[paladin]

i believe the original idea was 3 books. but his favorite thing to say is the story grows with the telling, so it might as well be 30

comparing to other modern serial writers like erikson and bakker(and seemingly cook and donaldson etc), martin(and jordan) has done a very poor job of sticking to a plan and editting. sure, everyone has their own style, but its almost a disservice to do it the way its being done. might as well write the whole thing beforehand and release it in pieces(didnt tolkien do this with lotr?)

[Optimus Prime]

When GRRM was given the money for whatever contract he signed, I'm sure his publishers were counting on him to meet that deadline...or at least get close. That's the biggest problem, like Jordan, Martin has been given too much control and has strayed from the path. Though, all of us buying his books aren't really helping.

The re-doing of his plans, like CB says, can't be easy...but he's getting ridiculous. He's also a little pompous which just personally irritates me.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I find myself getting annoyed with him when I go to his site. I would wash my hands of the whole series, if only it wasn't SO DAMN GOOD! I'm in the middle of my first reread, and it's still amazing. It will be worth the wait.

[Paran]

Worries continue. AFfC seems to be a book that didn't need to exist to push the majors story arcs - all the material of importance could easily have been covered in prologues or the next book. Scott Bakker said this in his interview with Pat:

I know when I started working on The Judging Eye, I found myself inventing a whole series of new viewpoint characters. I didn’t realize what I was doing until I started reading A Feast for Crows, at which point I scrubbed them all save one. I told myself I was adding these new viewpoint characters for the reader’s sake, when in actual fact I was doing it for my own - I mean, multiply the time you’ve spent with The Prince of Nothing by a thousand, and you’ll have a rough ballpark sense of how much time I’ve spent with my cast. The urge to "freshen things up" is almost irresistible, as is the attendant assumption that you’re doing it as much for your readers as for yourself. But when you already have a complicated narrative on the go, you really do risk drifting across that fateful line where your story starts to decohere. Whether or not this was what happened with Martin’s last book, I’m not sure - all I know is that it threw what I was doing into perspective, and led me to take an entirely different tack. It took me a while, but I eventually fell back in love with the old fogies.

I think he's bored with th project and probably happy enjoying the fame and accolades he's achieved to date because of it. AFfC is so far less than the previous 3 books that it should never have been released (like Jordan's Winter's Heart, Path of Daggers, etc). It now seems inevitable that he'll miss June, and who knows when he'll achieve any momentum on his aSoIaF writing after his trips and other project commitments. The excuses keep piling, but I just don't think his heart is into it. Maybe he's painted himself into a corner with the previous books, and struggles to maintain that quality and focus. Time will tell, but I'd rather he pull a JV Jones than release another AFfC.

[Abyss]

AFC's biggest failing, imnsho, was the cliffhanger endings. I'm sorry - it was lame when RJ did it (Matt under a wall for six years) and it's lame here.

((FoC SPOILERS))

Spoiler

Brienne with the sword descending... and poof... end of book. Cersei thrown in jail, Arya blinded...

...these aren't new status quo's like Samwell and Jaime, these are full lame TUNE IN NEXT WEEK (or next decade) moments and it pisses me off.

I still love the series, i'll still pre-grab the hc when it's released, but jeez, this is tedious.

- Abyss, notes SE really puts many authors to shame with his turnover rate.

[Shurque's biatch]

It seems to me that GRRM looks off into the horizon, starts writing and he doesn't even know where it'll end up. Which we all love. But he is also so devious and twisted that he can't keep up with his own forshadowing and scheming so it takes longer and longer and is harder and harder to draw the disparate threads back in to the tapestry. He needs the equivalent of ICE to pick up some of the "off topic" plots and characters so he can focus more on the core that made him the measuring stick for POV writing.


With SE I get the feeling that he has the end and beginning all in hand and then leads us on a merry chase away from it till the last minute by philosophizing and general underhanded vagueness. Which we all love to hate.

And I, too, will be waiting in e-line to get his book (if it ever comes out...)

[Pig Iron]

"But he is also so devious and twisted that he can't keep up with his own forshadowing and scheming so it takes longer and longer and is harder and harder to draw the disparate threads back in to the tapestry.

