In speaking with Dman, I got the piece of insight I needed to get me past a particular block I was having with regards to Game of Thrones. “Dude,” I said. “I’m halfway through the book and so far only two things have gone on. That thing that happened with Bran and there’s a tourney going on. Nothing else is happening.”
“Dude,” he told me. “You know the story that everybody talks about how they did all this stuff and beat up the dragon king and exiled him after this big war?”
“Yeah.”
“This is the story that happens *AFTER* the story.”
And my mind was sufficiently blown to get me back into everything. Which is good because, seriously, nothing is happening. Tyrion just told us about his ex. Which was a sad story, mind… but it’s a couple of dudes sitting around a fire telling a sad story.
Anyway.
So… what are you reading?
it’s a couple of dudes sitting around a fire telling a sad story.
HBO solves this kind of problem by making it couple of dudes sitting around a fire telling a sad story while a group of gorgeous naked women cavort in the background. I am not making this up.
By the way, you did read the prologue, right?
Okay, fine. Yes. The monsters that everybody has more or less forgotten about have surfaced again in the prologue.
So three things. One of which happened in the prologue.
I’m trying hard to avoid spoilers.
The guy who Ned Stark executed in the first chapter — you know who he was. Think about how wasteful it was to kill him without finding out what made him desert, and what that tells you about both Westeros and the individuals involved.
Also, be patient. Stuff will happen.
Well, whilst out and about driving today, I gave this more thought.
Stuff I’ve also seen:
(Granted, it’s mostly seeds)
Jon (or is it John?) Snow going up to the wall and showing initiative… he’s going to end up running the place, I reckon. He’s teaching his friends better than the old master taught them, he’s finding jobs for the seemingly useless guys on the team, he’s showing himself to be a damn fine leader of riff-raff.
Bran talked with that crow or raven or whatever it was in his dream. I get the feeling that there were two entities in that conversation rather than just Bran’s subconscious manifesting the things his body was going through.
While that knife may have been Tyrion’s, the assassin did not get it from Tyrion. Tyrion got set up. God knows why, because there was no way to know that the assassin would fail… but, apparently, he was. Tyrion knows that he was set up. As much reason as he has to hold this against what’s-her-face, he has reason to hold it against whomever set him up more.
Daenerys is slowly turning from an object into a subject. The chapter where she saw her brother as if it were the first time was a really sweet chapter.
Sansa is, I suppose, supposed to irritate me with her overwhelming chickiness to allow me to be impressed with her later, I suppose (after the reason they cast Sean Bean as Ned comes to fruition).
Anya impresses the heck out of me… and, in the same vein, that’s to allow me to be disappointed when she gets the smack laid down upon her.
So there are a lot of little dynamics going on and they’re all very, very interesting. It’s just that I got into this book expecting High Fantasy… and, instead, I’m getting high political intrigue in a world where the dragons are dead, magic is gone, and the bad guys have already been vanquished across the sea to a land of people who do things differently than we do.
If I have a problem, they’re surely with my expectations rather than with the book.
(That doesn’t entirely help *ME*, of course…)
Messing with your expectations is a big part of what Martin is up to. In fact, while your analysis is annoyingly accurate (that is, you’re way ahead of where I was at the same point), it’s not 100%, because he’s messing with that level of expectation too.
And if I say much more, I will spoil things, so I’ll shut up now.
There’s some high fantasy coming, don’t you worry.
That said, these books to a large extent are about (as I mentioned in my post about the TV show, which you likely didn’t read, due to spoilers) history, in all the ways you might mean the saying, “This is about history”. A lot of the first book is about past and future more than it’s about present, so it can seem a little beside-the-point. But you’ll be rewarded later for paying attention to the past here – and dman is right, this really is the book that comes after the great war story you thought you might be reading.
All that said, the prologue and the final few pages serve as a nice set of bookends that scream, “HEY THIS BOOK IS HIGH FANTASY!!”
Book is slow, I agree. But Tyrion-scapades are something happening!
Also, I describe GoT as Dallas in the Medieval Ages. To a large extent, it’s accurate — even if the reason I say it is just to piss off GRRM.
Mr. Schilling, one of choices I thought was curious jura gurl znqr gur fperracynl bhg bs gur obbx jnf gung va gur obbx, gur thl jnf na byq irgrena, ohg va gur fubj, vg jnf gur lbhat thl. Gubhtug gung punatr xvaqn qrgenpgrq sebz gur cbvag (juvpu V nterr jvgu lbh ba) “url! vs lbhe byq irgrena vf syrrvat va srne, znlor lbh tbg n ceboyrz?!” What do you think?
