What's new
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

George R.R. Martin - "A Dance With Dragons" (1 Viewer)

kupcho1

kupcho1

Footballguy
From not a blog:

Oh, and I suppose you want to know how the DANCE is coming? Work continues. I finished the revisions on the Jon Snow chapters that I was talking about last month, and moved on to Tyrion for a while, but just now I am working on a new viewpoint character, and a chapter set in steamy harbor of Old Volantis. Where I shall be returning, first thing tomorrow.
Click to expand...
earlier ...
I have finally been able to settle down and get back into A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. That's where most of my time and energy has gone of late. For the last week or so I have been back at the Wall with Jon Snow and the men of the Night's Watch. Jon, I think, will be one of the main beneficiaries of my splitting A FEAST FOR CROWS in two. I will have more room to deal with Jon and Stannis and the wildlings and the rest, which will allow me to flesh out their storylines more and bring them to a better resolution... but it's more than that. Although I had "completed" something on the order of five Jon chapters before deciding to divide the book, I was never really happy with them, and rereading them now has reinforced my feelings. They need to be much stronger, and I believe I see how to do that now. Sometimes putting things on the back burner can work wonders.
Click to expand...
and also ...
Oh, and I've also come up with a new title for the seventh (and final, I hope, I hope, I hope) volume of the series -- A DREAM OF SPRING. I like the sound of that a lot better than A TIME FOR WOLVES, which has been my working title for book seven up to now, and I also think it gives a better sense of the book that I want to write. So -- A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, then THE WINDS OF WINTER, then A DREAM OF SPRING. Shouldn't take me long (hah).
Click to expand...
Frankly I think A DREAM OF SPRING sounds too Jordanish, but what do I know. :shrug:
 
Last edited by a moderator:
From not a blog:

Oh, and I suppose you want to know how the DANCE is coming? Work continues. I finished the revisions on the Jon Snow chapters that I was talking about last month, and moved on to Tyrion for a while, but just now I am working on a new viewpoint character, and a chapter set in steamy harbor of Old Volantis. Where I shall be returning, first thing tomorrow.
Click to expand...
earlier ...
I have finally been able to settle down and get back into A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. That's where most of my time and energy has gone of late. For the last week or so I have been back at the Wall with Jon Snow and the men of the Night's Watch. Jon, I think, will be one of the main beneficiaries of my splitting A FEAST FOR CROWS in two. I will have more room to deal with Jon and Stannis and the wildlings and the rest, which will allow me to flesh out their storylines more and bring them to a better resolution... but it's more than that. Although I had "completed" something on the order of five Jon chapters before deciding to divide the book, I was never really happy with them, and rereading them now has reinforced my feelings. They need to be much stronger, and I believe I see how to do that now. Sometimes putting things on the back burner can work wonders.
Click to expand...
and also ...
Oh, and I've also come up with a new title for the seventh (and final, I hope, I hope, I hope) volume of the series -- A DREAM OF SPRING. I like the sound of that a lot better than A TIME FOR WOLVES, which has been my working title for book seven up to now, and I also think it gives a better sense of the book that I want to write. So -- A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, then THE WINDS OF WINTER, then A DREAM OF SPRING. Shouldn't take me long (hah).
Click to expand...
Frankly I think A DREAM OF SPRING sounds too Jordanish, but what do I know. :shrug:
Click to expand...
Just now reading A Clash of Kings.....good stuff. I love this genre and have been reading this series every chance I get. Just a very well-told story.
 
The thing that kills me with Martin (unlike Jordan), is that he is very busy working on several other projects. I was very disappointed in the way A Feast For Crows was formatted, and assumed that he would be able to get the next book out fairly quickly. In fact, his blog talked about it possibly being out by X/Mas 2006.

Big thumb's down for the way he split these two books up and how long it is taking to get the second one out. I swear, these guys forget the very fans who make them famous.

 
The prologue to ADWD looks rerally good. Here's a report from his last reading at some con or other:

Prologue Notes

You'll have to scroll through a bit, but there are several who took notes - look for the really long posts starting at post 11.

 
kupcho1 said:
Uruk-Hai said:
The prologue to ADWD looks rerally good. Here's a report from his last reading at some con or other:

Prologue Notes

You'll have to scroll through a bit, but there are several who took notes - look for the really long posts starting at post 11.
Click to expand...
I'm dying here. This has to be shtick, right? Right?
I didn't take notes at the reading because I was in full costume
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Ever been to a sci-fi/fantasy convention? Some hard-core mofos in there.
 
kupcho1 said:
Uruk-Hai said:
The prologue to ADWD looks rerally good. Here's a report from his last reading at some con or other:

