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Most post-apocalyptic fiction is at least vaguely antitechnology, though, isn't it? Canticle, perhaps the most respected one in the genre, certainly is... Ditto Earth Abides and Alas, Babylon. The only one that strikes me as being otherwise is probably Lucifer's Hammer. I suppose Hammer is a closer match to The Stand in that they both share more of a proximity to the apocalyptic event than the others.
Having plowed through Under the Dome & 11/22/63 fairly recently as if they were short stories, though (not to mention, having finally gotten around to them after several years of procrastination for no particular reason, Duma Key & Lisey's Story), maybe it's time.
(sarcasm)I guess subversion of fantasy tropes is all right for people who can't handle magical realism...(/sarcasm)
Can we not just read fantasy novels anymore? Tropes and subversion and magical realism and impossibilist fiction; to hell with all of it. If we want to talk about this stuff and figure it out, then let's do that and not beat it to death with jargon. Imagine telling Jack Vance that he had subverted a trope. Sounds like Batman fighting electric eels by reversing their polarity. Damn your poxy eyes.
Or that's what I told the police, anyway.
(This diatribe is not directed at The Good Face personally; it's been building up for a while and he was just the inadvertent trigger.)
'Pax Romana' is by far my favorite Hickman, with 'Red Wing' and 'Transhuman' also good value. Not sure about 'Nightly News' yet. He's now doing mainstream superhero stuff, too - I think it's 'Fantastic Four' at the moment.
'Transmetropolitan' is one of those books I can just pick up and start reading at any point - leaps off the page. Agree that 'Nextwave' was devilishly good - if you liked that, I suspect you'll love 'Supergod', which is wonderfully blasphemous fun. "I am for that part of you that needs a thing to worship. You are a monkey in a nice suit." Or something along those lines.
And, of course, the sublimely silly, "They told me he shat radio waves. I don't know how you'd ever prove something like that."
Did you actually read what he was saying? He wasn't saying the novels were bloated, he was dismissing anything he doesn't see as connected to, I guess, the eventual ending of the last book(that may never come) as meaningless. "Why does Robb Stark need to exist? Oh, that doesn't count, the entire war with the Lannisters was a nothing burger. Even Martin thinks so! Look how quickly he wrapped it up in just 3 gigantic novels. Arya's chapters? They don't even have a narrative arc, pointless." The things he was saying were weird, and yes, IMO did show he simply has no clue what Martin is even trying to do or why though he clearly thinks he does and it is to waste our time. There are very valid criticisms of Martin's writing, especially of the last two books, ones that on the surface bear a similarity to his complaints but as soon as I dug under the surface of what he was saying it was obvious he literally could not understand how anything not clearly advancing the main plot could be enjoyable to the reader or meaningful, even the author himself. What Martin is doing is creating a vast fully fleshed out world in which he is setting many interrelated stories. It's perfectly valid to question his ability to do so but no, not to question whether such a narrative structure itself is a valid form of literary expression.
Actually who/what Gandalf is was explained in some of Tolkien's other writings (much of which is contradictory)
Tolkien wrote a huge mass of material on his mythology, the vast bulk of which was not published during his lifetime, and his son's full time occupation/career has been "editing" his dad's notes...
" ENG 277H - S201 Topics in English: Medievalism and Modern Literary Fantasy
An exploration of the modern fantasy genre in print and on film, with an emphasis on the reimagination of medieval literary and cultural artifacts as a basis for narrative structure and authorial "world building." Possible authors to cover include J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, T.H. White, and George R.R. Martin, and films such as The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and Excalibur. Alongside these modern works, we will consider limited selections from medieval and Renaissance texts and film adaptations, including Beowulf, Arthurian legend, and The Faerie Queene."
No credit will be given for final papers of the "Who Would Win In A Fight" variety....
And there is where you lost me.
And the best thing to come out of that effort has probably been the wonderful books of Guy Gavriel Kay, who got his fantasy-writing start as a grad student helping Christopher Tolkien whip The Silmarillion into shape.
I've noticed that anti-technology/ anti-science stances seem to come and go in waves
Watch 1930s-1950s scifi/horror and you see a lot of "some things man was not meant to know/meddle with" ########...
Of course in 1945 we set off the world's first nukes, and all during the 1950s the initial nuclear club seemed to be setting a new and more powerful one off on a seemingly weekly basis as a test...
With regard to The Stand's specific scenario- more than a few countries, including the US and the USSR, spend quite a few resources on "weaponizing" certain diseases during the cold war.
