Some thoughts on George's thoughts...
So when you write a frequently-repetitive blog about an author's works, and their lack of timely release, it becomes telling when you end up spending more time dealing with his television adaptations than with his books. Part of me is grateful that HBO went ahead and produced the series; after all, it gave us a lot more to talk about, since GRRMlins and GRRMblers alike stopped having anything new to say about ASOIAF about four years ago.
But I don't want to continue talking too much about the series, mainly because--shockingly--the complaints end up being fairly repetitive. So after watching the two most recent episodes, here is the short version of my perspective: I'm still convinced that (a) the fight scenes are weak, and (b) it all moves way too quickly. While I am well-known for complaining about George's massive amounts of time and page space wasted on describing food and clothing, the one thing that always helped his characters was the time spent in developing their relationships. Hence, Tyrion gets Bronn to help him after days of traveling, manipulating, wordplay, etc. Which is why in the books, when Bronn steps up as Tyrion's champion during the trial at the Eyrie, it seems like Tyrion's work has paid off, and that Bronn sees him as a good investment. In the show, it seems like Bronn steps up just because he's bored and doesn't have anything else to do. So that scene really encapsulated a lot of what I see going on. Maybe we, the book-readers, are biased--and we probably are--but it's hard to shake the feeling that the character and plot development is racing towards a finish line in the TV series.
With that out of the way, I was reading through George's comments on the production of ADWD, and how long it's taken him to get to the end. And I find them fairly interesting. I've never been one who believes he's been sitting on a finished manuscript for years; as you know, I'm in the "not working very hard" camp. (And I think George validates this, to some degree: by his own admission, he spent most of 2005 not writing, and actually moved backwards in his page count between 2006 and 2007. So it seems there were about 2 years of stagnation in this process.)
However, I actually give him credit for being forthcoming with the information on the process, albeit years late in some cases. That doesn't alleviate my concerns about new POV characters and the fact that three characters take up half of ADWD's chapter count. (Mainly because if Dany has that many chapters, I'm guessing she's going to be annoying me for some time to come.) The fact that there is no Arianne Martell and no Aeron Damphair continues to fuel my belief that they were both unnecessary major characters in AFFC.
But we shall see. Due to my career choice, I have nothing but time in the summer to delve into ADWD, and to talk about it with all of you, my dear Interweb friends. Oh, and Pesci, if he ever takes time off from hanging out in highway men's roooms.
But I don't want to continue talking too much about the series, mainly because--shockingly--the complaints end up being fairly repetitive. So after watching the two most recent episodes, here is the short version of my perspective: I'm still convinced that (a) the fight scenes are weak, and (b) it all moves way too quickly. While I am well-known for complaining about George's massive amounts of time and page space wasted on describing food and clothing, the one thing that always helped his characters was the time spent in developing their relationships. Hence, Tyrion gets Bronn to help him after days of traveling, manipulating, wordplay, etc. Which is why in the books, when Bronn steps up as Tyrion's champion during the trial at the Eyrie, it seems like Tyrion's work has paid off, and that Bronn sees him as a good investment. In the show, it seems like Bronn steps up just because he's bored and doesn't have anything else to do. So that scene really encapsulated a lot of what I see going on. Maybe we, the book-readers, are biased--and we probably are--but it's hard to shake the feeling that the character and plot development is racing towards a finish line in the TV series.
With that out of the way, I was reading through George's comments on the production of ADWD, and how long it's taken him to get to the end. And I find them fairly interesting. I've never been one who believes he's been sitting on a finished manuscript for years; as you know, I'm in the "not working very hard" camp. (And I think George validates this, to some degree: by his own admission, he spent most of 2005 not writing, and actually moved backwards in his page count between 2006 and 2007. So it seems there were about 2 years of stagnation in this process.)
However, I actually give him credit for being forthcoming with the information on the process, albeit years late in some cases. That doesn't alleviate my concerns about new POV characters and the fact that three characters take up half of ADWD's chapter count. (Mainly because if Dany has that many chapters, I'm guessing she's going to be annoying me for some time to come.) The fact that there is no Arianne Martell and no Aeron Damphair continues to fuel my belief that they were both unnecessary major characters in AFFC.
But we shall see. Due to my career choice, I have nothing but time in the summer to delve into ADWD, and to talk about it with all of you, my dear Interweb friends. Oh, and Pesci, if he ever takes time off from hanging out in highway men's roooms.