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Blade_of_tyshalle
Jul 12, 2009

If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Undead Unicorn posted:

IRQ and co are REALLY pissed that GRRM actually came through on this one. Also their bitching is annoying as hell.

The only bitching seems to be from people complaining about WILDCARDS.

Anyway, count me in as someone who will be mostly skimming Dany chapters. Until that girl sets foot on Westeros, her storyline is perpetually uninteresting and dumb. Has been since book two. She is by far the worst character, and that's totally counting Elayne's endless "will Petyr rape her?" chapters and Brienne's completely tensionless search for the Stark girls. Also Davos and his mindless knob-polishing.

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Ixian
Oct 9, 2001

Many machines on Ix....new machines
Pillbug
If you are super hard up and have an iphone or ipad you can download the sample of ADWD even if you don't buy the book for them. It's 84 pages, which is pretty long for a sample.

Abalieno
Apr 3, 2011
If someone's curious about this little tidbit, here's the wordcount for the novels:

A Game of Thrones: 298k
A Clash of kings: 326k
A Storm of Swords: 424k
A Feast for Crows: 300k
A Dance with Dragons: 422k

Total: 1M 770k

Riso
Oct 11, 2008

by merry exmarx

Abalieno posted:

If someone's curious about this little tidbit, here's the wordcount for the novels:

A Game of Thrones: 298k
A Clash of kings: 326k
A Storm of Swords: 424k
A Feast for Crows: 300k
A Dance with Dragons: 422k

Total: 1M 770k

Yes, very interesting, but how many of those words are related to describe rape?

A Typical Goon
Feb 25, 2011

Riso posted:

Yes, very interesting, but how many of those words are related to describe rape?

All of them. All of the words are related to the true long story of GRRM slowly raping all his admiring fans, turning them into pitiful versions of themselves, much like Theon. It's all meta and poo poo.

Miss Nomer
May 7, 2007
Saving the world in a thong
I've read a lot about how Amazon Germany released some books early, but Amazon Japan did the same and I luckily got my copy of ADWD on the 1st. I liked ADWD and thought it flowed pretty well. Thankfully no Sam chapters and I was surprised to see that Loras was actually burned pretty bad instead of it being a Tyrell ploy

Azzmun
Nov 17, 2006

Lemonrape, all the way down.
It's not coming out.

Aurubin
Mar 17, 2011

After one drat chapter I feel bad for Quentyn Martell. He's the gooniest of royalty.

nuncle jimbo
Apr 3, 2009

:pcgaming:

Miss Nomer posted:

Loras was actually burned pretty bad

Not as bad as Quentyn Martell! :downsrim:

Affi
Dec 18, 2005

Break bread wit the enemy

X GON GIVE IT TO YA
I got mine today :smug:

novak
Aug 8, 2006

Turnin' on the screw
I've been avoiding work all day with the window blinders closed in my office and a Kindle in my hands.

Really enjoying the book so far!

Saltpowered
Apr 12, 2010

Chief Executive Officer
Awful Industries, LLC
I just finished my first reading of the book. It wasn't what I expected at all. Definitely more like ASoS than AFFC.

IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK YET, STOP READING THIS POST.




Almost nothing in this book played out as expected. This was awesome and disappointing at the same time.

Jon: Jon's story was more interesting than previous books. However, he almost feels like a completely different character. Yeah, he's changed quite a bit over the past few years but ASoS to this is a pretty big leap. I don't know how to feel about his ending. I don't think he's really dead. Either he's just mortally wounded or Melisandre will resurrect him.

Tyrion: He has some fun moments but overall I disliked the Tyrion chapters. He was always one of the best parts of the books but his chapters were pretty lackluster. The chapters humanized and humbled him some but it felt pretty lacking overall. Also, Jorah was a douche before but he just comes off so worthless in the Tyrion chapters. Maybe we'll see some better Tyrion action in the next book.

Dany: These chapters were a loving chore to slog through. Dany hasn't been the best character but what the gently caress happened to her? She made loving terrible decisions the entire way. Her romance subplots were boring and just unnecessary. The way that Martin "unraveled" the Meerenese Knot was really lame as well. All that build up and "I can't leave Meeren," only to have her carried out of there by Drogon. Those chapters just feel so pointless after the ending. Oh hey, she's back with Dothraki... weeeeeeee.

Selmy: Loved Selmy's chapters. They were easily one of the best parts of the book. Kinda lovely that he's stuck ruling Meeren though. The short explanation of him and Ashara Dayne was really sad.

Quentyn: Lol. I really don't know what else to say. Another "blood of the dragon" idiot that dies in a horrific way.

