After the images I look at some possible directions the season may take. Beware MASSIVE SPOILERS AFTER THE CUT.
Showing posts with label a dance with dragons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a dance with dragons. Show all posts
Monday, 11 April 2016
New trailer for GAME OF THRONES Season 6
HBO have released a second trailer for the upcoming sixth season of Game of Thrones. This trailer has a lot of new images and footage that hints at the future direction of the season.
After the images I look at some possible directions the season may take. Beware MASSIVE SPOILERS AFTER THE CUT.
After the images I look at some possible directions the season may take. Beware MASSIVE SPOILERS AFTER THE CUT.
Sunday, 20 December 2015
A History of Epic Fantasy - Part 33
They say money makes the world go round, or in the case of 2008, fly out of control, keel over and explode. But it's also kind of boring to talk about for any length of time. Economics and trade routes, as we learned from The Phantom Menace, does not make for a compelling drama.
That may not be entirely true, however. Economics is the driver of history, demanding technological progress and inspiring political change. War may be the crossroads of history, but often it results from economic demands: the need for more resources, more territory or more people.
Fantasy and economics at first sound like uneasy bedfellows: "You must journey to West of the Moon and East of the Sun, but be aware of the tollboth on the Starlight Bridge and make sure you exchange your currency before entering Fairyland, their banks have harsh rates." But epic fantasy, with its focus on worldbuilding, dabbles in the art of money more often than you would suppose.
Some authors are better at this than others. Some authors will have heroic adventurers fighting against the forces of evil but then at the end of the book the local plucky king will summon up an army of ten thousand men in five minutes. C.S. Lewis did not delve hugely into Narnia's socio-economic foundation. But other authors have looked into it in surprising detail.
The action of The Hobbit is driven by pride and honour and revenge and nationalism, but it's also driven by money. The dwarves of Erebor have been impoverished by the loss of the Lonely Mountain and its wealth, and it's partially to reclaim that wealth that Thorin's Company sets out on its quest. Later, when the mountain is retaken, the people of Laketown understandably request a (probably negligible) piece of the action after the dwarves inadvertently awaken Smaug and he destroys the city in response. Otherwise there's a good chance the Laketowners will starve. The Lord of the Rings takes this to new levels, with Gondor's military weakness (despite its substantial size and population) pointed out to be a result of incessant military adventuring with Umbar and the Haradrim and issues with the lack of decent trading partners as a result.
So economics can provide a character motivation - Conan and Cugel the Clever's adventures are inspired more by financial needs than heroism, or in the latter's case, sheer bad luck - but can also provide the background to the entire action of the book. Several recent fantasy sagas and novels have delved more into this area.
Rise of a Merchant Prince
Published in 1995, Rise of a Merchant Prince is the second novel in Raymond E. Feist's Serpentwar Saga. The primary storyline of this four-book series involves the sinister Emerald Queen raising an army on the distant continent of Novindus and, aided by magic, demons and mercenaries from another world, sailing it across the ocean to invade the Kingdom of the Isles. In the second book in the series a young man named Roo Avery becomes a financier, banker and provider of goods and services in the city of Krondor. The threat from across the sea recedes into the background, with the kingdom and city preparing for war, as Roo rises from obscurity to wealth and success, but finds it cannot bring him happiness.
These sequences are strongly influenced by the history of London and Amsterdam, particularly the explosion in their mercantile power in the late Renaissance, early pre-modern period. This period, covered in exception detail in Neal Stephenson's historical Baroque Cycle, saw the development of what Sir Isaac Newton called "The System of the World," the birth of the modern capitalist system, and the bewildering situation as kings and emperors and popes found that their word was no longer enough to get things done but the word of a banker could shift mountains. In Rise of a Merchant Prince the same transformation is taking place, and it's fascinating to see princes and generals having to argue with bankers about how to finance their massive armies and defensive walls and all that other good fantasy furniture.
Arguably, Rise of a Merchant Prince is Feist's last unambiguously "good" novel (even the very next one, Rage of a Demon King, sees Feist getting into structural issues, workmanlike prose and continuity errors that would blight the remainder of the Riftwar Cycle) and the last one he wrote that did something remarkably different. But it did show, unlike The Phantom Menace, that economics can make for a good fantasy novel.
A Dance with Dragons
A Song of Ice and Fire has done a lot of things, but one thing it hasn't really been credited for is focusing on the economic realities of medieval life. Medieval warfare was cripplingly expensive. Taking peasants out of the fields might give you a large army, but training and equipping them could be ruinous for all but the very richest lords. Throwing a massive tournament might be cool, but it might also throw you into crippling debt. And if your kingdom is threatened with invasion at short notice, you might need a politically inconvenient foreign loan to help you defeat it, at the cost of your economic independence for the next few decades.
One of the primary players in A Song of Ice and Fire, and arguably the most successful, is Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish. Unlike most of the characters in the series, Littlefinger is a self-made man. His birth on the smallest of the Fingers, a rocky and barren peninsula, was so low he might as well have been a peasant. His prospects would have been poor, but he made himself useful to Lord Arryn by taking control of the taxes in Gulltown and making the port turn a comfortable profit. As Master of Coin in King's Landing, he increased the crown's incomes tenfold (although King Robert Baratheon's expenditures went up by almost the same amount) through canny deals and tax ideas. His grasp of the political game is as assured as the economic one as well.
Almost as astute are the Iron Bank of Braavos, a formidable and utterly independent financial institution. Located behind the impregnable fleets of Braavos, the Iron Bank almost single-handedly brings down the rule of Queen Cersei Lannister when they call in their debts in the Seven Kingdoms overnight when she tries to delay payments, making them also more amenable to striking deals with the Night's Watch and the rival King Stannis Baratheon. What seems like a reasonable, short-term decision made smugly behind the walls of the Red Keep turns out to be a horrendously bad one on the global scale.
A similar issue of short-termism arises when Daenerys Targaryen conquers the city-states of Slaver's Bay and ends the practice of slavery. A laudable, humane decision. However, Daenerys struggles to find something viable to replace it. The former slaves are now paupers living on the streets, the former slave-owners hate her and the economic system of most of the known world has been disrupted, leading to distant nations who've never heard of Daenerys sending ships and armies against her. In reality, slavery and serfdom were phased out in Europa and America over the course of more than a century, as economic realities shifted and allowed much greater expenditure on labour. Trying to do it overnight in a bloody revolution sounds cool, but it throws the system of Essos's world out of balance with nothing to correct it. Ironically, many of the slaves end up living far worse-off lives after Dany's arrival than before.
Midnight Tides
The fifth volume of Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen introduces the Empire of Lether, a mercantile superpower dominating its continent. Lether is a capitalist nation, believing in the free market but under a strong central government that can field impressive armies due to effective taxation. Lether is a nod at traditional Western notions of capitalism, accompanied by witty commentary on the notion's crazier aspects from the characters of Tehol and Bugg. When the Crippled God empowers the Tiste Edur tribes of the north to invade the Letherii Empire with an unstoppable new force of sorcery, the Letherii are unable to hold them back since they can't buy them off. Later books indicate that the greed and venality of Letherii culture has started to corrupt their conquerors, and it's only when the cynical Tehol takes control of the empire and begins reshaping it to his whims that it appears that the Empire's self-destructive ways may change.
Steven Erikson does satire very well throughout the Malazan novels, but Midnight Tides (2004) is the one that arguably hits the hardest. The target - American-style Darwinian capitalism - is an easy one but Erikson still makes some excellent points about economic imperialism.
Making Money
Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels tackle many features of modern life through a satirical fantasy lens, so it's unsurprising that economics come up a lot. It can be seen in Small Gods ("Thou shalt not submit thy god to market forces!") but it forms a running thead through the Moist von Lipwig story. In this sequence - Going Postal (2004), Making Money (2007) and Raising Steam (2013) - the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork decides to recruit a former con artist to help him transform the city from a post-medieval slum into a modern powerhouse. He does this by placing Lipwig in charge of first the postal service, then the banks and then the new rail service linking Ankh-Morpork to more distant cities. In each case, Lipwig's natural charm and wit allow him to succeed in furthering his own fortunes and that of the city. A future novel may have put Lipwig in charge of the city's tax services, but Pratchett's sad passing in 2015 prevented this from being explored further.
A Shadow in Summer & The Dragon's Path
Fantasy author Daniel Abraham exploded onto the scene with his Long Price Quartet (2006-09), set in an unusual fantasy world where magic - and thus power - is based around the control of the andats, spirits bound to the control of sorcerers - poets - but who hold tremendous power. The books examine the social, political and economic consequences of the Khaiem city-states holding such power over other nations, such as the empire of Galt, and the ramifications of what happens when a way of neutralising the andat is discovered. The Long Price Quartet is arguably the finest epic fantasy series of the last ten years, with its focus on character, morality and tragedy, and is helped by the depth with which the premise is explored.
Abraham has since gone on to greater success as part of the writing team known as James S.A. Corey, he is co-creator of the Expanse science fiction series and its ongoing TV adaptation. He has also been writing his own solo epic fantasy series, The Dagger and the Coin (2011-16), commencing with The Dragon's Path. This five-volume series is much more driven by its examination of economics, banking and finance. One of the main characters is a banker working in an institution based on the Medici bank, whose financial acumen is as critical (if not more so) than the military power wielded by the great nations. However, even this power is challenged by the rise of a disturbing religion and its increasing stranglehold on one of the great empires of the continent.
Other fantasy authors have delved into matters financial, such as Scott Lynch's excellent The Lies of Locke Lamora and K.J. Parker's superb The Folding Knife. Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles novels feature lengthy - and some may argue too lengthy - sequences deling with student financies in a magical institution. Brandon Sanderson's novels usually nod at the economic underpinning behind each of his worlds (although so far a magic system based on money hasn't quite materialised, although coins are used as weapons by some of the Mistborn characters). It just goes to show that a good fantasy author can make even the most mundane facet of ordinary life work in a fantasy context.
Our story is nearly complete. We have travelled from before the 20th Century into the early 21st, and looked at the rise of the genre and its explosion into being the most popular genre of the modern age. All that is left to do is bring the story up to date.
That may not be entirely true, however. Economics is the driver of history, demanding technological progress and inspiring political change. War may be the crossroads of history, but often it results from economic demands: the need for more resources, more territory or more people.
Fantasy and economics at first sound like uneasy bedfellows: "You must journey to West of the Moon and East of the Sun, but be aware of the tollboth on the Starlight Bridge and make sure you exchange your currency before entering Fairyland, their banks have harsh rates." But epic fantasy, with its focus on worldbuilding, dabbles in the art of money more often than you would suppose.
Some authors are better at this than others. Some authors will have heroic adventurers fighting against the forces of evil but then at the end of the book the local plucky king will summon up an army of ten thousand men in five minutes. C.S. Lewis did not delve hugely into Narnia's socio-economic foundation. But other authors have looked into it in surprising detail.
The action of The Hobbit is driven by pride and honour and revenge and nationalism, but it's also driven by money. The dwarves of Erebor have been impoverished by the loss of the Lonely Mountain and its wealth, and it's partially to reclaim that wealth that Thorin's Company sets out on its quest. Later, when the mountain is retaken, the people of Laketown understandably request a (probably negligible) piece of the action after the dwarves inadvertently awaken Smaug and he destroys the city in response. Otherwise there's a good chance the Laketowners will starve. The Lord of the Rings takes this to new levels, with Gondor's military weakness (despite its substantial size and population) pointed out to be a result of incessant military adventuring with Umbar and the Haradrim and issues with the lack of decent trading partners as a result.