...

With SE I get the feeling that he has the end and beginning all in hand and then leads us on a merry chase away from it till the last minute by philosophizing and general underhanded vagueness. Which we all love to hate."

Great summary IMHO of what happened to Jordan and Martin both, and one of the things that set SE apart and make him so outstanding.

[Optimus Prime]

aFfC seemed a little rushed, which I guess is acceptable considering he completely started back from scratch after SO LONG.

GRRM and RJ have been linked for some time, and sadly, it's due to the overlong wait between their books. Even rabid GRRM fans are starting to get annoyed.

I'm looking forward to the next book, but I'd like to see him focus on getting this series done. It's his bread and butter.

[paladin]

im just sad because the series started out like the defining series of the era, but its been so slow and meandering that authors like erikson, bakker, lynch, etc have been able to catch up and/or surpass asoiaf just because of the speed they are being released and the editting keeping the storylines mostly tight

[Sir Thursday]

I never thought that Jordan was slow to bring stuff out (I mean granted, the pace dropped slightly, but was it ever more than two years between books?)...it was more that the amount that happened in each book was less and less. Not quite the same as Martin, who's principal problem is the length of time between books as opposed to the quality (although AFfC wasn't as good as the others, it wasn't anywhere near a drop as Lord of Chaos to Path of Daggers....)

paladin said:

im just sad because the series started out like the defining series of the era, but its been so slow and meandering that authors like erikson, bakker, lynch, etc have been able to catch up and/or surpass asoiaf just because of the speed they are being released and the editting keeping the storylines mostly tight

I've always felt that Erikson could do with a little more editing actually...


Sir Thursday

[paladin]

erikson could do with some, but most events tend to either involve character development or legitimate story development. no braid tugging here

[Severian]

martin keeps working on other jobs really makingme sick!! instead of sitting and finishing the job he started. hes doing some wildcards or writing other books with other writers im beginning to worry that he will forget what he wrote in asoiaf

[Werthead]

Quote

Very true Brood. Martin has finally admitted he's waaaaay behind. I'm so sick of his pointless ponderings and musings....I wish he'd feed the beast that made him what he is and FINISH THE SERIES!!!!!!!

Well, why do you think he's continuing to work on Wild Cards? That's the series that 'made him what he is' (a household SF&F name) and was why A Game of Thrones was so heavily promoted at the time. It's unsurprising he still feels some obligation to work on that series as well, especially as it doesn't take 'that' much time compared to other projects.

The whys and wherefores about why AFFC took so long have been debated endlessly, as with ADWD. The only easy answer is that both books had to undergo Page 1 rewrites at different stages (thankfully not so much for ADWD), which is not easy, and that the events of AFFC were not planned for, meaning GRRM had to invent them on the fly and then restructure the rest of the series, which was difficult. ADWD doesn't have so much of this problem (it still contains a lot of the 'original' ADWD) but GRRM did feel that the book wasn't as strong as it could be, so went back and rewrote all the material he had left over from AFFC to make the book more cohesive. This was a good idea. The 'new' version of Jon's second chapter is much, much better than the original and the prologue has particularly been strengthened as well.

Part of the problem may be that GRRM is somewhat old-fashioned in his outlook on writing. Back in the 1960s and 1970s it wasn't unusual for writers to take a long break inbetween books of a series, even series with continuing narratives and cliffhanger endings, to write something else, coming back to their former project a few years later. Jack Vance, GRRM's favourite author, left his second Dying Earth book on a cliffhanger ending and then went off and wrote a dozen-odd other books before coming back and writing the third book 16 years later, for example.

Whilst today's readers want the next book in the series right now and God forbid if the author takes his time to get it right or wants to take a break to go do something else for a while (and it's not like GRRM's ever stopped work on the series). The only reason that SE can put out a thousand-page book a year is because he doesn't do drafts or extensive rewrites, and the books as a result are badly edited, prone to typos and frankly overlong. There hasn't been a Malazan book since MoI that couldn't have done with having a couple of hundred pages shaved off it (although OTOH if he did do that we'd still be waiting for Book 5 or 6 rather than Book 8).