Who would win in a fight: Stephen R. Donaldson's Artagel or S. Morgenstern's Inigo Montoya?
I would pay good money.
Bah. Wake me up when King has freed himself of the shackles of his cell phone & the like, thereby joining my own pure self (except that I, perfect being that I am, of course never had any such shackles to begin with) in a Rousseauian state of nature (by which I do not mean Alabama).
I thought we WERE talking about this stuff and figuring it out. That said, if you think "subversion of fantasy tropes" is inpenetrable jargon, I'm not sure how we can simplify the conversation enough to make you happy.
Agreed. There are legitimate criticisms that can be directed towards Martin's writing with respect to pacing, padding, repetition, etc., no question. But the standards Tshipman is applying would, if applied to virtually any other work of fiction, render much of their content meaningless and filled with "nothingburgers" as well.
No SM Stirling? Wait - that's probably a good thing... Are you going to make this thread required reading or just watch it very closely to catch plagiarizing students?
How are the fries?
Not impenetrable; just unnecessary. This just happens to be something that gets on my nerves; I beg your indulgence.
Might I suggest you try watching the show instead? It is rather faithful and well done and just by the nature of translating an epic fiction to the screen cuts out a lot of what the impatient may consider excess.
We are going to read Henry VI parts 2 and 3 before we get to Game of Thrones. I think there is a definite direct influence.
You didn't go to school with me at Southern Arkansas University in the late '70s before graduating in a mere 2 1/2 years (I screwed around & took 3 1/2, to my deep & abiding shame) & getting what amounted to a doctorate in Tolkien at Marquette, did you?
If so, I hope to god you got over your infatuation with the "music" of Paul McCartney & the Captain & Tennille.
You didn't go to school with me at Southern Arkansas University in the late '70s before graduating in a mere 2 1/2 years (I screwed around & took 3 1/2, to my deep & abiding shame) & getting what amounted to a doctorate in Tolkien at Marquette, did you?
If so, I hope to god you got over your infatuation with the "music" of Paul McCartney & the Captain & Tennille.
No, but that guy sounds awesome.
Writes alternate-history stuff that straddles the boundary between science fiction and fantasy. He wrote one trilogy about the modern island of Nantucket getting thrown back in time to the Bronze Age that, if you go by how often I want to reread it, has somehow become one of my favourite series. In one of his books he cites Leslie Barringer as an author who influenced him. I hadn't heard of Barringer before, but back in the '30s and '50s he wrote a trilogy called the Neustrian Cycle which I managed to track down. If you can find it anywhere (actually, now that I think of it, I think it's available electronically) you may find it relevant to your course and/or interests; it feels very medieval to me. (Individual book titles are Gerfalcon, Joris of the Rock, and Shy Leopardess.) It was pretty good.
Shakespeare... there are all kinds of fantasy novels that have touched on Shakespeare in different ways. Neil Gaiman used him to excellent effect in his Sandman comics. Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters, of course. Turtledove's Ruled Britannia. Poul Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest. A whole series by Sarah A. Hoyt. But I think the best one is Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana, which just feels Shakespearean.
I'm sure it is, but the point several of us have been making is that Tolkien had the good sense to leave the explanations out of the popular story he was trying to tell.
Another example of the inverse ratio between mystery and impact is Hannibal Lecter. You could argue that the character got less interesting with each new novel that Thomas Harris wrote about him – quite apart from the intrinsic quality of the novels, the character is creepier and more powerful when you're not sure what the hell he's all about.
He was & presumably still is. First paying job I ever had (other than mowing yards) was taking tickets with him at the drive-in in our college town. The nerd content per square inch in that little booth had to be through the ####### roof, with him covering medievalism & fantasy & me bringing in punk, comics, horror & sf, not to mention sports.
And yet neither of our mothers had a basement. Authorities were baffled.
Nor even proofreading.
It's amazing how many just-plain-typos there are in modern books, compared to those from the pre-PC era.
Anne of Green Gables: read these for the first time as an adult and loved them. But I'm sort of a sucker for that particular sort of childhood fantasy. In my heart of hearts, I really just want to believe that the world is full of Anne Shirleys, and that life manages to work out for all of them.
Except in 2012 it'd be "Get off my loan," and not fixed because no human is proofreading.
git of my laun
Get out of their way (hey, hey, what do you say?)
Hey! (hey, hey, what do you say?)
Of get way their out (hey, hey, what do you say?)