So economics can provide a character motivation - Conan and Cugel the Clever's adventures are inspired more by financial needs than heroism, or in the latter's case, sheer bad luck - but can also provide the background to the entire action of the book. Several recent fantasy sagas and novels have delved more into this area.
Rise of a Merchant Prince
Published in 1995, Rise of a Merchant Prince is the second novel in Raymond E. Feist's Serpentwar Saga. The primary storyline of this four-book series involves the sinister Emerald Queen raising an army on the distant continent of Novindus and, aided by magic, demons and mercenaries from another world, sailing it across the ocean to invade the Kingdom of the Isles. In the second book in the series a young man named Roo Avery becomes a financier, banker and provider of goods and services in the city of Krondor. The threat from across the sea recedes into the background, with the kingdom and city preparing for war, as Roo rises from obscurity to wealth and success, but finds it cannot bring him happiness.
These sequences are strongly influenced by the history of London and Amsterdam, particularly the explosion in their mercantile power in the late Renaissance, early pre-modern period. This period, covered in exception detail in Neal Stephenson's historical Baroque Cycle, saw the development of what Sir Isaac Newton called "The System of the World," the birth of the modern capitalist system, and the bewildering situation as kings and emperors and popes found that their word was no longer enough to get things done but the word of a banker could shift mountains. In Rise of a Merchant Prince the same transformation is taking place, and it's fascinating to see princes and generals having to argue with bankers about how to finance their massive armies and defensive walls and all that other good fantasy furniture.
Arguably, Rise of a Merchant Prince is Feist's last unambiguously "good" novel (even the very next one, Rage of a Demon King, sees Feist getting into structural issues, workmanlike prose and continuity errors that would blight the remainder of the Riftwar Cycle) and the last one he wrote that did something remarkably different. But it did show, unlike The Phantom Menace, that economics can make for a good fantasy novel.
A Dance with Dragons
A Song of Ice and Fire has done a lot of things, but one thing it hasn't really been credited for is focusing on the economic realities of medieval life. Medieval warfare was cripplingly expensive. Taking peasants out of the fields might give you a large army, but training and equipping them could be ruinous for all but the very richest lords. Throwing a massive tournament might be cool, but it might also throw you into crippling debt. And if your kingdom is threatened with invasion at short notice, you might need a politically inconvenient foreign loan to help you defeat it, at the cost of your economic independence for the next few decades.
One of the primary players in A Song of Ice and Fire, and arguably the most successful, is Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish. Unlike most of the characters in the series, Littlefinger is a self-made man. His birth on the smallest of the Fingers, a rocky and barren peninsula, was so low he might as well have been a peasant. His prospects would have been poor, but he made himself useful to Lord Arryn by taking control of the taxes in Gulltown and making the port turn a comfortable profit. As Master of Coin in King's Landing, he increased the crown's incomes tenfold (although King Robert Baratheon's expenditures went up by almost the same amount) through canny deals and tax ideas. His grasp of the political game is as assured as the economic one as well.
Almost as astute are the Iron Bank of Braavos, a formidable and utterly independent financial institution. Located behind the impregnable fleets of Braavos, the Iron Bank almost single-handedly brings down the rule of Queen Cersei Lannister when they call in their debts in the Seven Kingdoms overnight when she tries to delay payments, making them also more amenable to striking deals with the Night's Watch and the rival King Stannis Baratheon. What seems like a reasonable, short-term decision made smugly behind the walls of the Red Keep turns out to be a horrendously bad one on the global scale.
A similar issue of short-termism arises when Daenerys Targaryen conquers the city-states of Slaver's Bay and ends the practice of slavery. A laudable, humane decision. However, Daenerys struggles to find something viable to replace it. The former slaves are now paupers living on the streets, the former slave-owners hate her and the economic system of most of the known world has been disrupted, leading to distant nations who've never heard of Daenerys sending ships and armies against her. In reality, slavery and serfdom were phased out in Europa and America over the course of more than a century, as economic realities shifted and allowed much greater expenditure on labour. Trying to do it overnight in a bloody revolution sounds cool, but it throws the system of Essos's world out of balance with nothing to correct it. Ironically, many of the slaves end up living far worse-off lives after Dany's arrival than before.
Midnight Tides
The fifth volume of Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen introduces the Empire of Lether, a mercantile superpower dominating its continent. Lether is a capitalist nation, believing in the free market but under a strong central government that can field impressive armies due to effective taxation. Lether is a nod at traditional Western notions of capitalism, accompanied by witty commentary on the notion's crazier aspects from the characters of Tehol and Bugg. When the Crippled God empowers the Tiste Edur tribes of the north to invade the Letherii Empire with an unstoppable new force of sorcery, the Letherii are unable to hold them back since they can't buy them off. Later books indicate that the greed and venality of Letherii culture has started to corrupt their conquerors, and it's only when the cynical Tehol takes control of the empire and begins reshaping it to his whims that it appears that the Empire's self-destructive ways may change.
Steven Erikson does satire very well throughout the Malazan novels, but Midnight Tides (2004) is the one that arguably hits the hardest. The target - American-style Darwinian capitalism - is an easy one but Erikson still makes some excellent points about economic imperialism.
Making Money
Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels tackle many features of modern life through a satirical fantasy lens, so it's unsurprising that economics come up a lot. It can be seen in Small Gods ("Thou shalt not submit thy god to market forces!") but it forms a running thead through the Moist von Lipwig story. In this sequence - Going Postal (2004), Making Money (2007) and Raising Steam (2013) - the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork decides to recruit a former con artist to help him transform the city from a post-medieval slum into a modern powerhouse. He does this by placing Lipwig in charge of first the postal service, then the banks and then the new rail service linking Ankh-Morpork to more distant cities. In each case, Lipwig's natural charm and wit allow him to succeed in furthering his own fortunes and that of the city. A future novel may have put Lipwig in charge of the city's tax services, but Pratchett's sad passing in 2015 prevented this from being explored further.
A Shadow in Summer & The Dragon's Path
Fantasy author Daniel Abraham exploded onto the scene with his Long Price Quartet (2006-09), set in an unusual fantasy world where magic - and thus power - is based around the control of the andats, spirits bound to the control of sorcerers - poets - but who hold tremendous power. The books examine the social, political and economic consequences of the Khaiem city-states holding such power over other nations, such as the empire of Galt, and the ramifications of what happens when a way of neutralising the andat is discovered. The Long Price Quartet is arguably the finest epic fantasy series of the last ten years, with its focus on character, morality and tragedy, and is helped by the depth with which the premise is explored.
Abraham has since gone on to greater success as part of the writing team known as James S.A. Corey, he is co-creator of the Expanse science fiction series and its ongoing TV adaptation. He has also been writing his own solo epic fantasy series, The Dagger and the Coin (2011-16), commencing with The Dragon's Path. This five-volume series is much more driven by its examination of economics, banking and finance. One of the main characters is a banker working in an institution based on the Medici bank, whose financial acumen is as critical (if not more so) than the military power wielded by the great nations. However, even this power is challenged by the rise of a disturbing religion and its increasing stranglehold on one of the great empires of the continent.
Other fantasy authors have delved into matters financial, such as Scott Lynch's excellent The Lies of Locke Lamora and K.J. Parker's superb The Folding Knife. Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles novels feature lengthy - and some may argue too lengthy - sequences deling with student financies in a magical institution. Brandon Sanderson's novels usually nod at the economic underpinning behind each of his worlds (although so far a magic system based on money hasn't quite materialised, although coins are used as weapons by some of the Mistborn characters). It just goes to show that a good fantasy author can make even the most mundane facet of ordinary life work in a fantasy context.
Our story is nearly complete. We have travelled from before the 20th Century into the early 21st, and looked at the rise of the genre and its explosion into being the most popular genre of the modern age. All that is left to do is bring the story up to date.
Thursday, 9 July 2015
A Song of Facts and Figures: A Dance with Dragons
A Dance with Dragons
Writing Period: Late 2000-May 2011
Originally Published: 12 July 2011
Word Count: 422,000
Manuscript Page Count: 1,510
Hardcover Page Count: 1017
Paperback Page Count: 1152 (US
one-volume), 1184 (UK
two-volume)
Chapters: 73
POV Characters: 16 + Prologue + Epilogue
"The last one was a bitch. This one was three bitches and a bastard."
As his afterword to A Dance with Dragons indicates, George R.R. Martin did not hugely enjoy writing this novel. Originally envisaged "merely" as the flipside of A Feast for Crows and coming out a year or so later, the novel eventually grew much larger (half again the length of Crows) and came out a lot later (five years and nine months), to the annoyance of both the author and many readers.
The writing process for Dragons was torturous. Whilst Martin had 500 manuscript pages left over from A Feast for Crows (and indeed, in a different format, the "post-gap" version of Crows/Dragons), the process of structuring the sequel so it made sense and covered all the ground it needed to proved vastly more complex than first thought. The "promotion" of the mini-POV characters from Crows meant that Martin had a much larger cast of central characters to manage. His decision to bring the novel past the timeframe of Crows and revisit some of those characters later in the novel also introduced difficulties. But most damaging of all was the so-called "Meereenese Knot", a problem caused by different characters arriving in the city of Meereen and impacting on the story of Daenerys Tagaryen in different ways. Martin tilted at this problem numerous times across many months before finally resolving it through the introduction of Ser Barristan Selmy as a POV character. At another stage a conceptual rethink meant rewriting all of Jon Snow's chapters.
The book also had other issues stemming from where it fell in the storyline of the overall series. Originally, A Dance with Dragons was planned to be the middle volume of A Song of Ice and Fire when it was a trilogy and it would have focused heavily on Daenerys and her eventual invasion of the Seven Kingdoms. When the series was expanded to six volumes, Dragons became the fourth book, happening after the infamous "five year gap", and would have also covered political intrigue in Meereen. However, the introduction and expansion of numerous other storylines and characters meant that Dragons would cover less ground than originally envisaged: at the end of the novel, Daenerys's invasion of Westeros still seems a way off, with numerous plot stands in and around Slaver's Bay requiring resolution before she can move on.
A Dance with Dragons was also a book written in the full glare of public interest. Every word that Martin uttered for six years was analysed for hidden meanings or conspiracies. Every holiday or trip that Martin took away from the keyboard was carefully monitored. Each update provided by the author was used to second-guess what he was doing and how. Controversy surrounded the writing of the book to such a degree that when it was done and the author had commenced work on the sequel, The Winds of Winter, he went into lockdown and refused to even talk about its progress. A Dance with Dragons and the subsequent success of the book and TV series marked a notable change in the author's willingness to engage with his readers and provide hard updates on progress on the series.
A Surge of Sales
A Song of Ice and Fire took a while to be a success. A Game of Thrones performed disappointingly in hardcover in the States, with sales not picking up until its paperback publication a year later. The UK edition, featuring cover quotes by the likes of Robert Jordan and trailed by a preview novella released several months earlier, apparently did better. The US paperback, which also included the cover quotes, saw a marked upturn in success. Strong word-of-mouth and positive reviews helped.
A Clash of Kings did well enough to hit the lower reaches of the New York Times bestseller list on release, but it was A Storm of Swords that really stood out for the first time. It hit #11 on the NYT list and sold well enough that it took two years for the paperback to come out in the States (a phenomenon repeated with the two subsequent books). The five-year wait for A Feast for Crows did not hurt the success of the series at all and the book hit #1 on the bestseller list on the day of release.