[duckman]

I've given up on waiting for ASoIAF in a way. Don't get me wrong, I'll pre-order it when it's got a release date and read it the day it comes out, but until then, it won't really bother me.
I'm willing to wait so that Martin can write the story he wants to write, which is obviously taking him a long time. There's nothing wrong with that, since his end product is head-and-shoulders above anyone else's in the genre (even AFFC, despite some bad parts, was a good book). He's a procrastinator, like most people (like me even), so I can't begrudge him that. He's also a perfectionist.
Lately, I've been reading more of his early short story work, and it's really good stuff. I'd recommend Dreamsongs without hesitation as one of the better collections out there.

[Dancer+]

I'm not too bothered with the wait for Martin's books, it doesn't contribute to my overall opinion of him as an author like it does so many others. I will judge his work entirely on merit, to do otherwise is perhaps unwise and biased.

Can you elaborate on the flaws of SE's work? The books are quite long, but it's never been a problem for me although I can understand it might be for a random neutral. I've not grown bored of any threads to that much of a degree, although I do acknowledge your point about streamlining the books. Additionally, I've not ran into (m)any typos or outright poor editing personally, but I'm not so much a critic of the finer points such as yourself, it's a talent I lack perhaps.

[Pig Iron]

Martin can wait as a long as he likes, time is not the problem. Just hope he manages to avoid the Jordan syndrome, where it's tempting to open new storylines and foreshadow great events and then letting the whole thing get out of hand.

I feel safe with SE, cause he probably won't be afraid to do like eg Vance or Cook and just end the whole thing in 30 pages if he has to/feels like it. With SE the journey is worth it, the destination is just a bonus. I can pick up any of the MBOTF and start reading at a random page and just enjoy myself. Which means as far as I'm concerned there's not a single page I'd rather be without.

Oh and I'm really looking forward to ADWD, alot.

[paladin]

Pig Iron;313095 said:

Martin can wait as a long as he likes, time is not the problem. Just hope he manages to avoid the Jordan syndrome, where it's tempting to open new storylines and foreshadow great events and then letting the whole thing get out of hand.

exactly.. ADWD will be what defines the rest of the series. is it the high quality of the first 3 books? or the lower quality of the 4th book? will it meander from place to place or will it flow well from POV to POV? will martin die before releasing it or wont he? etc

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

paladin;313130 said:

exactly.. ADWD will be what defines the rest of the series. is it the high quality of the first 3 books? or the lower quality of the 4th book? will it meander from place to place or will it flow well from POV to POV? will martin die before releasing it or wont he? etc

That might be part of the problem. He knows it needs to be great, especially after the wait, which is freezing him up because he wants to make it perfect.

I agree that ADWD is going to make or break him. If it's bad many people are going to write him off as just one more example of a great start that gets weaker and weaker.

For the record though, I still don't think aFFC is as bad as many people say it is. It is the weakest of the series, but is still better than most author's best effort. (Cough. Jordan.)

SE's last book was also his weakest, but he has the advantage of having more strong books before his first drop-off. Still, he's in the same position as Martin, in that many people might stop reading if the quality doesn't pick up.

[caladanbrood]

If he misses his June deadline, it certainly won't be published by September.

Oh, and also never trust Amazon release dates, they tend to make them up randomly;)

[Kulp Diet]

The thing that makes the DwD wait darn unnacceptable is that it was supposedly just about finished (when AFFC and DwD were being written as one big tome.) Martin's explanation of the books' split is long gone from his site, and I'm not digging it up from the ASoIaF forums, but it basically said this (paraphrasing):

"The problem with publishing this novel was the size. So my publisher and I agreed to split it into two. The good news is that the first installment, AFFC, will be released in Nov. 2005, and since ADwD has mostly been written, you can expect a much shorter wait for its release--most likely 1 year following AFFC."

B.S., of course, as he is still muddling around with DwD 3 years later when he can find some time to actually write in a hyperbolic chamber free of distraction and fawning fans who would gladly let him urinate on them in lieu of reading the next book in the series.