They're gonna want a union soon
Oil break that's dead on noon
Hey! (hey, hey, what do you say?)
Their way out of get (hey, hey, what do you say?)
You won't have to grease their palms
Shorter hours longer arms
Rise just watch them rise
The rise of the robots
Versatran Series F!
Hey! (hey, hey, what do you say?)
Get out of their way (hey, hey, what do you say?)
Hey! (hey, hey, what do you say?)
Way their of out get (hey, hey, what do you say?)
Metal fashioned into man
No ticker I could drop a tear
Hey! (hey, hey, what do you say?)
Out their way of get (hey, hey, what do you say?)
They're good workers, they don't get bored
Don't get mad at bosses yet
Can we not just read fantasy novels anymore? Tropes and subversion and magical realism and impossibilist fiction; to hell with all of it. If we want to talk about this stuff and figure it out, then let's do that and not beat it to death with jargon. Imagine telling Jack Vance that he had subverted a trope. Sounds like Batman fighting electric eels by reversing their polarity. Damn your poxy eyes.
I feel like if you're reading so much of one kind of fiction that you need your tropes subverted, you probably need to branch out more. Subversion is a way of getting a new charge out of jaded tastes, and is often more cliched than the original version. I mean, how many brassy feminists were there in medieval castles anyway? You wonder how all those tapestries got made, what with the womenfolk running off to war all the time.
The Stand has a better concept than execution. I'm a huge fan of Stephen King but find it to be one of his least compelling books. Incidentally, he did write a fantastic (and very short!) fantasy novel, The Eyes of the Dragon. One of his best.
I'm a big Joe Haldeman fan - beyond the famous one (The Forever War), All My Sins Remembered and The Hemingway Hoax are both great. And again, short, if you're into the sort of thing.
Strangely enough, I'd say The Stand is my favorite, but Eyes of the Dragon is probably a close second...
I don't know. I don't have a problem with an author trying something different, or writing a story where he/she thinks, "but wait, wouldn't it be cool if this happened instead of that?" Often the results are very good. But when you say, well, what you're really doing is subverting a trope, it makes it sound like you've started a revolution or something. I like it when authors try stuff. But I think it's an ordinary thing for them to do.
I like it too, but would you call it short? Medium to long, I would have said, by the standards of single-volume fantasy. Short compared to a trilogy or something, sure.
Hemingway Hoax is probably the last thing of his I read, around, what, 25 years ago? Pretty solid. I also read the other two you cite. And ... I think that's it. I need to see what else he's written.
Something like that. I think a couple of the characters were named after one of his kids and one of Peter Straub's kids.
How often do you really need new tapestries? It's not like they wear out - they're just hanging on the wall.
The ones in the castle have probably been there for hundreds of years.
I believe that's correct -- checked wiki to confirm, but no mention... However, I did learn that SciFi (or whatever they're calling themselves now) is developing a movie/miniseries from the book. Apparently, they have an hour or two to fill in between wrestling and reality TV.
*See also: Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia as opposed to her sister, mother & father.
Some good examples are here.
I gave up about halfway through, but I think I should've gotten half-credit for getting all the words (albeit in the wrong order) of the McAvoy title) & missing the Mirrlees only because I thought the concluding consonant of the first word was doubled. (My being able to come up with only Dunsany collections & a different novel by Thurber is, of course, deserving only of scorn, as is my forgetting what McKillip wrote.) Had no clues about anything after the King, of course.
Oh, I haven't heard of him before. Where's the best place to start?
At least 3 others, unconnected in any particular way, feature nonfictional characters in fantasy settings -- How Are the Mighty Fallen (David & Jonathan from the Old Testament), The Not-World (Thomas Chatterton, the literary forger/poet) & Will-o'-the-Wisp (poet Robert Herrick).
They're all around 190 pages, if memory serves -- pretty much standard DAW length, at least for the time.
I have no idea if anything of his has been reprinted, but over the last decade or so I've had little trouble reacquiring everything he ever wrote -- around 18 novels & a couple of collections -- for cheap via the used bookstore route. (The exception would be the HC Queens Walk in the Dusk, which was printed not in an edition of 2,000 not long after his death, IIRC/ Also, in the U.S. Will-o'-the-Wisp appeared only as a 2-part serial in Fantastic. Couldn't swear to it, & not that it matters, but since I regularly read & eventually subbed to that mag, there's a decent chance that marked my initital exposure to Swann.)