Between the release of Crows and Dragons it was announced (in 2007) that HBO was developing a TV series based on the books. Some TV critics picked up the books and began talking about them years before the TV series hit the screens. The result of this was a minor uptick in sales. Total sales for A Song of Ice and Fire prior to the TV series airing were never revealed, but guesstimates placed them in the region of approximately 5 million.
The success of Game of Thrones has changed that. An astonishing nine million copies of the books were sold in 2012 alone. Worldwide sales of the series have now passed 60 million. This puts Martin close to the sales of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (estimated at 80-90 million sales) and Terry Pratchett's Discworld series (estimated at 85 million), both series with a much larger number of volumes. How much bigger the series can get remains to be seen, but with the HBO series likely to last at least another two years, it is likely that the books will continue to benefit.
A Dance with Dragons was also a book written in the full glare of public interest. Every word that Martin uttered for six years was analysed for hidden meanings or conspiracies. Every holiday or trip that Martin took away from the keyboard was carefully monitored. Each update provided by the author was used to second-guess what he was doing and how. Controversy surrounded the writing of the book to such a degree that when it was done and the author had commenced work on the sequel, The Winds of Winter, he went into lockdown and refused to even talk about its progress. A Dance with Dragons and the subsequent success of the book and TV series marked a notable change in the author's willingness to engage with his readers and provide hard updates on progress on the series.
A Surge of Sales
A Song of Ice and Fire took a while to be a success. A Game of Thrones performed disappointingly in hardcover in the States, with sales not picking up until its paperback publication a year later. The UK edition, featuring cover quotes by the likes of Robert Jordan and trailed by a preview novella released several months earlier, apparently did better. The US paperback, which also included the cover quotes, saw a marked upturn in success. Strong word-of-mouth and positive reviews helped.
A Clash of Kings did well enough to hit the lower reaches of the New York Times bestseller list on release, but it was A Storm of Swords that really stood out for the first time. It hit #11 on the NYT list and sold well enough that it took two years for the paperback to come out in the States (a phenomenon repeated with the two subsequent books). The five-year wait for A Feast for Crows did not hurt the success of the series at all and the book hit #1 on the bestseller list on the day of release.
Between the release of Crows and Dragons it was announced (in 2007) that HBO was developing a TV series based on the books. Some TV critics picked up the books and began talking about them years before the TV series hit the screens. The result of this was a minor uptick in sales. Total sales for A Song of Ice and Fire prior to the TV series airing were never revealed, but guesstimates placed them in the region of approximately 5 million.
The success of Game of Thrones has changed that. An astonishing nine million copies of the books were sold in 2012 alone. Worldwide sales of the series have now passed 60 million. This puts Martin close to the sales of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (estimated at 80-90 million sales) and Terry Pratchett's Discworld series (estimated at 85 million), both series with a much larger number of volumes. How much bigger the series can get remains to be seen, but with the HBO series likely to last at least another two years, it is likely that the books will continue to benefit.
Friday, 19 June 2015
Game of Thrones: Season 5
Westeros is trying to recover from the devastation of the War of the Five Kings. Bandits and raiders are rife in the countryside and the Greyjoys and Stannis Baratheon remain in arms against King Tommen. In King's Landing, the machinations of the Queen Regent threaten to shatter the alliance between Houses Lannister and Tyrell, whilst Jon Snow's determination to forge an alliance with the wildlings proves controversial with his brothers in the Night's Watch. Far across the sea, Daenerys's attempts to restore peace to the ancient city of Meereen are threatened by a band of rebels enraged by her decision to ban slavery and by the fact that she has lost control of her dragons.
Much will be written about the fifth season of Game of Thrones in the months and years to come. This was always going to be the season in which George R.R. Martin's novels and David Benioff and D.B. Weiss's TV show were going to dramatically diverge from one another, the near-inevitable result of both the needs of dramatisation (which would likely not bear the introspection and subtlety of the fourth and fifth books in the series) and the fact that the TV show is now outpacing the books, requiring both outright invention on the part of the producers as well as drawing on elements from books as-yet unreleased, or even unwritten.
This process has mixed results. In some cases, the adaptation continues to hit its sweet spot of getting complex stories from the novels across on screen in a simpler form, but one that is also clearer, more concise and retaining the thematic essentials whilst paring away unnecessary (if still interesting) supporting material and characters. King's Landing particularly benefits from this, with lots of minor politics involving new or vanishingly minor characters swept aside in favour of a more ruthless focus on Cersei's growing hatred of the Tyrells and the arrival of the High Sparrow, played with flawless passion by Jonathan Pryce. This culminates in the excellent, distressing "Walk of Shame" sequence, in which Lena Headey knocks it out of the park as Cersei is humiliated to the point where even the most hardened viewer may feel sorry for her, despite her many crimes.
Almost as well-handled (until its conclusion) is the story at the Wall. Lots of minor crises within the Night's Watch are jettisoned in favour of Jon Snow being given a more decisive story arc: becoming Lord Commander, leading a fleet to rescue the wildlings, getting in over his head at the Battle of Hardhome and then being forced to flee but at least having secured a new alliance.
Then we have the infamous Dornish storyline. This is botched, and botched quite badly. It's a waste of both superlative casting (Alexander Siddig is fantastic, but doesn't have much to do) and beautiful scenery (the result of Spain being added to the shooting locations), with the show delivering the feeblest fight sequence in its history, some of the most risible dialogue and, in the relationship between Tyene Sand and Bronn, who is old enough to be her grandfather, some of its most cringe-inducing flirting (despite the heroic efforts of both actors). There are moments where you can see why the producers thought it was a good idea, such as the "reasonable" negotiations between Jaime and Doran and the final scene with Jaime and Myrcella, but it could be argued that the producers should have followed their first instincts and simply not gone to Dorne at all. The fact that the story is also missing its key scene from the books (the one that made the whole story in the books make sense) also hurts it badly.
Then we have Meereen and the Winterfell/Stannis situation, which can both be described as "problematic". The Meereen story is simplified from the books, which might be a good thing, with less interchangeable characters, less factions and less politics involving minor tertiary characters. However, the TV series fails to replace these elements with anything more interesting. Instead we have repeated (and redundant) scenes of the Sons of the Harpy slaughtering curiously ineffectual Unsullied by the dozen and repeated (and redundant) scenes of Daenerys musing on opening the fighting pits or not. There are some golden moments here, such as Tyrion and Daenerys finally meeting and the final, epic showdown in the Great Pit, but otherwise it's a story left spinning its wheels for too long.
The Winterfell story is even more variable. Combining the wildly disparate and disjointed Brienne, Sansa, Theon and Ramsay arcs from the novels into one storyline that fuses them together is a bold move and one that actually makes sense and almost works. It is sabotaged by again benching characters for long periods (Brienne's Season 5 storyline can be summed up as "The Woman Who Stared At Masonry"), running roughshod over motivations (Littlefinger seems uncharacteristically uninformed and stupid) and introducing controversy for controversy's sake (the ending to the sixth episode). Excellent acting by all involved does elevate the story and some scenes are genuinely brilliant. Roose Bolton's matter-of-fact recounting of Ramsay's conception seems to disturb even the unflappably demented Ramsay, whilst Alfie Allen sells Theon's internal struggle to become his old self again with tragic intensity. Sophie Turner also rises above some questionable story twists to deliver some of her finest moments in the role of Sansa to date.
However, it is Stannis's storyline that walks off with the prize for the most howl-inducingly frustrating. Since his introduction in Season 2, the show's depiction of the character has suffered in comparison to the novels, where he is one of Martin's most subtle and complex characters. His motivations are simple on the surface but more complex underneath and he is a character that is determined more by bad PR than reality (the common observation that Stannis humourless is undercut by occasional, very dry almost-quips). Fleetingly, the TV show has shown the same character such as during his determination at the Blackwater and in his first meeting with Jon Snow. But it's not until Season 5 that it seems to nail his character: correcting the grammar of the Night's Watch, nodding approvingly over Jon Snow's leadership tactics and being more fatherly with his daughter. Of course, it was a trap, all done to make his preposterous and utterly unconvincing about-heel turn towards the end of the ninth episode all the more painful to watch. Stephen Dillane was superb in the role, but it does feel like the TV show's producers and writers fundamentally misunderstood the character throughout the series.
Almost as disappointing is the end to Jon Snow's storyline. In A Dance with Dragons, Jon gradually sends away his most experienced men to man the other castles on the Wall, inadvertently removing the Night's Watch officers who were at the Fist of the First Men and fought the White Walkers there. This leaves behind a cabal of men who haven't seen the true threat from the north and whom it feels convincing would turn on and betray their commander. In the TV series this does not happen, and Castle Black is stuffed full of rangers who have just seen thousands of corpses rise from the dead and the White Walkers themselves in the full terrible majesty of their power. The notion that the Watch would betray Jon under such circumstances is laughable, not helped by the climactic Caesar moment being staged in a manner more befitting Monty Python (with the assassins neatly lined up in a row to each stab Jon and utter their catchphrase, and he politely doesn't keel over until they're all done). Poor stuff.
There are other moments in the fifth season of Game of Thrones when it feels like the show is dealing with pure myth: the voyage through the ruins of Valyria is a genuinely awe-inspiring moment of magic and the Battle of Hardhome is the best action sequence conceived for the series so far, a full-on zombie rumble that would do Sam Raimi proud and which blows every single zombie action sequence in five seasons of The Walking Dead completely out of the water. The depiction of Braavos is pretty good, and the scenes in the House of Black and White are creepy. The scenes with the dragons are amazing, the more frequent use of CGI establishing shots gives the show a sense of scale that favourably compares with the best films and the production values remain jaw-dropping. The show still has the best cast on television. It remains, even in its weakest moments, watchable.
But there's also the feeling that the fifth season is a little too disjointed, more willing to lean on lazy coincidence and cliche than previous seasons. There's also a distressing lack of attention to detail, with Dorne's location on the title sequence map not being quite right, Jon Snow's fleet apparently landing on the wrong side of the Wall and the plausible military side of things being completely thrown out the window (if Stannis was really a master tactician, he would never do the things he does in the finale).
The fifth season of Game of Thrones is the weakest to date, delivering some of the worst moments and episodes, but it still manages to shine with some real moments of dramatic power. It certainly leaves things in an interesting place going forwards, even if it feels implausible that this huge story (even the TV show's truncated version) can be wrapped up in just twenty more episodes. But we will see how the sixth and penultimate season handles things next year.
501: The Wars to Come (***½)
502: The House of Black and White (***½)
503: High Sparrow (***½)
504: Sons of the Harpy (****)
505: Kill the Boy (****½)
506: Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken (**½)
507: The Gift (****)
508: Hardhome (*****)
509: The Dance of Dragons (****)
510: Mother's Mercy (***½)
Forthcoming: Season 6 (March/April 2016)
Much will be written about the fifth season of Game of Thrones in the months and years to come. This was always going to be the season in which George R.R. Martin's novels and David Benioff and D.B. Weiss's TV show were going to dramatically diverge from one another, the near-inevitable result of both the needs of dramatisation (which would likely not bear the introspection and subtlety of the fourth and fifth books in the series) and the fact that the TV show is now outpacing the books, requiring both outright invention on the part of the producers as well as drawing on elements from books as-yet unreleased, or even unwritten.