Melisandre: It's really a shame we didn't have more PoV chapters from her. These were some of the best written chapters and were extremely informative. I'd love to see more focus on her in the future. I liked the humanizing of her. She is a much better character now that some of the mystery and coldness is gone. The explanation of her powers was very well done. Her saving Mance was awesome.

Theon: Welp. He deserved all the poo poo he got, I suppose. It was a bit excessive though. The chapters were well-written and really showed just how loving psychotic the Boltons are.

Stannis: Much more likable in this book even without much of a feature. However, I kinda hope he is indeed dead, but maybe Mance survived?

Arya: The whole new face thing being literal was pretty loving creepy. Something more interesting better happen with her soon though. Two books of assassin training is really enough.

Bran: Probably the best chapters of the book. It looks Bran is going to be the source of all knowledge that Martin wants us to know but doesn't have any other way of telling us. Between him and Varamyr, warging was well explained.

Aegon: Pretty boring to be honest. Oh look, the perfect heir to the throne has been secretly raised and trained to be loving awesome at every part of ruling. Something terrible needs to happen to this kid for him to become interesting.

Thoughts after reading it:

Are Stannis, Mance, and Jon really dead?
R+L=J seems more of a lock after some of the other possibilities being shot down in ADwD.
Gregorstein is surprisingly well-behaved and put together. Not really what I expected. Everyone seems to just accept him a bit too easily though?
Where the gently caress is Rickon?

Saltpowered fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Jul 12, 2011

Flatscan
Mar 27, 2001

Outlaw Journalist

Well that wasn't worth the wait.

Aurubin
Mar 17, 2011

Duke Nukem Forever, Chinese Democracy, and A Dance With Dragons. What's left on the eternal vaporware list?

9-Volt Assault
Jan 27, 2007

Beter twee tetten in de hand dan tien op de vlucht.

Lawlicaust posted:

Where the gently caress is Rickon?
Apparently on Skagos, with Howland Reed?

ZeeBoi
Jan 17, 2001

quote:

Is this any way to treat the dean of the genre, a master storyteller dubbed “the American Tolkien” and recently named one of 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine? Martin thinks not.

“I loved Lord of the Rings back in the 60s and like many millions of other people I was eagerly looking forward to The Silmarillion,” Martin says. “But it never would have dawned on me to write to Professor Tolkien and say, ‘You better hurry up with The Silmarillion before you die, old man.’ What kind of cretin does that?”

We're cretins. :smug:

Contra Calculus
Nov 6, 2009

Gravy Boat 2k
Welp, got it on my kindle. http://isadancewithdragonsoutyet.com/ This actually now does need to be updated because it's definitely out. I just finished the prologue and it kind of interesting. To any aspiring authors out there, never open a book with the sentence "The night was rank with the smell of man," like ever.

Contra Calculus fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Jul 13, 2011

Miss Nomer
May 7, 2007
Saving the world in a thong

uncle jimbo posted:

Not as bad as Quentyn Martell! :downsrim:
The end of that chapter made me laugh pretty hard. Just his whole "Oh, I'm on fire" :geno:

DKWildz
Jan 7, 2002
Bought it a couple days ago and watched the Kindle grab it last night at midnight during work, but I'm in the middle of the Mistborn series! Decisions, decisions!

Spermy Smurf
Jul 2, 2004
So the book is out, has been out for a while now right?

Is there a chapter summary, spoilers included? I cant tell fact from fiction in this thread... Bran kills everyone to get Super Warg Powers?

I cant bring myself to read the book.

Sexpansion
Mar 22, 2003

DELETED
I have it. It's in my hands right now. This is a beautiful moment.

9-Volt Assault
Jan 27, 2007

Beter twee tetten in de hand dan tien op de vlucht.
i've finished it because amazon.de send it to me early. I've already started the long wait until Winds of Winter is released. :negative:

FormerPoster
Aug 5, 2004

Hair Elf
Charlie Mopps I wish that Joffrey's actor would just play Joffrey like he acts in your avatar, because Game of Thrones would be a lot better if Westeros were ruled by a thug-life, weedlord, give-no-gently caress king of style.

But then again wasn't that Robert's MO for like 10 years?

Saltpowered
Apr 12, 2010

Chief Executive Officer
Awful Industries, LLC

Flatscan posted:

Well that wasn't worth the wait.

That's kinda how I felt. I enjoyed the book. I was just a bit disappointed. 90% of this book felt like stuff that should have happened in the 5 year gap, but Martin decided to write about it instead.

Spermy Smurf posted:

So the book is out, has been out for a while now right?