I love all his stuff; the titles in my top 2 paragraphs would probably make for as good an intro to his work as any.
If you want fun fantasy that's not door stopper length, check out the first Black Company books by Glen Cook. (yes, he eventually wrote 10 of them, but the first 3 tell a complete story, and in less than 1000 pages total)
Seconded. I loved The Stand, and the 4 part mini series they made of it is one of my favorite movies, too. Eyes of the Dragon was great as well.
What did other King fans think of the Dark Tower/Gunslinger series? I thought the first two books were okay, the 3rd and 4th ones were fantastic, and then it was all downhill from there. The 6th book in particular was especially useless.
I'll be honest, I consider myself a relatively smart guy. But the delays in the DT series and the complexity of the story really hurt it. I actually had to read the companion in order to figure out what exactly King was trying to do by the end. Of course, that coupled with a complete lack of pay-off in the later books really hurt it in my eyes. I imagine that a subsequent reading might be enjoyable, but I haven't girded myself up for such an endeavor yet.
'Salem's Lot 1975
The Shining 1977
Rage 1977
Night Shift 1978
The Stand 1978
The Long Walk 1979
The Dead Zone 1979
Firestarter 1980
Roadwork 1981
The Running Man 1982
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger 1982
Different Seasons 1982
Christine 1983
Pet Sematary 1983
The Talisman 1984
Thinner 1984
The Bachman Books 1985
It 1986
The Eyes of the Dragon 1987
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three 1987
Misery 1987
The Tommyknockers 1987
The Dark Half 1989
The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition 1990
Four Past Midnight 1990
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands 1991
Needful Things 1991
Gerald's Game 1992
The Green Mile 1996
Desperation 1996
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass 1997
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon 1999
Black House 2001
King books I have not read, but have seen the Movie/miniseries:
Carrie 1974
Creepshow 1982
Storm of the Century 1999
Dreamcatcher 2001
King Books I've neither read nor seen:
Danse Macabre 1981
Cujo 1981
Cycle of the Werewolf 1983
Skeleton Crew 1985
Nightmares in the Sky 1988
Dolores Claiborne 1992
Nightmares & Dreamscapes 1993
Insomnia 1994
Rose Madder 1995
The Regulators 1996
Six Stories 1997
Bag of Bones 1998
The New Lieutenant's Rap 1999
Hearts in Atlantis 1999
Blood and Smoke 1999
Storm of the Century 1999
On Writing 2000
Secret Windows 2000
The Plant 2000
Everything's Eventual 2002
From a Buick 8 2002
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger: Revised and Expanded Edition 2003
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla 2003
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah 2004
The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower 2004
Faithful 2004
The Colorado Kid 2005
'Salem's Lot: Illustrated Edition 2005
Cell 2006
Lisey's Story 2006
Blaze 2007
Duma Key 2008
Just After Sunset 2008
Stephen King Goes to the Movies 2009
Under the Dome 2009
Blockade Billy 2010
Full Dark, No Stars 2010
Mile 81 2011
It: The 25th Anniversary Special Edition 2011
The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole 2012
I still can't quite believe how long ago it was that Gunslinger was the "secret" Stephen King book. That seems like another universe.
I liked it up until 5, which was interminable. I didn't bother with 6. One of MY favorites of all time, however, was Talisman. (Not of Stephen King books - all books)
I'd call this particularly accurate, although I'd emphasize downhill as opposed to 'dove off a cliff'. Wizards and Glass was excellent, even though it really didn't do much to advance the series. I'll likewise agree with 254 that the delays in books were a big problem (I'm looking at you, Mr. Martin).
Absolutely. I was gonna mention that one too. It's in my top 5 of King's books, along with the afforementioned The Stand, The Eyes of the Dragon, and the 3rd and 4th Dark Tower books (I try not to let the last few crappy editions ruin the ones I really did enjoy). I didn't, however, like the sequel to The Talisman (Black House) at all. Thought it was really boring.
#255 - By my best count, I've read 37 of the books you listed (I may be 1 or 2 off in either direction; some of the stories in the compilation books blend together in my mind and are a little harder to remember for sure).
Not my cup of tea, judging from the first book. I own the first 4 or so, but never had any desire to read beyond that one.
The first one's a little dry. It gets better (well, before it gets much, much worse). I'd suggest you read the 4 you own and then call it quits. The Wastelands and Wizard and Glass are both really good.