This process has mixed results. In some cases, the adaptation continues to hit its sweet spot of getting complex stories from the novels across on screen in a simpler form, but one that is also clearer, more concise and retaining the thematic essentials whilst paring away unnecessary (if still interesting) supporting material and characters. King's Landing particularly benefits from this, with lots of minor politics involving new or vanishingly minor characters swept aside in favour of a more ruthless focus on Cersei's growing hatred of the Tyrells and the arrival of the High Sparrow, played with flawless passion by Jonathan Pryce. This culminates in the excellent, distressing "Walk of Shame" sequence, in which Lena Headey knocks it out of the park as Cersei is humiliated to the point where even the most hardened viewer may feel sorry for her, despite her many crimes.
Almost as well-handled (until its conclusion) is the story at the Wall. Lots of minor crises within the Night's Watch are jettisoned in favour of Jon Snow being given a more decisive story arc: becoming Lord Commander, leading a fleet to rescue the wildlings, getting in over his head at the Battle of Hardhome and then being forced to flee but at least having secured a new alliance.
Then we have the infamous Dornish storyline. This is botched, and botched quite badly. It's a waste of both superlative casting (Alexander Siddig is fantastic, but doesn't have much to do) and beautiful scenery (the result of Spain being added to the shooting locations), with the show delivering the feeblest fight sequence in its history, some of the most risible dialogue and, in the relationship between Tyene Sand and Bronn, who is old enough to be her grandfather, some of its most cringe-inducing flirting (despite the heroic efforts of both actors). There are moments where you can see why the producers thought it was a good idea, such as the "reasonable" negotiations between Jaime and Doran and the final scene with Jaime and Myrcella, but it could be argued that the producers should have followed their first instincts and simply not gone to Dorne at all. The fact that the story is also missing its key scene from the books (the one that made the whole story in the books make sense) also hurts it badly.
Then we have Meereen and the Winterfell/Stannis situation, which can both be described as "problematic". The Meereen story is simplified from the books, which might be a good thing, with less interchangeable characters, less factions and less politics involving minor tertiary characters. However, the TV series fails to replace these elements with anything more interesting. Instead we have repeated (and redundant) scenes of the Sons of the Harpy slaughtering curiously ineffectual Unsullied by the dozen and repeated (and redundant) scenes of Daenerys musing on opening the fighting pits or not. There are some golden moments here, such as Tyrion and Daenerys finally meeting and the final, epic showdown in the Great Pit, but otherwise it's a story left spinning its wheels for too long.
The Winterfell story is even more variable. Combining the wildly disparate and disjointed Brienne, Sansa, Theon and Ramsay arcs from the novels into one storyline that fuses them together is a bold move and one that actually makes sense and almost works. It is sabotaged by again benching characters for long periods (Brienne's Season 5 storyline can be summed up as "The Woman Who Stared At Masonry"), running roughshod over motivations (Littlefinger seems uncharacteristically uninformed and stupid) and introducing controversy for controversy's sake (the ending to the sixth episode). Excellent acting by all involved does elevate the story and some scenes are genuinely brilliant. Roose Bolton's matter-of-fact recounting of Ramsay's conception seems to disturb even the unflappably demented Ramsay, whilst Alfie Allen sells Theon's internal struggle to become his old self again with tragic intensity. Sophie Turner also rises above some questionable story twists to deliver some of her finest moments in the role of Sansa to date.
However, it is Stannis's storyline that walks off with the prize for the most howl-inducingly frustrating. Since his introduction in Season 2, the show's depiction of the character has suffered in comparison to the novels, where he is one of Martin's most subtle and complex characters. His motivations are simple on the surface but more complex underneath and he is a character that is determined more by bad PR than reality (the common observation that Stannis humourless is undercut by occasional, very dry almost-quips). Fleetingly, the TV show has shown the same character such as during his determination at the Blackwater and in his first meeting with Jon Snow. But it's not until Season 5 that it seems to nail his character: correcting the grammar of the Night's Watch, nodding approvingly over Jon Snow's leadership tactics and being more fatherly with his daughter. Of course, it was a trap, all done to make his preposterous and utterly unconvincing about-heel turn towards the end of the ninth episode all the more painful to watch. Stephen Dillane was superb in the role, but it does feel like the TV show's producers and writers fundamentally misunderstood the character throughout the series.
Almost as disappointing is the end to Jon Snow's storyline. In A Dance with Dragons, Jon gradually sends away his most experienced men to man the other castles on the Wall, inadvertently removing the Night's Watch officers who were at the Fist of the First Men and fought the White Walkers there. This leaves behind a cabal of men who haven't seen the true threat from the north and whom it feels convincing would turn on and betray their commander. In the TV series this does not happen, and Castle Black is stuffed full of rangers who have just seen thousands of corpses rise from the dead and the White Walkers themselves in the full terrible majesty of their power. The notion that the Watch would betray Jon under such circumstances is laughable, not helped by the climactic Caesar moment being staged in a manner more befitting Monty Python (with the assassins neatly lined up in a row to each stab Jon and utter their catchphrase, and he politely doesn't keel over until they're all done). Poor stuff.
There are other moments in the fifth season of Game of Thrones when it feels like the show is dealing with pure myth: the voyage through the ruins of Valyria is a genuinely awe-inspiring moment of magic and the Battle of Hardhome is the best action sequence conceived for the series so far, a full-on zombie rumble that would do Sam Raimi proud and which blows every single zombie action sequence in five seasons of The Walking Dead completely out of the water. The depiction of Braavos is pretty good, and the scenes in the House of Black and White are creepy. The scenes with the dragons are amazing, the more frequent use of CGI establishing shots gives the show a sense of scale that favourably compares with the best films and the production values remain jaw-dropping. The show still has the best cast on television. It remains, even in its weakest moments, watchable.
But there's also the feeling that the fifth season is a little too disjointed, more willing to lean on lazy coincidence and cliche than previous seasons. There's also a distressing lack of attention to detail, with Dorne's location on the title sequence map not being quite right, Jon Snow's fleet apparently landing on the wrong side of the Wall and the plausible military side of things being completely thrown out the window (if Stannis was really a master tactician, he would never do the things he does in the finale).
The fifth season of Game of Thrones is the weakest to date, delivering some of the worst moments and episodes, but it still manages to shine with some real moments of dramatic power. It certainly leaves things in an interesting place going forwards, even if it feels implausible that this huge story (even the TV show's truncated version) can be wrapped up in just twenty more episodes. But we will see how the sixth and penultimate season handles things next year.
501: The Wars to Come (***½)
502: The House of Black and White (***½)
503: High Sparrow (***½)
504: Sons of the Harpy (****)
505: Kill the Boy (****½)
506: Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken (**½)
507: The Gift (****)
508: Hardhome (*****)
509: The Dance of Dragons (****)
510: Mother's Mercy (***½)
Forthcoming: Season 6 (March/April 2016)
Thursday, 5 February 2015
This early outline for A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE is very different
Waterstones have tweeted something rather interesting and special: a letter written by George R.R. Martin to his agent, the late Ralph Vinccinanza, in October 1993 which contains an outline of A Song of Ice and Fire as then-envisioned.
Spoiler Warning: Although this outline deviates massively from the novels-as-published, it is possible there may be glimpses of future story elements here. There is certainly one confirmation which could be construed as major. Please do not read any further if you are really paranoid about spoilers.
A note on chronology here. Martin started writing A Game of Thrones in the summer of 1991, when the scene with Bran attending Gared's execution and then finding the direwolves in the snow popped into the authors' head while he was working on an SF novel, Avalon. That chapter led into the second, with Catelyn greeting Eddard ino the godswood, and things snowballed from there until Martin had written over 100 manuscript pages. Progress was halted when the ABC network commissioned a pilot script Martin had written, entitled Doorways. Much of 1992 was spent rewriting the script and prepping, casting and filming the pilot. ABC decided to drop the project in 1993 and Martin returned home to Santa Fe. Normally, long interruptions in writing a novel meant that the idea would go cold, but Martin had instead spent a lot of his time working on the pilot also rolling over ideas for the fantasy story in his head.
By late 1993, as the letter indicates, two things had happened. The first was that his initial idea for a purely 'historical' series, merely set in a fictional world, had been abandoned. Martin's original idea had focused on the civil war storyline alone with no magic, Others or other supernatural elements (reminiscent of some of K.J. Parker's novels). Martin's friend Phyllis Eisenstein talked him out of this and convinced him to "put the dragons in". The letter firmly has the dragons and Others in place. The second was that the story had expanded from a single novel into a trilogy, consisting of A Game of Thrones (focusing on the war between the Starks and Lannisters), A Dance with Dragons (focusing on Daenerys Targaryen's invasion of Westeros) and The Winds of Winter (focusing on the Others and their assault on the realm).
It's clear why Waterstones felt able to release the outline: it bears very little resemblance to the story we've ended up with. No R'hllor, no Stannis, no Renly, no Melisandre, no ironborn (the Lannisters instead sack Winterfell themselves) or Dornish, no Golden Company or Young Griff and no Slaver's Bay. The focus is overwhelmingly on the major characters from the first novel and remains on them throughout. The outline also seems to posit either the characters all being older at the start, or that the five-year gap is still in play: more likely the former, as GRRM later said that he came up with the five-year gap some way into writing the first three books, and of course abandoned it during the torturous writing of the fourth novel. Of course this is a brief outline, so many details are expected to be missing. It would be interesting to see if those original versions of those chapters are still around, and if characters like Theon are in them.
More interesting is that the Red Wedding is not present at all: Robb Stark dies on the battlefield, whilst Catelyn is killed by the Others beyond the Wall, having escorted Bran beyond. During the period when ASoIaF was a trilogy, Martin had said that he envisioned A Game of Thrones ending with the Red Wedding, but this outline seems to suggest that if was so, it was a passing notion during the brief period between the outline being written and the decision to split Thrones into two books (and later three). It's also clear that Martin massively complicated Daenerys's storyline by having her go to Qarth and Slaver's Bay. The outline shows Daenerys finding the dragon eggs in the wastelands beyond the Dothraki Sea and using them to rapidly conquer the Dothraki so she could lead them in an invasion of Westeros in the second novel. Speculatively, Martin introduced the Qarth and Slaver's Bay episodes to give Daenerys something to do when it became clear that the action in Westeros was vastly more involved, complicated and space-consuming than he'd originally planned. The complications between Jon, the wildlings, the Watch and Stannis would also appear to have served a similar function by giving Jon more story material to deal with during the civil war to the south.
The outline is fascinating and also something of a relief: it's not very good, or at least, not as good as what we've ended up with. Some fans have suggested that writers should create an outline and stick to it without deviation, but in most cases this would be an appalling idea. The ASoIaF outline shows that, along with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time outline (a very early version of which posited the Dark One as a human warlord from another planet and the Forsaken as half-demons) and J. Michael Strazynski's bonkers original arc for Babylon 5 (which lasted for ten seasons across two different series), refining and deviating from the arc when better ideas present themselves is often essential.
Can the outline be used to guage what happens in the next (final?) two novels? Maybe. Daenerys would seem to be about to meet/conquer the Dothraki with Drogon, so she's gotten back on track through a very circular route. But that was clear from the ending of A Dance with Dragons anyway. The Tyrion, Jaime, Sansa and Arya storylines have all gone in completely different directions as well.
