(no subject)

[mamculuna]

In anticipation of next year's HBO miniseries, I've been re-reading GRR Martiin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Unlike my experience with constantly re-reading Tolkien, I'm finding that this doesn't hold up quite as well. Maybe it's because some of the pleasure of ASOIAF is the suspense of certain parts, and once I know what's going to happen, it's not quite as interesting--whereas my pleasure in Tolkien seems to be more just living in Middle Earth for a while.

But also, just finished King's Under the Dome, and while reading that, noticed something about my taste in books that may also apply to ASOIAF. King for sure, and maybe Martin to some extent, don't so much tightly plot towards a climax, but instead sort of pile on the terrible things, occasionally throwing in something that advances the overall plot arc, but often including scenes of--horror, treachery, you name it--that aren't necessary. Of course, that means we get great long books to lose ourselves in with suspense drawn out over many pages, but somehow, after a while, I get to where I'm thinking, "So another grisly death! Who cares! Just Get On With It!" Not fair to Martin, who is much better than King in many ways, but still.

So maybe I need to go back to reading mysteries only...

Meanwhile, when I finish A Game of Thrones, I'm going to give Martin a break and read The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova's new book. As I recall, The Historian was well-plotted, but that might be wishful remembering.

Comments

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

I sometimes think of Ice & Fire as being like Lost, where it starts out great, but then around the middle as more and more time passes and more things pile on it's hard to believe that it's all going to come together and make sense. If Martin could just come up with an end date (and stick to it), it might, like Lost, be re-invigorating for the whole series.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Lost was another one that was in my mind--it's almost as though GRRM's first book was headed toward being a stand-alone, and then got unwieldy and then got completely out of hand. I would still like to see the implied conclusion, but not sure I'm up for re-reading some of the last book so far, which to me is the one that got most out of hand.

Heh--I made a comment on a fan board about hoping that the miniseries wouldn't turn out like the SyFY Wizard of Earthsea, and GRRM himself (or a minion pretending to be him, at least) answered that HBO was much better and would never do a thing like that. Let's hope!

[ngakmafaery.livejournal.com]

...I didn't read much of that series since he showed so much casual cruelty to the characters, whom he made likeable and then killed abruptly: it was like having an abusive relationship with an author, and I left him...! ahahaha! Also, my cousin told me there is a lot of incest and pedophilia presented as being okay, which would turn me off...so I'm not going to pursue the series...

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I didn't see the incest and pedophilia presented as okay, just as existing, which might be enough to turn some people off. I don't mind killing off major characters, but the gruesomeness of some of the deaths was a little hard to take.

[lakrids404.livejournal.com]

I tried to reread "A song of ire and ice" but I stopped again. It feelt so slow moving when you follows so many different characters. Then agian its strength is that you follow so many different characters from heroes to sinners, and you get for most of them a understanding of why they behave the way they do, even if you can't condone it.
I will probably try to reread it again another time.

If I may recommend Steven Brust's "Vlad Taltos" books. It's a universe that I like to go back and reread. And it helps that books are relative short about 200 pages, compared to the normal epic fantasy book. And many of them have crime thriller development structure.
The main character in the beginning a minor crime boss / assassin, he also is human. Which means that he a member of a oppressed racial minority, ruled by elfs. And what I really like is, that he is not a static character. As the books develops, they gets more meatier and perhaps more serius, which some, like me, likes, and others don't. The writer likes to chances and not write the same book again and again, for example is number books numbers six and seven, is the narrator not Vlad Taltos, but a person he works with.
The books publishing order and the chronological order is not same, for me is that not a problem.
There is three omnibus books of first seven books "The Book Jhereg", "The Book of Taltos" and "The Book of Athyra"

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Other people have recommended those. I read one short book from the series, but haven't gotten started on the whole thing. I'm glad you reminded me that I really would like to read that series.

And I will finish re-reading Song of Ice and Fire--just don't like it quite as much as I did the first time. I agree that GRRM does a great job of getting into the characters' heads.

[charged-chaos.livejournal.com]

"sort of pile on the terrible things . . . that aren't necessary.

This is why I could never get into King.