I'm at, I think, 53 ... though a few of those I've never even heard of & wonder if they're chapbooks or ebook-only or something he wrote for the eyes of his BFFs only.
Talisman I got about 30 pages into, then pretty much fell asleep. That was back when it was new; maybe I'll try again some year.
You should check out the 4th (Wizards and Glass) -- it's largely a standalone "tale within a tale" -- there's some DT stuff prefacing the 'story' and after the 'story', but it's basically Roland recounting a story of his youth. If you whack out the DT stuff, it would make a very good standalone fantasy novel, similar in some ways to Eyes of the Dragon -- though taking place in the DT 'world' that's sort of post-apocalyptic/magic/fantasy/whatever.
I think it's really some of King's best work - the characters in particular pop like few others in King's works...
He also wrote a perfect sci-fi story, The Jaunt, in Skeleton Crew, loved that one. I was always hoping he'd do a straight sci-fi novel, just never really happened.
Least favorite King book of all time, so far? Tommyknockers. I actually think following that up by reading what I considered the similarly awful Needful Things put me off King just about permanently. I've heard some of his works in the past ten years have been quite good, so I'm actually looking forward to going back and reading some things.
It reminded me in some ways of favorite sf juveniles from my youth, like some of Heinlein's better efforts in that area.
Loved The Long Walk. And yeah, if a movie like The Hunger Games can bank with a (somewhat) similar idea, I don't know why a movie version of Walk couldn't have been awesome.
My only complaint about Walk was that it didn't have enough backstory IMO. I would've liked more details about the society they were living in and more reasoning behind why the annual event was held, what kind of life were the winners guaranteed afterwards, etc. Maybe it did mention all that and I just missed it; it's been a long time since I read it so my memory could be way off, but all those kinds of details just seemed to be barely glossed over in the book rather than major plot points. Is my memory faulty?
I actually liked the Tommyknockers and Needful Things when I read them, but I was like 13 at the time and thinking back I'd agree they were both very likely awful (as were the movies for each). I think my least favorite King books were Black House, The Regulators, and From A Buick 8. I tried to read Bag of Bones but it was so boring I stopped less than halfway through.
As for his newer books, I actually liked Cell and Under The Dome quite a bit, even though Dome stole it's plot line from The Simpsons movie.
I really like this one, although it's kind of obscure for a King book: his analysis of horror as a genre, what works and what doesn't, in various forms (movies, TV, radio, books). Features a very good (for the time) bibliography & filmography for "recommendations." Great fun, well worth tracking down & checking out.
In that one gef also said he didn't like The Gunslinger but hadn't read the others. I said that books 2-4 were great and very different. Apparently that wasn't persuasive, but maybe the chorus here again will do the trick.
I will also once again voice my (admittedly contrarian) opinion that books 5-7 of the Dark Tower are still pretty good. It's a very different feel than 2-4, which are the heart and soul of the series. But I enjoyed the weirdness of them a lot. And I am increasingly satisfied by the ending, which I now think is one of the best endings to a big fantasy series that I've ever read.
In doing those searches, I also discovered an old post where I said it was very difficult to imagine Game of Thrones having any mass appeal as a TV show. Oops.
Or, much more likely, I'm a hardcore procrastinator. I notice that I said at the time, going on 5 years ago, that I hadn't gotten around to reading his last 2 (non-Dark Tower) novels; as indicated above, I've remedied that state of affairs only within the last few weeks. (Though at the time that might've included The Colorado Kid, which I read about 4 months ago.)
I do want to read 11/22/63 ...
The series ended? Didn't he just publish another one?
[checking]
Now I see that this latest book is billed as part 4.5 of the series.
Is Under the Dome worth reading? I own it, but haven't cracked the spine.
It's been a long time since I read it. I figured there probably was more backstory than I remembered. From what I could recall it just didn't seem like they went into it that much or that it was a very important part of the story. Still a great read, though.
I liked it, yeah. I had a few complaints, but overall I felt it was interesting and entertaining.
I think that the saving grace of 5-7 is that King really worked to give us some satisfaction on little things form the other books that tied in with the DT. I'm thinking of one character in particular who disappeared from my all-time favorite Stephen Kind/vampire book.
That does make me wonder though, I'd bet there's some correlation in the enjoyment of 5-7 with the amount of King books read overall. I mean, the allusions to The Stand, Salem's Lot and such are obvious, but going back and realizing that you're finally understanding some missing aspect of The Mist, IT, The Long Walk etc. is pretty cool.
edit: less "wall of text-like"
Hmmm, I've read very few of his other books, and most of them after having read The Dark Tower. In fact, DT is what convinced me to try out a few of his others. So this certainly doesn't fit my experience, but it's an interesting idea.