Is there a chapter summary, spoilers included? I cant tell fact from fiction in this thread... Bran kills everyone to get Super Warg Powers?

I cant bring myself to read the book.

There's probably one somewhere. There is some bullshit in this thread but not really that much.

The great M
Sep 10, 2010

The prince.

And then you.
Here's my small review of all major plotlines in ADWD:



Jon: Jon was enjoyable enough, but dragged on a bit. Jon Dies sucks because if he's not dead it's a sucky cliffhanger, but if he is dead I don't give a poo poo about anything in the North anymore.

Stannis/Asha: Pretty good overall. Should have spent more time with them.

Theon: Early chapters get dangerously close to torture porn, but once Roose comes into play, his chapters get much better. Also eating out Arya, hurf.

Melisandre: Very interesting chapter, should have told more of Jon's storyline through her eyes.

Tyrion: Starts out great, but once Penny comes into play it all turns to poo poo. I hope Penny dies first thing in Winds of Winter so that Tyrion is no longer dragged down by her. Also, if the HBO series ever comes this far, I hope they really make Peter Dinklage ride a pig.

Daenerys: Way too dragged out and boring, ending sucks.

Barristan: Best chapters in the book. Should have been a POV character from the beginning. I hope much of Dany's further story will be told from his perspective.

Quentyn: Completely pointless. If you want to skip chapters, skip those.

Victarion: Oh look another character trying to reach Dany. Wake me up when he arrives.

Jaime: When did Jaime turn into a dumbass? Thankfully, not much time is spent with him.

Cersei: Robert Strong lol. Let's make a zombie into a Kingsguard, nothing wrong with that.

Jon Connington/Aegon: Mostly setup for the next novel. Could probably be skipped.

Arya: Cool chapters, but she seriously needs to get back into the main storyline. I hope it turns out that her apprenticeship is under Varys.

Bran: Finally gets somewhere, but then nothing else happens.



Overall, ADWD was mostly setup, which hopefully means that the next two books will be mostly wrapping up storylines.

Some predictions:
- Jon gets resurrected by Melisandre, the wildlings wipe out the Night's Watch. Jon leads them south to save Stannis.
- The dothraki wipe out all of Daenerys' enemies and she finally gets her rear end to Westeros.
- Aegon opposes Dany because she's not ready to give up the throne to this rear end in a top hat.
- Ends with a white walker invasion because the Wall is unmanned.

The great M fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Jul 12, 2011

Saltpowered
Apr 12, 2010

Chief Executive Officer
Awful Industries, LLC
More likely, Dany rides around as a slave of Jhoqa's horde for a long and boring time. Eventually she fucks her way out of the situation and somehow takes over the horde.

Being betrayed by the Night's Watch, Jon and Melisandre take leadership of the wildinglings and try to save Stannis. They are too late. At some point Jon's true parentage is revealed. Now Aegon, Jon and Dany fight a three-way civil war for the crown. Jon and Aegon both come into possession of one of Dany's missing dragons. They all die, ending the Targ line. King Bron rules a now peaceful kingdom.

Oh and the Others... Bran discovers their true nature and finds some way to stop them.

Ray_
Sep 15, 2005

It was like the Colosseum in Rome and we were the Christians." - Bobby Dodd, on playing at LSU's Tiger Stadium
Cersei gets her pussy shaved by a silent sister.

Ray_
Sep 15, 2005

It was like the Colosseum in Rome and we were the Christians." - Bobby Dodd, on playing at LSU's Tiger Stadium
That wasn't speculation like the posts above, by the way. I just read about a silent sister shaving Cersei's pussy while Cersei thinks about Jaime eating her out. His lips were always warm, but the steel was cold.

Also: Cersei still insane. Right after she gets shaved, she involuntarily laughs in front of the septas and silent sisters. That's, like, comic book villain insane.

nuncle jimbo
Apr 3, 2009

:pcgaming:
Just opened my copy to make sure it's not blank and or pictures of Gurm giving me the finger

(it's not wtf)

TJO
Aug 14, 2006

I had a funny feeling in my gut.
Welp had to skip ahead to the Reek chapters as Theon was always my favourite character and drat. Then did what I hadn't done since Tyrion in the first book and skipped through to read his chapters first and it ended up better than I was expecting, moving from Turncloak to Ghost of Winterfell and finally back to Theon was pretty effective. I'd like Theon to end up as some kind of northern version of Varys, a widely despised eunuch that works for Sansa or something.