Prologue Notes

You'll have to scroll through a bit, but there are several who took notes - look for the really long posts starting at post 11.
Click to expand...
I'm dying here. This has to be shtick, right? Right?
I didn't take notes at the reading because I was in full costume
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Doubt it - some of these guys & gals are really into it.
 
not much new here as far as release date

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20161804,00.html

a bit about the hbo series:

What's going on with HBO turning Song of Ice and Fire into a TV series? —NYC Fan

GEORGE R.R. MARTIN:Well, the script has been written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, and it was submitted a few months ago. HBO liked it, I've been told, and they're doing a budget on it now, but they still haven't given it a green light. Of course, the writers strike has hit now, so there's no telling what's happening in Hollywood. But HBO is what I've wanted for this from the beginning. The book series will be about 10,000 manuscript pages when it's all done, so the story's just too big for even a series of movies. And there's a lot of sex and violence, which is one reason I couldn't look too seriously at the broadcast networks. HBO can do it the way it would have to be done. I've got my fingers crossed. It's all in HBO's hands now.

 
Man, I was really, really hoping the news here was that the book was done.

Maybe I'll check out this Erikson guy's stuff. Other options might be the Golden Compass or some of Martin's Wildcards series. Somebody recommended them to me as being worth reading.

I'm open to suggestions, but it will probably come down to what I can most easily get from the library.

 
Feast of Crows is up next for me. Reviews have not been favorable though. :lmao:

It would be awesome if HBO picked this up though. :lmao:

 
There's actually a boardgame based on this series called "A Game of Thrones."

I played it once or twice a year or two ago. It's not bad, sort of like risk but more complicated and specific to the Martin world. It's worth playing if you run into it.

 
a new update was posted jan 1

THE DANCE GOES ON... AND ON... AND ON

The problem with doing these updates is that each of them is an attempt to predict the future, and if there's one thing that I have proved beyond a doubt these last few years, it's that I'm very bad at predicting the future, especially when my own work is concerned. I suppose I incline too much toward optimism.

My last formal update on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS was dated February 15, 2007.

If that seems like a long time ago to you, join the queue. It seems like forever and a day to me. When I wrote that update, I was sick of writing updates. So I tried to make that last update the final update, and ended it by saying, "The next update will be the one that announces that the DANCE is done."

Like all my other predictions about this book, however, that one turned out to be wrong. Ten-and-a-half months have passed, the book is still not done, and lately my mailbox has started filling up once again with readers pointing out that my last update is ah, quite old. So in the spirit of the holiday season, I decided, well, I can't give them DANCE, but I suppose I can give them a new update and a new sample chapter.

The new chapter you'll find on the Ice & Fire / Sample page of the website. For most of the past year, I've been rotating the first Daenerys chapter and the first Tyrion chapter on that page, changing back and forth every few months. By now, I fear, many of you have probably committed those two chapters to memory, so I'm adding a third wheel to the rotation, and giving you a taste of the first Jon Snow chapter as well. I hope you will enjoy it. And if you missed the Tyrion chapter and/or the Daenerys chapter, have no fear, both of them will be back up again in the months to come. I only offer one sample at a time, but my webmaster and I do try to change them out regularly.

As for the update part of the update... well, what can I say? The book's still not done.

Last February, when I wrote the previous update, my intent was to finish and deliver A DANCE WITH DRAGONS by the summer, so I could take off for the worldcon in Japan with a clear conscience, and follow it with a book tour through several other Asian countries. Obviously that didn't happen. I ended up cancelling the whole Asian tour and missing worldcon for the first time since 1985, so I could stay home, focus on the book, and make an all-out effort to finish it by the end of 2007. Unfortunately, that didn't happen either.

It is now 2008. I'm still working. There are no short cuts. It's a chapter at a time, a page at a time, a word at a time. I'm further along than I was, but not as far as I would like. During the last year, I had some good days (and months), some bad days (and months), and some days (and months) that I thought were good that turned out to be bad. The book is getting longer, and more importantly, the book is getting better. I've changed my mind about some of the things I said in earlier updates and on my Live Journal, and I reserve the right to change my mind again, though I am hoping I won't have to. Believe me, no one wants to finish this book more than me.

Sorry, I won't give you chapter and verse about the details of what I've been doing and undoing. I've never liked to talk much about a work-in-progress. Too much can and does change. Seeing as how I made you wait so long between updates, however, I'll throw out one small teaser, and mention I'm adding some chapters from the point of view of one of the characters featured in the first lot of Ice & Fire miniatures from Dark Sword, a character who has never had a POV in any of the earlier books.