Likely, there isn't much (if anything) left of this arc in the future books. But it's a fascinating look into the creative process and how ideas change over time.
Spoiler Warning: Although this outline deviates massively from the novels-as-published, it is possible there may be glimpses of future story elements here. There is certainly one confirmation which could be construed as major. Please do not read any further if you are really paranoid about spoilers.
A note on chronology here. Martin started writing A Game of Thrones in the summer of 1991, when the scene with Bran attending Gared's execution and then finding the direwolves in the snow popped into the authors' head while he was working on an SF novel, Avalon. That chapter led into the second, with Catelyn greeting Eddard ino the godswood, and things snowballed from there until Martin had written over 100 manuscript pages. Progress was halted when the ABC network commissioned a pilot script Martin had written, entitled Doorways. Much of 1992 was spent rewriting the script and prepping, casting and filming the pilot. ABC decided to drop the project in 1993 and Martin returned home to Santa Fe. Normally, long interruptions in writing a novel meant that the idea would go cold, but Martin had instead spent a lot of his time working on the pilot also rolling over ideas for the fantasy story in his head.
By late 1993, as the letter indicates, two things had happened. The first was that his initial idea for a purely 'historical' series, merely set in a fictional world, had been abandoned. Martin's original idea had focused on the civil war storyline alone with no magic, Others or other supernatural elements (reminiscent of some of K.J. Parker's novels). Martin's friend Phyllis Eisenstein talked him out of this and convinced him to "put the dragons in". The letter firmly has the dragons and Others in place. The second was that the story had expanded from a single novel into a trilogy, consisting of A Game of Thrones (focusing on the war between the Starks and Lannisters), A Dance with Dragons (focusing on Daenerys Targaryen's invasion of Westeros) and The Winds of Winter (focusing on the Others and their assault on the realm).
It's clear why Waterstones felt able to release the outline: it bears very little resemblance to the story we've ended up with. No R'hllor, no Stannis, no Renly, no Melisandre, no ironborn (the Lannisters instead sack Winterfell themselves) or Dornish, no Golden Company or Young Griff and no Slaver's Bay. The focus is overwhelmingly on the major characters from the first novel and remains on them throughout. The outline also seems to posit either the characters all being older at the start, or that the five-year gap is still in play: more likely the former, as GRRM later said that he came up with the five-year gap some way into writing the first three books, and of course abandoned it during the torturous writing of the fourth novel. Of course this is a brief outline, so many details are expected to be missing. It would be interesting to see if those original versions of those chapters are still around, and if characters like Theon are in them.
More interesting is that the Red Wedding is not present at all: Robb Stark dies on the battlefield, whilst Catelyn is killed by the Others beyond the Wall, having escorted Bran beyond. During the period when ASoIaF was a trilogy, Martin had said that he envisioned A Game of Thrones ending with the Red Wedding, but this outline seems to suggest that if was so, it was a passing notion during the brief period between the outline being written and the decision to split Thrones into two books (and later three). It's also clear that Martin massively complicated Daenerys's storyline by having her go to Qarth and Slaver's Bay. The outline shows Daenerys finding the dragon eggs in the wastelands beyond the Dothraki Sea and using them to rapidly conquer the Dothraki so she could lead them in an invasion of Westeros in the second novel. Speculatively, Martin introduced the Qarth and Slaver's Bay episodes to give Daenerys something to do when it became clear that the action in Westeros was vastly more involved, complicated and space-consuming than he'd originally planned. The complications between Jon, the wildlings, the Watch and Stannis would also appear to have served a similar function by giving Jon more story material to deal with during the civil war to the south.
The outline is fascinating and also something of a relief: it's not very good, or at least, not as good as what we've ended up with. Some fans have suggested that writers should create an outline and stick to it without deviation, but in most cases this would be an appalling idea. The ASoIaF outline shows that, along with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time outline (a very early version of which posited the Dark One as a human warlord from another planet and the Forsaken as half-demons) and J. Michael Strazynski's bonkers original arc for Babylon 5 (which lasted for ten seasons across two different series), refining and deviating from the arc when better ideas present themselves is often essential.
Can the outline be used to guage what happens in the next (final?) two novels? Maybe. Daenerys would seem to be about to meet/conquer the Dothraki with Drogon, so she's gotten back on track through a very circular route. But that was clear from the ending of A Dance with Dragons anyway. The Tyrion, Jaime, Sansa and Arya storylines have all gone in completely different directions as well.
Likely, there isn't much (if anything) left of this arc in the future books. But it's a fascinating look into the creative process and how ideas change over time.
Tuesday, 18 February 2014
New SONG OF ICE AND FIRE covers for the UK
HarperCollins Voyager have unveiled new cover art for the Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R.R. Martin.
The new books emphasise landforms and geography, unlike the previous covers which featured military and medieval iconography.
They're striking, but to my mind don't quite capture the feel of the series. In particular, A Clash of Kings featuring (presumably) the Red Waste on the cover is a little odd given that only one chapter takes place there. It's also mildly disappointing that Voyager still haven't recombined A Storm of Swords and A Dance with Dragons into a single paperback volume each, given how many larger or comparable novels out there are available in one paperback volume (The Wise Man's Fear, The Naked God, Atlas Shrugged, The Lord of the Rings, Diana Gabaldon's novels etc). I'm also hoping that the Game of Thrones tie-in note are stickers and not part of the cover, as they are rather incongruous. The current paperback set rather subtly and elegantly notes the GoT reference in a small section on the back cover, which is a better idea.
The new covers will be available alongside the previous ones and will not replace them outright.
Click to embiggen.
The new books emphasise landforms and geography, unlike the previous covers which featured military and medieval iconography.
They're striking, but to my mind don't quite capture the feel of the series. In particular, A Clash of Kings featuring (presumably) the Red Waste on the cover is a little odd given that only one chapter takes place there. It's also mildly disappointing that Voyager still haven't recombined A Storm of Swords and A Dance with Dragons into a single paperback volume each, given how many larger or comparable novels out there are available in one paperback volume (The Wise Man's Fear, The Naked God, Atlas Shrugged, The Lord of the Rings, Diana Gabaldon's novels etc). I'm also hoping that the Game of Thrones tie-in note are stickers and not part of the cover, as they are rather incongruous. The current paperback set rather subtly and elegantly notes the GoT reference in a small section on the back cover, which is a better idea.
The new covers will be available alongside the previous ones and will not replace them outright.
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
GAME OF THRONES Season 4 discussion
Myself, Elio from Westeros.org and Charlie Jane Anders have thrown some ideas around about how Game of Thrones' fourth season will unfold over on io9. Obviously, massive spoilers from A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons are included.
I may expand on some of the ideas further here, but the general thrust of the argument is that I think the show needs to start hitting some AFFC/ADWD storylines by the end of Season 4 if they are going to fit all seven books into just seven or eight seasons, whilst Elio takes the view they can be a bit more relaxed and use most of the season to address the remaining Storm of Swords material. I guess we'll find out in March 2014.
I may expand on some of the ideas further here, but the general thrust of the argument is that I think the show needs to start hitting some AFFC/ADWD storylines by the end of Season 4 if they are going to fit all seven books into just seven or eight seasons, whilst Elio takes the view they can be a bit more relaxed and use most of the season to address the remaining Storm of Swords material. I guess we'll find out in March 2014.
Monday, 6 August 2012
GAME OF THRONES & WINDS OF WINTER news
A round-up of some recent news about Game of Thrones and the books it is based on.
First up, HBO has found its Riverrun. With filming of Season 3 of the show now entering its second month, shooting is focusing on the ancestral castle of House Tully. Gosford Castle in County Armagh is standing in for the castle, apparently with both exteriors and interiors being filmed there.
Looks like an excellent match for the castle from the books, though presumably the Red Fork and Tumblestone rivers will be added later with CGI.
George R.R. Martin has also conducted an in-depth interview with the Spanish ASoIaF website Asshai.com. Martin's interviews for several years have focused on the TV series and very general questions, so it's good to see a plot and character-focused exchange like this one. Note that there will be spoilers for those who have not yet read A Dance with Dragons. In a separate interview Martin has also stated that he now has 200 completed and semi-finalised manuscript pages for The Winds of Winter, as well as a further 200 pages in draft form. This means that roughly a quarter of The Winds of Winter exists in at least an initial form, but given how the writing went on A Dance with Dragons it is not really possible to extrapolate a potential release date from this info.
The next A Song of Ice and Fire-related releases will be Inside HBO's Game of Thrones by Bryan Cogman (25 September), an insider's guide to the TV series, and The Lands of Ice and Fire by Jonathan Roberts (30 October), the first-ever canon collection of maps of the world of Westeros and Essos, approved by GRRM.
First up, HBO has found its Riverrun. With filming of Season 3 of the show now entering its second month, shooting is focusing on the ancestral castle of House Tully. Gosford Castle in County Armagh is standing in for the castle, apparently with both exteriors and interiors being filmed there.
Looks like an excellent match for the castle from the books, though presumably the Red Fork and Tumblestone rivers will be added later with CGI.
George R.R. Martin has also conducted an in-depth interview with the Spanish ASoIaF website Asshai.com. Martin's interviews for several years have focused on the TV series and very general questions, so it's good to see a plot and character-focused exchange like this one. Note that there will be spoilers for those who have not yet read A Dance with Dragons. In a separate interview Martin has also stated that he now has 200 completed and semi-finalised manuscript pages for The Winds of Winter, as well as a further 200 pages in draft form. This means that roughly a quarter of The Winds of Winter exists in at least an initial form, but given how the writing went on A Dance with Dragons it is not really possible to extrapolate a potential release date from this info.
The next A Song of Ice and Fire-related releases will be Inside HBO's Game of Thrones by Bryan Cogman (25 September), an insider's guide to the TV series, and The Lands of Ice and Fire by Jonathan Roberts (30 October), the first-ever canon collection of maps of the world of Westeros and Essos, approved by GRRM.
Sunday, 17 June 2012
Rothfuss, Martin, Valente and Mieville win awards
Patrick Rothfuss won the David Gemmell Legend Award for Best Novel this week for his second book, The Wise Man's Fear. The other winners at the award were Helen Lowe's Heir of the Night for the Morningstar Award for Best Debut, and Raymond Swanland for the Ravenheart Award for Best Cover Art for Blood of Aenarion.
Meanwhile, the Locus Awards were also announced this week. George R.R. Martin won the Best Fantasy Novel award for A Dance with Dragons, whilst China Mieville won the Best SF Novel Award for Embassytown. Catherynne M. Valente won a triple prize of Best YA Book (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making), Best Novella (Silently and Very Fast) and Best Novelette (White Lines on a Green Field). Shaun Tan won Best Artist and Ellen Datlow Best Editor.
Meanwhile, the Locus Awards were also announced this week. George R.R. Martin won the Best Fantasy Novel award for A Dance with Dragons, whilst China Mieville won the Best SF Novel Award for Embassytown. Catherynne M. Valente won a triple prize of Best YA Book (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making), Best Novella (Silently and Very Fast) and Best Novelette (White Lines on a Green Field). Shaun Tan won Best Artist and Ellen Datlow Best Editor.
Thursday, 19 April 2012
Mapping Daenerys's journey in A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE
With the arrival of the semi-canon world map produced by HBO for the Game of Thrones TV series, it is now possible to - at least roughly - chart the journey undertaken by Daenerys Targaryen in the Song of Ice and Fire novels. This has long been a subject of much discussion amongst book fans due to the absence of maps of the eastern continent in the books.
