all members of the spirit in which we operate these forums.

 

[Ursa major]

My conscience is (at least in my own opinion) snow white.

However the statement from that other thread (the one I quoted) might have looked directed (and/or personal) and I wanted to say that it wasn't meant to be. (And I still think it's sound advice: our time is limited and there are a great many books out there.)



Over here in the UK, we have the less-than-marvellous principle that those who feel themselves to have been offended can define what someone has said to be offensive whether it is, in anyone else's eyes, offensive or not. It can lead - particularly in the presence of authority (the local moderator being an example), especially one mentioning civility - to a certain nervousness. In my experience, the air needs to be cleared ASAP, either by an apology for possibly causing offence or stating (as I did in this case) that the words were meant to be read in a specific, non-personal way. Perhaps, in Australia, you have not yet reached this sad state of affairs.