This summer I am scheduled to travel to Spain to speak at Semana Negra in Gijon, make some appearances in Madrid and Barcelona, and then head over to Portugal to visit with my publishers and readers there. I want to have A DANCE WITH DRAGONS done and delivered before I leave. If that happens, the book will likely be published in the fall of 2008 in the U.S, and somewhat earlier in the U.K. I am pleased with the way the writing is going at the moment, and I think these projections are realistic ones... but as you all know, I've been wrong before. So I am not swearing any blood oaths here.

I probably won't update this page again for quite a long while, so let me close by saying once again that when A DANCE WITH DRAGONS is finished, I will post that news here. The moment I finish the book, I will log on and make the announcement. You guys will be the third ones to know, right after Parris and my publishers.

Until then, let me suggest that you check out HUNTER'S RUN, the new SF novel I wrote with Daniel Abraham and Gardner Dozois, and INSIDE STRAIGHT, the first volume in our new Wild Cards triad from Tor. They are not A Song of Ice and Fire, true, but I'm very proud of them both and I think a lot of you might enjoy them. Both books will be on sale in January in hardcover. And if it's more epic fantasy that you're yearning for, there's never been more good fantasies being published than there are right now. Try Daniel Abraham, try Scott Lynch, try S.L. Farrell and David Anthony Durham and Peter S. Beagle, try Lisa Tuttle and Robin Hobb and Ellen Kushner, or any of myriad other authors whose work is making fantasy such an exciting genre to be a part of... and if you want a change of pace, hop over to historical fiction and sample some Bernard Cornwell, some Cecilia Holland, some Steven Pressfield, some David W. Ball. You'll be glad you did.

Meanwhile, I'll keep working.

-George R.R. Martin, January 1, 2008

 
Sorry, I won't give you chapter and verse about the details of what I've been doing and undoing. I've never liked to talk much about a work-in-progress. Too much can and does change. Seeing as how I made you wait so long between updates, however, I'll throw out one small teaser, and mention I'm adding some chapters from the point of view of one of the characters featured in the first lot of Ice & Fire miniatures from Dark Sword, a character who has never had a POV in any of the earlier books.
Click to expand...
Any über :nerd:s that can tell us who that might be?
 
Okay, I may not have a book yet, but I have covers.

Here are the American and British covers for A DANCE WITH DRAGONS.

American cover

British cover

If I can deliver the book before the end of June, you'll see these in your favorite bookstore sometime this fall.

If I can't, well... you'll still see them eventually, I hope.
Click to expand...
Pretty big "If" there, but still :excited:
 
Unbelievable, I just finished up Erikson's last book, and am waiting for Esselmont's first book to ship from the UK. If you haven't read this series I highly recommend it.

 
Good question. I read the first 3 awhile ago and knew a 4th was out but that it stalled after that. Just picked up the 4th one at 1/2 priced books last night. Figure by the time I get around to reading it the next one may actually be released.

 
I'm done with the series. Starting great but he will probably never finish it. He seems to do everything except write the book in his "Not a blog" section on his website.

 
The Iguana said:
Good question. I read the first 3 awhile ago and knew a 4th was out but that it stalled after that. Just picked up the 4th one at 1/2 priced books last night. Figure by the time I get around to reading it the next one may actually be released.
Click to expand...
thats what everyone that read it 5 years ago thought too :blush:
 
Angus Lok said:
Unbelievable, I just finished up Erikson's last book, and am waiting for Esselmont's first book to ship from the UK. If you haven't read this series I highly recommend it.
Click to expand...
i started the latest erikson and then had a baby 6 months ago and havent touched it or any other book that doesnt deal with how to get babies to sleep since :blush:
 
christ...

i can't believe we are still waiting for this f'n book...

it better make me ejaculate in my shorts while reading it...

 
an interesting blog entry earlier this month from George R.R.:

A Partner for the DanceApr. 1st, 2009 at 12:51 PM Hiya, kids, hiya, hiya, hiya.I have some good news for all of you who have been waiting for A DANCE WITH DRAGONS.It's no secret that I've struggled with this one, that the writing has been going slowly, that I've missed several deadlines. Meanwhile, I've delivered several Wild Cards books (ably assisted by Melinda M. Snodgrass) and co-edited a couple of major original anthologies with Gardner Dozois. And then there was HUNTER'S RUN, the three-way novel that I did with Dozois and Daniel Abraham. None of those were solo projects, of course. I had help with every one, a partner.I have finally come to the conclusion that I need a partner for the DANCE as well, a collaborator to help me finish the remaining books in A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE.Once I reached that realization, there could be only one possible choice -- my oldest friend in this field, winner of the Nebula and the World Fantasy Award, multiple Hugo loser, the brilliant, irascible, and ever-stylish Howard Waldrop.H'ard and I have worked together before, of course. He was part of my Wild Cards series since the beginning, writing the very first story for the very first book, "Thirty Minutes Over Broadway" (JETBOY LIVES!), and he intends to write the last Wild Cards story too, once we decide to wrap up the series. But our collaborative efforts go back decades beyond that. Howard and I first began to correspond in 1963, when we were both in high school and John F. Kennedy was in the White House, but we did not actually meet until 1972, at a convention in Kansas City, Missouri. We took an immediate liking to each other, and sat down at once to write the SF adventure classic that would ultimately be known as "Men of Greywater Station." I came up with the universe, the planet Greywater, the sentient fungus, and characters named Delvecchio and Granowicz. H'ard contributed the military expertise (he was just out of the army), and characters named Otis and Eldon. (Neither of us remembered to put girls in the story, unfortunately, which was kind of odd when you think on it, since we started writing it in a Playboy Club).Now, some of you familiar with the Waldrop oevre may object, and argue that H'ard doesn't write epic fantasy. Tush, tush. You know nothing! Truth be told, Howard was writing epic fantasy long before I was. When the two of us were still in high school, contributing text stories to the dittoed comic fanzines of the day, I was doing superhero stories in prose, but Howard was writing great stuff about musketeers, gladiators, and a whole SERIES of stories about a Sword & Sorcery hero known only as the Wanderer, whose exploits were recorded in the sacred tomes known as the Chronicles of Chim-Wazle (okay, okay, I stole that name for my Jack Vance story, don't tell Howard). He's no stranger to swords, not at all.Howard is as excited as a one-legged man at an ###-kicking contest at the prospect of us working together again, and has promised to jump right into A DANCE WITH DRAGONS and wrap it all up in a month or two, knocking out the remaining chapters with the same speed with which he's knocked out his own novels, THE MOON WORLD and I, JOHN MANDEVILLE. He has plans for some exciting new characters as well. Wait till you guys meet the mysterious knight with the three dodo birds on the shield and his three goofy serving men!! It's even possible that the Wanderer himself will make a comeback, which I know would thrill all of you who were reading about him in BATWING and CORTANA back in 1965.Meanwhile, I'll be in the hot tube with some babes in bikinis, sipping some Irish Mist and watching my TIVO replay of the Giants victory over the Patriots in the last Super Bowl but one. Hey, maybe I should tell Howard to work in a knight called Ser Tyree...
Click to expand...
(note the date ...)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Notorious T.R.E. said:
Feast of Crows is up next for me. Reviews have not been favorable though. :lmao:It would be awesome if HBO picked this up though. :shrug:
Click to expand...
I would hold up on reading Feast of Crows if possible. One reason why I think many folks are so anxious to read the next book is because of the bad taste that Feast left. Disappointed is a huge understatement to describe my feeling after Feast. Without giving anything away, reading feast is like having read 3 books about a really interesting family, and book 4 is all about the 2nd cousins and distant friends of the family. My own feeling is that Feast my be much more palatable as a bridge to the next book... once it is available. Leave the story off after book 3 and I think you are much better off.LAfan68
 
Guarded Optimism

Jun. 22nd, 2009 at 11:55 PM

I almost hate to say anything here, for fear of jinxing it... but for what it's worth, the last six weeks or so have been the most productive period I've had on A DANCE WITH DRAGONS in... well... a year at least, maybe several. In the last three days I've completed three new chapters. Not from scratch, mind you, these were all chapters that had been partially written, and in some cases rewritten, for months if not years. But they're finally done, and I've just reread them, and I'm almost convinced that they're Not Crap.

We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

Anyway, I know I don't talk about DANCE frequently here, and that's not going to change. Sorry, but I'm never going to be one of these writers who blogs daily about how many words they produced today. I don't like to talk about the good days for fear of jinxing myself (all writers are superstitious at heart, just like baseball players), and I don't like to talk about the bad days... well, just because. Writing is like sausage making in my view; you'll all be happier in the end if you just eat the final product without knowing what's gone into it.