Note that if you are only familiar with the TV series, this article contains significant spoilers for later events from the books.
Note that the scale on the above map is approximate, and all distances given are approximate as well. It's also worth noting that the HBO map (on which the above is based and which in turn was based on George R.R. Martin's rough draft map) is canon only up to (roughly) Vaes Tolorro. The precise location of Qarth and the shape of the landmass around it will be clarified in The Lands of Ice and Fire (due in October), though I doubt the distance will be radically different.
A Game of Thrones
Pentos - Norvos: 550 miles (approx.)
Norvos - Qohor: 500 miles (approx.)
Qohor - Vaes Dothrak: 2,255 miles (approx.)
Vaes Dothrak - Lhazar: 1,000 miles (approx.)
A Game of Thrones opens with Daenerys and her brother Viserys living in the Free City of Pentos as guests of Magister Illyrio Mopatis. Mopatis and Viserys arrange the marriage of Daenerys to Khal Drogo of the Dothraki. They then leave Pentos for the Dothraki city of Vaes Dothrak, which lies approximately 3,000 miles to the east, on the far side of the Dothraki sea. The khalasar travels via the Valyrian straight roads for maximum speed, passing through the Free Cities of Norvos and Qohor along the way. They then leave the Valyrian roads and strike out through the vast Forest of Qohor (taking two weeks to cross it) before arriving on the far western edge of the Dothraki sea. The route they take across the sea is unclear, as the HBO map reveals the presence of a large river and an area of lakes in the midst of the Dothraki sea. The Dothraki may have had to have gone around or simply crossed straight through the middle.
Drogo and Daenerys then spend a period of time - several weeks at the very least but possibly months - in Vaes Dothrak (where Viserys meets his gold crown-assisted end). Drogo's khalasar then strikes south for the lands of the Lhazareen, where he plans to take many slaves and herd them downriver to Meereen to sell them to fund an invasion of Westeros. As we know, this doesn't exactly work out as, thanks to Mirri Maz Duur, Drogo is reduced to the state of a vegetable, forcing Daenerys to put him out of his misery. The book ends with the hatching of Dany's dragons somewhere south of the Lhazareen lands, on the edge of the Red Waste.
A Clash of Kings
Lhazar - Vaes Tolorro: 850 miles (approx.)
Vaes Tolorro - Qarth: 450 miles (approx.)
Compared to her long trip in the first book, A Clash of Kings sees Daenerys facing a much shorter - but far harder - journey. She and her much-reduced khalasar have to cross the Red Waste, a forbidding landscape of arid plains and deserts which stretches southwards for over a thousand miles. Fortunately, her khalasar finds refuge in the abandoned city of Vaes Tolorro (and fans can debate the plausibility of Dany's followers surviving a journey of over 800 miles through harsh terrain with limited supplies) and is able to regroup before completing the journey to Qarth, the great city which guards the straits linking the Summer Sea to the Jade Sea.
At the end of the novel, Daenerys and her followers board Illyrio's ship, planning to return to Pentos by sea.
A Storm of Swords
Qarth - Astapor: 2,500 miles (approx. by sea)
Astapor - Yunkai: 225 miles (approx.)
Yunkai - Meereen: 163 miles (definite)
Obviously, the plan to return home by sea doesn't exactly work out. Thanks to Ser Jorah Mormont's "It sounded like a good idea at the time," plan to stop off at Slaver's Bay to hire an army of Unsullied, Daenerys ends up fighting a war she never really planned, liberating tens of thousands of slaves but also bringing massive amounts of death and destruction to the lands of Slaver's Bay. This culminates in her plan to remain in Meereen and learn the art of rulership.
A Dance with Dragons
Meereen - 'Dragonstone': Unknown, probably a few hundred miles.
Daenerys spends most of the novel in Meereen trying to work out how to extricate herself and her followers from the quagmire she has inadvertently stumbled into, and ends up being paralysed by indecision. However, towards the end of the novel she does make a final journey of several hundred miles on the back of her largest dragon, Drogon, into the southern edge of the Dothraki sea. There she finds refuge on an isolated hill she dubs 'Dragonstone' in memory of the island of her birth. Some time after that, she encounters a Dothraki khalasar with her dragon at her side. And that's where she'll stay until The Winds of Winter reveals what happens next.
Total: 8,466 miles (with a fairly large error margin of a few hundred miles either way by this point)
The map also raises some interesting questions about what will happen next. We know there will be a huge battle at Meereen between its besiegers and defenders, with the ironborn (and their magic horn of dragon summoning) and the mercenaries Tyrion is trying to woo as unpredictable elements. Whether Daenerys returns home by land or sea (or air!), she may find her job has already been done for her, as ten thousand warriors of the Golden Company have already begun their own invasion of Westeros following her (alleged) nephew, Aegon VI. How exactly that unfolds will be fascinating to watch (though I doubt we'll see it soon).
Note that if you are only familiar with the TV series, this article contains significant spoilers for later events from the books.
Note that the scale on the above map is approximate, and all distances given are approximate as well. It's also worth noting that the HBO map (on which the above is based and which in turn was based on George R.R. Martin's rough draft map) is canon only up to (roughly) Vaes Tolorro. The precise location of Qarth and the shape of the landmass around it will be clarified in The Lands of Ice and Fire (due in October), though I doubt the distance will be radically different.
A Game of Thrones
Pentos - Norvos: 550 miles (approx.)
Norvos - Qohor: 500 miles (approx.)
Qohor - Vaes Dothrak: 2,255 miles (approx.)
Vaes Dothrak - Lhazar: 1,000 miles (approx.)
A Game of Thrones opens with Daenerys and her brother Viserys living in the Free City of Pentos as guests of Magister Illyrio Mopatis. Mopatis and Viserys arrange the marriage of Daenerys to Khal Drogo of the Dothraki. They then leave Pentos for the Dothraki city of Vaes Dothrak, which lies approximately 3,000 miles to the east, on the far side of the Dothraki sea. The khalasar travels via the Valyrian straight roads for maximum speed, passing through the Free Cities of Norvos and Qohor along the way. They then leave the Valyrian roads and strike out through the vast Forest of Qohor (taking two weeks to cross it) before arriving on the far western edge of the Dothraki sea. The route they take across the sea is unclear, as the HBO map reveals the presence of a large river and an area of lakes in the midst of the Dothraki sea. The Dothraki may have had to have gone around or simply crossed straight through the middle.
Drogo and Daenerys then spend a period of time - several weeks at the very least but possibly months - in Vaes Dothrak (where Viserys meets his gold crown-assisted end). Drogo's khalasar then strikes south for the lands of the Lhazareen, where he plans to take many slaves and herd them downriver to Meereen to sell them to fund an invasion of Westeros. As we know, this doesn't exactly work out as, thanks to Mirri Maz Duur, Drogo is reduced to the state of a vegetable, forcing Daenerys to put him out of his misery. The book ends with the hatching of Dany's dragons somewhere south of the Lhazareen lands, on the edge of the Red Waste.
A Clash of Kings
Lhazar - Vaes Tolorro: 850 miles (approx.)
Vaes Tolorro - Qarth: 450 miles (approx.)
Compared to her long trip in the first book, A Clash of Kings sees Daenerys facing a much shorter - but far harder - journey. She and her much-reduced khalasar have to cross the Red Waste, a forbidding landscape of arid plains and deserts which stretches southwards for over a thousand miles. Fortunately, her khalasar finds refuge in the abandoned city of Vaes Tolorro (and fans can debate the plausibility of Dany's followers surviving a journey of over 800 miles through harsh terrain with limited supplies) and is able to regroup before completing the journey to Qarth, the great city which guards the straits linking the Summer Sea to the Jade Sea.
At the end of the novel, Daenerys and her followers board Illyrio's ship, planning to return to Pentos by sea.
A Storm of Swords
Qarth - Astapor: 2,500 miles (approx. by sea)
Astapor - Yunkai: 225 miles (approx.)
Yunkai - Meereen: 163 miles (definite)
Obviously, the plan to return home by sea doesn't exactly work out. Thanks to Ser Jorah Mormont's "It sounded like a good idea at the time," plan to stop off at Slaver's Bay to hire an army of Unsullied, Daenerys ends up fighting a war she never really planned, liberating tens of thousands of slaves but also bringing massive amounts of death and destruction to the lands of Slaver's Bay. This culminates in her plan to remain in Meereen and learn the art of rulership.
A Dance with Dragons
Meereen - 'Dragonstone': Unknown, probably a few hundred miles.
Daenerys spends most of the novel in Meereen trying to work out how to extricate herself and her followers from the quagmire she has inadvertently stumbled into, and ends up being paralysed by indecision. However, towards the end of the novel she does make a final journey of several hundred miles on the back of her largest dragon, Drogon, into the southern edge of the Dothraki sea. There she finds refuge on an isolated hill she dubs 'Dragonstone' in memory of the island of her birth. Some time after that, she encounters a Dothraki khalasar with her dragon at her side. And that's where she'll stay until The Winds of Winter reveals what happens next.
Total: 8,466 miles (with a fairly large error margin of a few hundred miles either way by this point)
The map also raises some interesting questions about what will happen next. We know there will be a huge battle at Meereen between its besiegers and defenders, with the ironborn (and their magic horn of dragon summoning) and the mercenaries Tyrion is trying to woo as unpredictable elements. Whether Daenerys returns home by land or sea (or air!), she may find her job has already been done for her, as ten thousand warriors of the Golden Company have already begun their own invasion of Westeros following her (alleged) nephew, Aegon VI. How exactly that unfolds will be fascinating to watch (though I doubt we'll see it soon).
Sunday, 29 January 2012
New cover art: Kemp, Martin, King
Some upcoming cover art:
Gollancz in the UK are reissuing their George R.R. Martin books in new covers. Neither The Armageddon Rag nor Tuf Voyaging have been available in UK editions for well over twenty years. Incidentally, the Eye of Sauron is on the cover of The Armageddon Rag as it's about a rock band called the Nazgul.
Meanwhile, the UK paperback editions of A Dance with Dragons launch in late March. Incidentally, this leaves the UK paperback sequence of A Song of Ice and Fire now listed as:
A Game of Thrones: Book One of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Clash of Kings: Book Two of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Storm of Swords - Steel and Snow: Book Three Part One of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Storm of Swords - Blood and Gold: Book Three Part Two of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Feast for Crows: Book Four of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Dance with Dragons - Dreams and Dust: Book Five Part One of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Dance with Dragons - After the Feast: Book Five Part Two of A Song of Ice and Fire
Seems a bit unwieldy. I think Voyager need to find a way of getting ASoS and ADWD in one paperback volume apiece. If much larger books in the UK can be published as one volume (Hamilton's The Naked God, several of Diana Gabaldon's novels, most things by James Clavell), then so can these.
Meanwhile, there's the first non-tie-in, original novel by Paul S. Kemp, The Hammer and the Blade: Tales of Egil and Nix, on its way from Angry Robot Books in July.
Finally, Stephen King's Dark Tower sequence is getting a new lick of paint for its UK editions. These should be percolating onto shelves in the near future.
Gollancz in the UK are reissuing their George R.R. Martin books in new covers. Neither The Armageddon Rag nor Tuf Voyaging have been available in UK editions for well over twenty years. Incidentally, the Eye of Sauron is on the cover of The Armageddon Rag as it's about a rock band called the Nazgul.