SmugDogMillionaire
Oct 27, 2009

by T. Fine
Short Review: The North stuff is real good. The Daenary's stuff is real bad. Quentyn is lol.

edit: Daenary's is so dull that formerly interesting characters become incredibly tedious as they get closer to her. She's a literary blackhole. I also can't believe that 11 years and 2 books after Tyrion set sail from Westeros toward Daenarys, he still hasn't gotten to her. Instead we got him and his pig jousting adventures for around 400 pages.

SmugDogMillionaire fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Jul 12, 2011

nuncle jimbo
Apr 3, 2009

:pcgaming:
http://grrm.livejournal.com/223563.html

I missed this before, but apparently it's too hard writing everyone an extra six words :qq:

Thoguh
Nov 8, 2002

College Slice

Lawlicaust posted:

More likely, Dany rides around as a slave of Jhoqa's horde for a long and boring time. Eventually she fucks her way out of the situation and somehow takes over the horde.

Being betrayed by the Night's Watch, Jon and Melisandre take leadership of the wildinglings and try to save Stannis. They are too late. At some point Jon's true parentage is revealed. Now Aegon, Jon and Dany fight a three-way civil war for the crown. Jon and Aegon both come into possession of one of Dany's missing dragons. They all die, ending the Targ line. King Bron rules a now peaceful kingdom.

Oh and the Others... Bran discovers their true nature and finds some way to stop them.

Honestly, Bronn would probably do a better job being king than most people in Westeros.

Saltpowered
Apr 12, 2010

Chief Executive Officer
Awful Industries, LLC

SmugDogMillionaire posted:

edit: Daenary's is so dull that formerly interesting characters become incredibly tedious as they get closer to her. She's a literary blackhole. I also can't believe that 11 years and 2 books after Tyrion set sail from Westeros toward Daenarys, he still hasn't gotten to her. Instead we got him and his pig jousting adventures for around 400 pages.

She is a giant loving anchor that is weighing down the story. And now she's back with a Dothraki horde? Why did her last tree books of story even happen? It wasn't for character growth because she's actually gotten worse at leading people. Mereen showed us that she is completely unfit to rule anything. She either needs to get to Westeros or die. Let's stop dicking around in the desert and with the Dothraki. Aegon has been in for half a book and is closer to conquering Westeros than Dany.

geeves
Sep 16, 2004

uncle jimbo posted:

http://grrm.livejournal.com/223563.html

I missed this before, but apparently it's too hard writing everyone an extra six words :qq:


If he signing 500 / 1000+ at each, yeah it can suck.

Did you ever have to write lines as a kid? Recall the carpal tunnel syndrome-like cramps that left your hand useless for a day or two?

TJO
Aug 14, 2006

I had a funny feeling in my gut.

Thoguh posted:

Honestly, Bronn would probably do a better job being king than most people in Westeros.

Yeah but I bet his kids would be dicks and it would all kick off again.

nuncle jimbo
Apr 3, 2009

:pcgaming:

geeves posted:

If he signing 500 / 1000+ at each, yeah it can suck.

Did you ever have to write lines as a kid? Recall the carpal tunnel syndrome-like cramps that left your hand useless for a day or two?

You're right, that would leave Gurm unable to write

Saltpowered
Apr 12, 2010

Chief Executive Officer
Awful Industries, LLC
Moving away from the negative, let's do some discussion/speculation.

1. Is Young Griff really Aegon or some impostor?

2. Who is Lemore?

3. Based on the visions in the flames and Jon's "death" is he AA reborn?

4. Who is Coldhands?

5. Is the letter about Stannis real?

6. Thoughts on how Jon will survive his "death"?

SmugDogMillionaire
Oct 27, 2009

by T. Fine

Lawlicaust posted:

3. Based on the visions in the flames and Jon's "death" is he AA reborn?

Yes. AA will be reborn "under a bleeding star". The knight who gets killed by the giant right before john gets stabbed had stars as his sign. John was just "killed" under a bleeding star and he's definitely going to be reborn.

Feels like a bit of a cheap cop-out since it seems like so much more of a stretch then it being dany, but I think Martin is trying to be suprising

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Saltpowered
Apr 12, 2010

Chief Executive Officer
Awful Industries, LLC

SmugDogMillionaire posted:

Yes. AA will be reborn "under a bleeding star". The knight who gets killed by the giant right before john gets stabbed had stars as his sign. John was just "killed" under a bleeding star and he's definitely going to be reborn.

Feels like a bit of a cheap cop-out since it seems like so much more of a stretch then it being dany, but I think Martin is trying to be suprising

I got the same info from that scene as well. It seems strangely heavy-handed for Martin though. I expected something a bit more subtle.

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