But I am making a small exception now because... well, I'm feeling rather jazzed right now, and for the first time in a very long while, I think I can see a glimmering that might just be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Now if I can only slash through the Meereenese knot that I've been worrying at since 2005, I may actually start to get excited.
Click to expand...
 
whether A Dance with Dragons is good or not, at least it will get me to re-read his previous works.... which are great reads

 
The biggest problem with AFFC is due to what Martin did in ASOS (which is generally considered the best book in the series so far). A poster at the ASOIAF message board explains it much better than I can:

The argument goes like this:

Chronologically, the following events belong to Storm of Swords:

The Redding Wedding

“No-One” arrives in Oldtown, killing Pate

Euron Greyjoy’s ascendency to the Iron Throne

Joffrey’s death

Tyrion’s trial, including Oberyn’s death

Sansa’s anonymity

The Dornish reaction to Oberyn’s death

Tywin’s death

Jon Snow returns to the Knight’s Watch

Bran crosses the Wall

Arya leaves Westeros

Dany settles down as ruler

--

Chronologically, the following events do not belong to Storm of Swords:

Stannis arrives at the Wall

Jon becomes Lord commander of the Night’s Watch

--

GRRM did not want to introduce new POVs halfway through Storm, and the book was bursting at its seams anyway, so he decided to Split The Book. By POV. Read that again: Storm is the split book. He moved Dorne and the Iron Islands to the next volume. I think that decision was… ok. (It monumentally hurts the next volume, because there is so much cleaning to do, and the reader feels disconnected from previous volumes. Now all the new POVs have to introduced immediately, and they need to catch up with the rest of the timeline.

More dramatically, GRRM also decided to fast-forward the Wall timeline, so as to include events that play months after the other events. Just because he wanted to complete Jon’s story arc from ******* to Lord Commander. (Instead of just letting him return to the Wall, maybe with “The Wall is yours, Jon Snow!”.)

In effect, the Iron Islands chapters and the Wall timeline are utterly out of synch when Feast starts.

Link

My personal opinion is that the above (along with Martin scrapping hig original "5 year gap" plan) got George all screwed up. Most everything had to be rewritten & rescaled. I believe that, once ADWD is done, the last two volumes will come much easier because he'll have everyone either in place or on their way for the end-game.

 
CletiusMaximus said:
"George R.R. Martin is not your #####"

a bizarre interpretation of Neil Gaimon's blog post in response to a disgruntled Martin fan.
Click to expand...
He may not be my #####, but I'm starting to think he's kind of a whore. He's parlayed the success of this series into working on a million other pet projects and speaking arrangements. At the expense of this series. My greatest fear is that, like Robert Jordan, Martin could die without finishing a series that people have been following for years.
 
Angus Lok said:
Unbelievable, I just finished up Erikson's last book, and am waiting for Esselmont's first book to ship from the UK. If you haven't read this series I highly recommend it.
Click to expand...
I will join those endorsing the Erickson series. One great thing about that series is it is written in such a way that makes re-reading rewarding. He clearly knows where things are headed many books in advance, and mentions things in an early book that may not be fully understandable until five books later. If you are waiting for book #8 to come out, you can go back and re-read books 1-7 and it is as if you are reading a whole new story, or at least you see some things very differently.
 
dancer said:
Angus Lok said:
Unbelievable, I just finished up Erikson's last book, and am waiting for Esselmont's first book to ship from the UK. If you haven't read this series I highly recommend it.
Click to expand...
I will join those endorsing the Erickson series. One great thing about that series is it is written in such a way that makes re-reading rewarding. He clearly knows where things are headed many books in advance, and mentions things in an early book that may not be fully understandable until five books later. If you are waiting for book #8 to come out, you can go back and re-read books 1-7 and it is as if you are reading a whole new story, or at least you see some things very differently.
Click to expand...
guessing your fbg handle is a malazan reference?
 
Fiddles said:
dancer said:
Angus Lok said:
Unbelievable, I just finished up Erikson's last book, and am waiting for Esselmont's first book to ship from the UK. If you haven't read this series I highly recommend it.
Click to expand...
I will join those endorsing the Erickson series. One great thing about that series is it is written in such a way that makes re-reading rewarding. He clearly knows where things are headed many books in advance, and mentions things in an early book that may not be fully understandable until five books later. If you are waiting for book #8 to come out, you can go back and re-read books 1-7 and it is as if you are reading a whole new story, or at least you see some things very differently.
Click to expand...
guessing your fbg handle is a malazan reference?
Click to expand...
nope...just like to dance...is yours in honor of Fiddler?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

MTskibum
Dance club?
Replies
45
Views
982
SWC
SWC
rockaction
ESPN Recipe . . . for SUCCES$ (Look us up at YAWP on NASDAQ and PRFIT!)
Replies
3
Views
217
Eephus
Eephus
ghostguy123
Winter repair stuff, leaks and more
Replies
19
Views
340
ghostguy123
ghostguy123

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top