Meanwhile, the UK paperback editions of A Dance with Dragons launch in late March. Incidentally, this leaves the UK paperback sequence of A Song of Ice and Fire now listed as:
A Game of Thrones: Book One of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Clash of Kings: Book Two of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Storm of Swords - Steel and Snow: Book Three Part One of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Storm of Swords - Blood and Gold: Book Three Part Two of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Feast for Crows: Book Four of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Dance with Dragons - Dreams and Dust: Book Five Part One of A Song of Ice and Fire
A Dance with Dragons - After the Feast: Book Five Part Two of A Song of Ice and Fire
Seems a bit unwieldy. I think Voyager need to find a way of getting ASoS and ADWD in one paperback volume apiece. If much larger books in the UK can be published as one volume (Hamilton's The Naked God, several of Diana Gabaldon's novels, most things by James Clavell), then so can these.
Meanwhile, there's the first non-tie-in, original novel by Paul S. Kemp, The Hammer and the Blade: Tales of Egil and Nix, on its way from Angry Robot Books in July.
Finally, Stephen King's Dark Tower sequence is getting a new lick of paint for its UK editions. These should be percolating onto shelves in the near future.
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Details for UK pb split of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS
In their latest catalogue, HarperVoyager have confirmed the titles for the two-volume paperback edition of A Dance with Dragons.
Part 1 will be called Dreams and Dust whilst Part 2 will be titled After the Feast. Part 1 will use the one-volume hardcover art, whilst Part 2 will use a new image of a sword hilt (similar to the unused art above, but with a different hilt design). Both will be published on 29 March 2012. Somewhat bizarrely, the two parts will also be printed as ebooks, although the one-volume ebook will (presumably) remain available.
This is not the first time a Song of Ice and Fire novel has been split for UK paperback publication. A Storm of Swords was released in two volumes in 2001, subtitled Steel and Snow and Blood and Gold respectively.
Part 1 will be called Dreams and Dust whilst Part 2 will be titled After the Feast. Part 1 will use the one-volume hardcover art, whilst Part 2 will use a new image of a sword hilt (similar to the unused art above, but with a different hilt design). Both will be published on 29 March 2012. Somewhat bizarrely, the two parts will also be printed as ebooks, although the one-volume ebook will (presumably) remain available.
This is not the first time a Song of Ice and Fire novel has been split for UK paperback publication. A Storm of Swords was released in two volumes in 2001, subtitled Steel and Snow and Blood and Gold respectively.
Monday, 5 September 2011
SubPress edition of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS up for pre-order
Subterranean Press has announced that its limited edition of A Dance with Dragons, with illustrations by Marc Fishman, is available for pre-order. Priority orders will go to those who have already purchased A Feast for Crows, with sales being opened to the general public after that.
GRRM discusses the edition here. SubPress are accepting orders for the book here.
GRRM discusses the edition here. SubPress are accepting orders for the book here.
Sunday, 28 August 2011
Rereading A DANCE WITH DRAGONS
Friend-of-the-blog Stefan Sasse is currently undertaking a detailed re-read of A Dance with Dragons and blogging on the subject here. Some interesting comments and discussion over there that's worth a look.
Thursday, 7 July 2011
A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
From the Wall to Slaver’s Bay, the world is blighted by war and chaos. In Westeros, the War of the Five Kings continues to rumble on, as Stannis Baratheon regroups his forces at Castle Black and prepares to march against the Boltons, with the northern houses divided between the two sides. In King’s Landing, intrigue seethes as two queens prepare to stand trial. In Dorne, long-gestating plans finally start to see fruition. In the Free Cities, an army of exiles and sellswords from Westeros gathers, breaking their contracts in the hope of finally seeing home and hope again. In Slaver’s Bay, a young girl must try to unite warring factions howling for her blood, unaware that her every command sends reverberations through the balance of trade and power in the world, and even dragons may not be enough to protect her…
A Dance with Dragons is the fifth novel in the Song of Ice and Fire series and probably the most eagerly-awaited epic fantasy novels in the recent history of the genre. It may be six years since A Feast for Crows was published, but it's eleven since A Storm of Swords came out and the last time we saw new material from Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen or Tyrion Lannister, the arguable central triptych of characters around whom the whole series rotates. The risk is high that Martin would deliver a novel that fails to meet expectations.
Fortunately, he succeeds in giving ASoIaF fans a book that is almost everything its predecessor wasn’t. Whilst Crows was tightly-focused and constrained in geographic setting, Dragons is huge, epic and sprawling. The novel covers events happening almost five thousand miles apart from one another, with a huge cast of characters, old and new. Where there are new characters, they are there to serve specific plot points and get the storyline really moving along, whilst some major existing characters are simply not featured where they have nothing to contribute to the storyline. Martin employs a fairly strict POV structure this time around: Dany, Jon and Tyrion (and, to a lesser extent, another character) get a significant number of chapters each but everyone else only gets a few. Once their work for the novel is done, they’re outta there, and other POVs only show up when needed. This gives the novel a busy, revolving-door feeling at times as characters come in, do what needs to be done, and then get out, and gives some individual storylines and chapters a rather concise, focused feel, despite this being a huge, long book. Certainly with these ’lesser’ POVs, there’s little to no time for filler, though with some of the bigger POVs there are rare moments when Martin dwells on a story point a bit too long or delivers bit of background information which, whilst intriguing, doesn’t really contribute much to the storyline at hand.
It’s a busy book with lots happening, possibly more than any other book in the series bar only A Storm of Swords (I took notes whilst reading, and by the end they amounted to a ludicrous 12 A4 pages in length). It’s also the most disparate, and the geographic sprawl would make it easy for Martin to lose control of either the timeline or the plot focus. He doesn’t do either, and by the end of the novel the timelines have been pretty much re-synched (with plenty of AFFC characters reappearing in the final few chapters to resolve their cliffhangers and keep everything moving). Thematically, the book is much concerned with the notion of deeds, not words (the term “Words are wind,” is oft-repeated, probably a little bit too much) and the notion that you can only know people by what they do, not what they say. Disease and pestilence also play a role, whilst for the military engagements Martin expands his influences to include Napoleon’s ill-fated march into Russia during the winter of 1812. These scenes are vivid enough to make you feel chilly even if you’re reading the book on the beach.
This series is known for its plot twists, sudden shocks and major character deaths, and Martin doesn’t stint here. Some twists are genuinely shocking (though a couple have some carefully-built-in get-out clauses), on the level of the Red Wedding or higher, though others are a bit more predictable, with the author having taken care to lay some groundwork in earlier novels. Other elements come out of nowhere: the resolution of a key, major backstory mystery from the very first novel (probably not the one you’re thinking of) is unexpected in both happening with two books still to go, and also in the amount of detail it gives. Another twist is bravely pulled off with almost solely the use of new characters and actually works, throwing almost all of the carefully-constructed fan theories out there for a loop (and it's done with the economy of chapters that A Feast for Crows was at times crying out for).
Characterisation is particularly strong, and Martin seems to relish some descriptive passages. A detailed account of the Doom of Valyria – quite a few books overdue – is spine-crawling and disturbing, whilst another one of Martin’s trademark huge feasts may feel over-familiar right up until you realise what’s really going on, at which point a belly laugh is the only possible response.
A Dance with Dragons is a somewhat bleak book. Winter has fallen in all its fury and it really doesn’t seem possible for the war-ravaged Seven Kingdoms to survive, particularly in the North, with no harvest taken in and little to no supplies put to one side. Some characters are trapped in nightmarish situations whilst others have to be careful with every decision they make lest they trigger chaos and bloodshed. But there are moments of comedy and lightness, and the feeling that in the darkness there is still hope for these people and their world, if they can turn things around.
Towards the end, A Dance with Dragons picks up an irresistible momentum which brings us towards what looks like the biggest convergence and battle in the series to date. But, in a misstep that could have been fatal if not handled better, we never quite get to that climax, which seems to have been mostly delayed to the start of The Winds of Winter. Instead Martin breaks off the book on a series of titanic cliffhangers that dwarf anything seen previously, and only a few story threads find any sense of resolution. But, just as that sinks in and a small note of disappointment creeps into things, we then get a couple of concluding chapters featuring some of the most pivotal and startling moments in the series to date, and the real sense that whatever readers think A Song of Ice and Fire is about, or how it will end, Martin is not necessarily interested in doing the same thing. The ending is impressive, despite the cliffhangers, but brings in a little note of bitter sweetness: waiting a year for The Winds of Winter would be hard enough, but the fact that we know we’ll probably have a lot longer to wait is truly frustrating.
A Dance with Dragons (****½) solves a lot of the problems experienced in the previous book in the series and brings renewed energy and focus to getting this story towards the endgame. A series of cliffhangers, some over-used terms (though "Nuncle," only gets one airing, thankfully) and a feeling that Martin might be revisiting some plot elements a little too freely dent the book's achievements, but a series of emotionally intense and surprising final chapters restore the faith that Martin has regained control of the story. The novel will be published on 12 July in the UK and USA, but given how many bookstores have broken the embargo, you may get lucky before then.
Full disclosure: I am a moderator on the Westeros.org website, the creator and chief admin of the Game of Thrones Wiki and someone who is mentioned in the acknowledgements of the book. Whilst I have tried to have been as honest as possible in my review, you may want to bear those factors in mind.
A Dance with Dragons is the fifth novel in the Song of Ice and Fire series and probably the most eagerly-awaited epic fantasy novels in the recent history of the genre. It may be six years since A Feast for Crows was published, but it's eleven since A Storm of Swords came out and the last time we saw new material from Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen or Tyrion Lannister, the arguable central triptych of characters around whom the whole series rotates. The risk is high that Martin would deliver a novel that fails to meet expectations.
Fortunately, he succeeds in giving ASoIaF fans a book that is almost everything its predecessor wasn’t. Whilst Crows was tightly-focused and constrained in geographic setting, Dragons is huge, epic and sprawling. The novel covers events happening almost five thousand miles apart from one another, with a huge cast of characters, old and new. Where there are new characters, they are there to serve specific plot points and get the storyline really moving along, whilst some major existing characters are simply not featured where they have nothing to contribute to the storyline. Martin employs a fairly strict POV structure this time around: Dany, Jon and Tyrion (and, to a lesser extent, another character) get a significant number of chapters each but everyone else only gets a few. Once their work for the novel is done, they’re outta there, and other POVs only show up when needed. This gives the novel a busy, revolving-door feeling at times as characters come in, do what needs to be done, and then get out, and gives some individual storylines and chapters a rather concise, focused feel, despite this being a huge, long book. Certainly with these ’lesser’ POVs, there’s little to no time for filler, though with some of the bigger POVs there are rare moments when Martin dwells on a story point a bit too long or delivers bit of background information which, whilst intriguing, doesn’t really contribute much to the storyline at hand.
It’s a busy book with lots happening, possibly more than any other book in the series bar only A Storm of Swords (I took notes whilst reading, and by the end they amounted to a ludicrous 12 A4 pages in length). It’s also the most disparate, and the geographic sprawl would make it easy for Martin to lose control of either the timeline or the plot focus. He doesn’t do either, and by the end of the novel the timelines have been pretty much re-synched (with plenty of AFFC characters reappearing in the final few chapters to resolve their cliffhangers and keep everything moving). Thematically, the book is much concerned with the notion of deeds, not words (the term “Words are wind,” is oft-repeated, probably a little bit too much) and the notion that you can only know people by what they do, not what they say. Disease and pestilence also play a role, whilst for the military engagements Martin expands his influences to include Napoleon’s ill-fated march into Russia during the winter of 1812. These scenes are vivid enough to make you feel chilly even if you’re reading the book on the beach.