That flew right past me at the time, but I completely agree. V guvax gur gryrivfvba jevgref jrag sbe bhg flzcngul sbe gur lbhat xvq jub’f va jnl bire uvf urnq, naq ybfg gur cbvag lbh whfg znqr.
Just started Jonah Lehrer’s “Imagine: How Creativity Works”. An end-of-year gift from a student. Seems really interesting.
I am thisclose to being done with “Invisible Cities.” As I’ve mentioned in another thread somewhere, it’s a really short book I should have finished ages ago, but I keep going back and re-reading bits because they’re all so fishing beautiful.
And then it’s on to “Ubik.” I am really hoping that a certain writer of very short book reviews (I hope you know who you are) participates in the conversation we’re supposed to be having about that one.
Ach. UBIK makes me so sad, as a work in itself, but also because I can’t help thinking about it in connection with the first showings of Dick’s mental illness(es), that it’s unlikely. A brilliant book, but once was enough.
(I am very interested to read what you all think of it while/after reading, though. So I will be paying attention :). )
*sad sigh*
Well, I suppose I can understand that. But I’ll miss your musings.
Still on The Diamond Age.
I’m also reading The World Without Us on the side.
My copy of Ubik is purchased and ready.
On a whim I set the DVR to tape every episode of Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time a while back when they had a marathon. I think there’s something wrong with me that I find it so entertaining to watch without the influence of any sort or mind-altering substances.
Oh, and we’re going to re-watch Alien tonight. I say it’s just going to make us even more disappointed in Prometheus, but Mrs. P. is convinced it will help us pretend it didn’t happen.
In the middle of Thinking, Fast and Slow, just started Ricci’s novel The Origin of Species, just finished The Wise Man’s Fear.
I read about half of Thinking Fast & Slow, but I got the sinking feeling that we were in for more explaining how System 1 dances like this and System 2 dances like this and I kind of already had that part down. I’d love to hear if I was wrong about that.
I’m having a bit of that feeling myself; will let you know whether or not we are right once I finish it.
I’ve just started reading that.
Just finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns yesterday and am going to start on Fifty Shades Freer as soon as I have a second.
Oh, and one of the questions Maribou has (consistently!) had for me is “Has Ned done that stupid thing yet?”
I came to her today and said “Ned sent that team against the mountain guy!”
She said “oh, yeah, that. Yeah, that wasn’t what I was thinking of.”
So there’s that.
*cough*
s / one of the questions Maribou has had for me / one of the things Jaybird keeps fretting about that Maribou assures him will eventually happen
Love you honey!
I love you too, honeybear!
The weird thing is the notion that Ned only does one stupid thing.
Of all of the stupid things I’ve seen so far, they were all within acceptable tolerances of stupidity.
I get the feeling that the event coming up, whatever it is, falls outside of these acceptable tolerances.
Fair. I’m assuming I know what she means, and it really is on the order of “uh, Ned, have you ever been to anywhere before?”
“Starker, this is the North, we don’t do-do-do here!”
“But, Ned, we’re not in the North. We’re in King’s Landing.”
“Oh. Fuck.”
You remember your essay about plot armor?
The one about how nobody in this book has it?
Soon you’ll upgrade to ‘everyone has a permanent -2 to their ‘save vs. dire consequences from minor stupidity rolls’.
Most books have one idiot ball. This one juggles a dozen idiot balls, and only one set of plot armor.
I’m now at the top of the library request list for the new Robert Caro book, so that should be imminent.
Also, I’m trying not to let my gratitude to my son for taking me to watch the Giants today be tainted by the fact that it was the worst fishing game I’ve ever seen in my life. They couldn’t hit, or pitch, or catch the ball, or even run the bases. (Seriously, have you ever seen a double play where both outs were baserunning gaffes?) I just finished fixing some bugs I’d promised to get to this weekend, and that was actually more fun than the game was.
But he did a nice thing for me today. Really.
Skip (angry): You lollygag the ball around the infield. You lollygag your way down to first. You lollygag in and out of the dugout. You know what that makes you? Larry!?
Larry (deadpan): Lollygaggers!
Skip (disgusted): Lollygaggers.
Just finished Best Served Cold, and I unreservedly recommend all five of Joe Abercrombie’s books. They are all excellent.
Next up is Ubik, I do believe.