Stephen King books, ranked by how much I enjoyed them:
A+: It, Christine
A: Firestarter, Eyes of the Dragon, On Writing, Danse Macabre, 11/22/63, Desperation
B+: The Dark Tower (series as a whole), Different Seasons, Needful Things, Under the Dome, Rage, The Green Mile, The Regulators
B: The Stand, The Talisman, The Long Walk, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Blockade Billy
C+: Carrie, The Dark Half, The Shining, Thinner, The Dead Zone, Full Dark No Stars
C: Rose Madder, Gerald's Game, Bag of Bones, Black House, Hearts in Atlantis, Lisey's Story
D: Pet Sematary, Cujo, Salem's Lot
F: Insomnia, Dreamcatcher, The Cell, The Tommyknockers
It's ... it's like I don't know you.
Which, come to think of it, happens to be the case. Hmmmmm.
Very much so.
As alluded to above, the (non-collaborative, non-Dark Tower) ones of his I held off reading for a few years were Colorado Kid (just couldn't make myself interested in a non-supernatural tale with him as the author), Duma Key (tried two or three times to get into it, but never made it past a couple of dozen pages, for some reason) & Lisey's Story (just didn't find the dj description interesting enough to make me open the cover, though for the first several years I only owned a reviewer's advance copy, which I guess I found even less engaging, or something), the last 2 of which turned out to be, IMHO, among his best. Colorado Kid, not so much, especially in comparison to the real-life case that inspired it (which is why I finally got around to reading it to begin with).
Well, here's the thing. I don't actually like horror. Not that I'm down on it; I just don't enjoy reading scary stuff. I do like King's writing, but I like it best when it's turned to ends other than scariness. So Salem's Lot is just not going to get very far with me, for instance. Look at the ones I ranked highly: mostly they've got other stuff going on, like the worldbuilding in It, the fantasy elements of the Dark Tower stuff, or the musical references in Christine. Cripes, Firestarter isn't really a horror book; it's a science fiction thriller, and that's a lot of what I like about it.
Speaking of collections & gaps in my reading, I've also probably not yet read some fairly large chunks of Just After Sunset's contents. Given my recent revival of interest in stuff of his I'd previously avoided, I'll probably remedy that when/if I can unearth my copy in my extremely disorganized book room.
The first three books are great.
The fourth book is moderately interesting.
The fifth book fuuuuuuuuuuuucking sucks. It's 90% descriptions of food.
You read all the books in a month? Do you have a job? A wife/husband/partner/sexual interest?
I could have done without the Sexing of Samwell and Martin really needed the more nuanced, human Cersei of the tv show to carry those chapters, but overall A Feast for Crows stuck with me in a way that has made me reconsider its value since I read it.
(None of this is to say that Martin's decision to split three of his best characters out of the book was a good one, but I think it stands up nonetheless.)
This is true. Brienne's chapters, especially those where she travels with the septon, do a fantastic job of this. Unfortunately, they only comprise a small part of the book. Also, although well done, I question how well this exploration fits with the theme and feel of the prior books. It would be like the next Fast & Furious movie installment ending with an insightful and well-executed 40 minute discussion of Heidegger's Being and Time.
Also true. For whatever reason, Cersei never really feels like a real person the way Jaime or Brienne or other POV characters in AFFC do. Perhaps because Martin gives us nothing to humanize her, she just comes across as a pure villain protagonist.
Has anyone read Rothfuss's second book?
The pacing may not be perfect, but it does get a complicated backstory across (effectively) in minimal time. On the other hand, some of my favorite books are basically, let's hang with this guy and see what happens (Phillip Rock's series starting with "The Passing Bells" for instance, or "Mister American"), so I can totally see the attraction of Martin's pacing. I'm in the "if Martin writes it, I'll buy and enjoy it" camp.
Just a heads up on this score since e-reading has come up. Got an old fave (Waylander II if it matters) as an e-book. It was pretty clear that they'd just scanned it and didn't bother with any form of proof-reading. Made for some mild irritation. Things like I'll coming in as Ill or some single quotes coming through as a footnote (raised 1) or screwed up spacingwhen the text was italicized.
Nothing major, but I felt cheated. And it's made me think twice before getting any more older books. YMMV
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