This series is known for its plot twists, sudden shocks and major character deaths, and Martin doesn’t stint here. Some twists are genuinely shocking (though a couple have some carefully-built-in get-out clauses), on the level of the Red Wedding or higher, though others are a bit more predictable, with the author having taken care to lay some groundwork in earlier novels. Other elements come out of nowhere: the resolution of a key, major backstory mystery from the very first novel (probably not the one you’re thinking of) is unexpected in both happening with two books still to go, and also in the amount of detail it gives. Another twist is bravely pulled off with almost solely the use of new characters and actually works, throwing almost all of the carefully-constructed fan theories out there for a loop (and it's done with the economy of chapters that A Feast for Crows was at times crying out for).
Characterisation is particularly strong, and Martin seems to relish some descriptive passages. A detailed account of the Doom of Valyria – quite a few books overdue – is spine-crawling and disturbing, whilst another one of Martin’s trademark huge feasts may feel over-familiar right up until you realise what’s really going on, at which point a belly laugh is the only possible response.
A Dance with Dragons is a somewhat bleak book. Winter has fallen in all its fury and it really doesn’t seem possible for the war-ravaged Seven Kingdoms to survive, particularly in the North, with no harvest taken in and little to no supplies put to one side. Some characters are trapped in nightmarish situations whilst others have to be careful with every decision they make lest they trigger chaos and bloodshed. But there are moments of comedy and lightness, and the feeling that in the darkness there is still hope for these people and their world, if they can turn things around.
Towards the end, A Dance with Dragons picks up an irresistible momentum which brings us towards what looks like the biggest convergence and battle in the series to date. But, in a misstep that could have been fatal if not handled better, we never quite get to that climax, which seems to have been mostly delayed to the start of The Winds of Winter. Instead Martin breaks off the book on a series of titanic cliffhangers that dwarf anything seen previously, and only a few story threads find any sense of resolution. But, just as that sinks in and a small note of disappointment creeps into things, we then get a couple of concluding chapters featuring some of the most pivotal and startling moments in the series to date, and the real sense that whatever readers think A Song of Ice and Fire is about, or how it will end, Martin is not necessarily interested in doing the same thing. The ending is impressive, despite the cliffhangers, but brings in a little note of bitter sweetness: waiting a year for The Winds of Winter would be hard enough, but the fact that we know we’ll probably have a lot longer to wait is truly frustrating.
A Dance with Dragons (****½) solves a lot of the problems experienced in the previous book in the series and brings renewed energy and focus to getting this story towards the endgame. A series of cliffhangers, some over-used terms (though "Nuncle," only gets one airing, thankfully) and a feeling that Martin might be revisiting some plot elements a little too freely dent the book's achievements, but a series of emotionally intense and surprising final chapters restore the faith that Martin has regained control of the story. The novel will be published on 12 July in the UK and USA, but given how many bookstores have broken the embargo, you may get lucky before then.
Full disclosure: I am a moderator on the Westeros.org website, the creator and chief admin of the Game of Thrones Wiki and someone who is mentioned in the acknowledgements of the book. Whilst I have tried to have been as honest as possible in my review, you may want to bear those factors in mind.
Monday, 27 June 2011
An early escape for the Dragons
Each of the four previous volumes in A Song of Ice and Fire is notable for being released in the UK before the USA, in the case of A Clash of Kings over four months earlier. Obviously this had problems with spoilers being available online for the books long before the American edition of the novel came out, so for A Dance with Dragons Bantam had carefully coordinated its release so it would come out in all relevant territories on the same day, minimising the risk of spoilers. They also put in place a review embargo preventing reviews from appearing in the press until just before release day.
Hide from the searing light of a billion ADWD spoilers!
Typically, these plans have been fouled up by an administrative error. For a few hours earlier today, Amazon.de (the German branch of Amazon) was selling copies of A Dance with Dragons for immediate dispatch. Word spread and a number of fans, including some in the USA, were able to order the book before Amazon realised what was happening and reverted the date back to the official release day of 12 July. Unfortunately (for the publishers), they appear to not have been in time to stop a few of the orders going out.
So, in a day or two, expect to start seeing discussions of A Dance with Dragons appearing in various corners of the Internet. All of the major fansites will likely put into place spoiler warnings for any discussions that take place, so it's a good idea to keep an eye out for such warnings. I've already heard some extreme spoilerphobes vowing not to log back into the Internet until after the book's official release date, which seems a tad drastic, but given the danger of being spoiled at the last minute having just waited six or indeed eleven years for this novel, this is somewhat understandable.
This blog will continue to be an ADWD-spoiler-free zone until further notice, however :-)
Hide from the searing light of a billion ADWD spoilers!Typically, these plans have been fouled up by an administrative error. For a few hours earlier today, Amazon.de (the German branch of Amazon) was selling copies of A Dance with Dragons for immediate dispatch. Word spread and a number of fans, including some in the USA, were able to order the book before Amazon realised what was happening and reverted the date back to the official release day of 12 July. Unfortunately (for the publishers), they appear to not have been in time to stop a few of the orders going out.
So, in a day or two, expect to start seeing discussions of A Dance with Dragons appearing in various corners of the Internet. All of the major fansites will likely put into place spoiler warnings for any discussions that take place, so it's a good idea to keep an eye out for such warnings. I've already heard some extreme spoilerphobes vowing not to log back into the Internet until after the book's official release date, which seems a tad drastic, but given the danger of being spoiled at the last minute having just waited six or indeed eleven years for this novel, this is somewhat understandable.
This blog will continue to be an ADWD-spoiler-free zone until further notice, however :-)
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Want a signed copy of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS?
If you're after a signed copy of A Dance with Dragons but George R.R. Martin isn't stopping anywhere near your town, the Signed Page website is arranging to have its stock of the book signed by GRRM on 29 July. After that day signed copies of the book can be sent out to purchasers.
Obviously you won't get the book on the day of release and will have to wait a couple of weeks, but this may be of interest to collectors after a signed copy. The Signed Page accepts international orders from outside the USA as well.
Friday, 3 June 2011
First review of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS
Publisher's Weekly has published the first (and slightly spoilerific) review of A Dance with Dragons.
The general vibe of the review is positive, but it suggests that the novel has the same 'feel' as A Feast for Crows, despite more important events due to the book's focus on more popular and plot-centric characters like Tyrion, Jon and Daenerys.
The biggest complaint - though one we already knew about - is that the book leaves things teetering on the brink for the sixth volume which, of course, is years away from publication.
Given that no ARCs are being published for the novel, it is unclear how many more reviews we will see before the book's publication in five and a half weeks.
UPDATE: Lev Grossman (of The Magicians fame) has also just Tweeted that he is reading ADWD now and "It's great." He'll be writing a review for TIME Magazine.
The general vibe of the review is positive, but it suggests that the novel has the same 'feel' as A Feast for Crows, despite more important events due to the book's focus on more popular and plot-centric characters like Tyrion, Jon and Daenerys.
The biggest complaint - though one we already knew about - is that the book leaves things teetering on the brink for the sixth volume which, of course, is years away from publication.
Given that no ARCs are being published for the novel, it is unclear how many more reviews we will see before the book's publication in five and a half weeks.
UPDATE: Lev Grossman (of The Magicians fame) has also just Tweeted that he is reading ADWD now and "It's great." He'll be writing a review for TIME Magazine.
Friday, 20 May 2011
GRRM gives a final status report on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS
George R.R. Martin has provided a final update and status report on A Dance with Dragons. He confirms that the final editing for the book is completed and all is now set for publication on 12 July as previously planned.
Martin provides some interesting information on the book. A Dance with Dragons consists of 75 chapters, including a prologue or epilogue (second only to ASoS's 82 chapters). The final manuscript count is 1,510 MS pages, compared to A Storm of Swords's 1,521 MS pages (neither counting maps, appendices or acknowledgements pages), thanks to a final editing pass.
Martin also comments on the book's POV character roster. Note that this is where things get spoilery if you haven't been following the POV count so far. Also note that the comments section may also get spoilery.
The POV roster is:
Varamyr Sixskins (prologue)
Daenerys Targaryen
Jon Snow
Tyrion Lannister
Jaime Lannister
Cersei Lannister
Arya Stark
Bran Stark
Davos Seaworth
Melisandre of Asshai
Barristan Selmy
Areo Hotah
Quentyn Martell
Theon Greyjoy
Asha Greyjoy
Victarion Greyjoy
One more unrevealed POV character
An unrevealed epilogue character.
Martin confirms that whilst the POV roster is large - 16 characters, plus the prologue and epilogue - almost half of the chapters in the book are dedicated to Daenerys, Jon and Tyrion, with Theon coming in a little behind them. Some characters will only have a small number of chapters, like Cersei, Jaime, Melisandre and (last we heard) Bran.
GRRM also provides unusually detailed information about the evolution of the novel before signing off by saying that work on The Winds of Winter - the sixth and (hopefully) penultimate novel in the series - has now begun.
Martin provides some interesting information on the book. A Dance with Dragons consists of 75 chapters, including a prologue or epilogue (second only to ASoS's 82 chapters). The final manuscript count is 1,510 MS pages, compared to A Storm of Swords's 1,521 MS pages (neither counting maps, appendices or acknowledgements pages), thanks to a final editing pass.
Martin also comments on the book's POV character roster. Note that this is where things get spoilery if you haven't been following the POV count so far. Also note that the comments section may also get spoilery.
The POV roster is:
Varamyr Sixskins (prologue)
Daenerys Targaryen
Jon Snow
Tyrion Lannister
Jaime Lannister
Cersei Lannister
Arya Stark
Bran Stark
Davos Seaworth
Melisandre of Asshai
Barristan Selmy
Areo Hotah
Quentyn Martell
Theon Greyjoy
Asha Greyjoy
Victarion Greyjoy
One more unrevealed POV character
An unrevealed epilogue character.
Martin confirms that whilst the POV roster is large - 16 characters, plus the prologue and epilogue - almost half of the chapters in the book are dedicated to Daenerys, Jon and Tyrion, with Theon coming in a little behind them. Some characters will only have a small number of chapters, like Cersei, Jaime, Melisandre and (last we heard) Bran.
GRRM also provides unusually detailed information about the evolution of the novel before signing off by saying that work on The Winds of Winter - the sixth and (hopefully) penultimate novel in the series - has now begun.
Wednesday, 11 May 2011
New UK cover art for A DANCE WITH DRAGONS
With just two months to publication (two months tomorrow, in fact) HarperCollins Voyager have decided to change the cover artwork for A Dance with Dragons. They are keeping the same style - the book will still sit comfortably next to your Feast for Crows hardcover - but have switched the image to match the US edition.
That seems okay. The sword image was a bit old now anyway and the detail on the shield is impressive. Not so sure about the cream colour though. I think the two US versions (orange and silver) may be a little bit more interesting, but this works well enough.
That seems okay. The sword image was a bit old now anyway and the detail on the shield is impressive. Not so sure about the cream colour though. I think the two US versions (orange and silver) may be a little bit more interesting, but this works well enough.
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