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[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

[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!