OT: A Song Of Fire And Ice PC Game - Page 3

P3D · #21 May 16th, 2009, 02:13 AM

Bakker is less confusing than Erikson. Not having dozens of plotlines definitely helps. Bakker is philosophizing more, that might be a reason some people don't like him that much. I'd definitely give the series a try.
Fourth book in the series was published few months ago in hardcover.

About SOIaF.
IIRC there were theories that GRRM envisioned the series to be more stretched out in novel-time, e.g. letting all the different kids grow up to some extent. This was thrown out of the window IMO when he started killing characters (that would be sacrosanct in 90% of the fantasy literature) at an alarming rate and he had to replace them.
Thus the current state of the series with too many teenagers in important positions that acts as if being 5-10 years older.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WraithLord

"
Sorry for OT question, but would you care to elaborate on that?- Perhaps I'll read him after I'm through with the malazans.

Hoplosternum · #22 May 18th, 2009, 03:00 PM

But GRRM seemed to forget to age his characters through the books.

It's a while since I read the first ones ( I haven't read the latest as i was waiting for the seconfd half to appear so I could read them both together). But IIRC the cahracters were only a few months older by the end as they were at the beginning. Lots of things had happened but he never seemed to push the time forward. The children were all the same age at the end as at the beginning....

I really liked the killing off of main characters at first. And it certainly makes the fighting tense. But after a while it did reduce the enjoyment of the story. Especially as he fell in to another trap. That of making bad/evil characters clever and worldly wise while the good characters were all naive and quite frankly rather dim. What was worse was if a character became good he lost all sense to become some hopeless honourable romantic. Oh dear....

I enjoyed reading the first books while I was reading them, but at the end I was left feeling that I really no longer cared. I dare say I will get the next books (and probably reread the first ones) but there are better series. I prefer Erikson by a margin. And while Jordan's series had a lot of faults I am far sorrier that I won't find out the ending to that series than I would be if I never touch GRRMs series again.

thejeff · #23 May 18th, 2009, 03:09 PM

FYI: You can find out the ending to Jordan's series. Brandon Sanderson is finishing it, based on Jordan's notes. Who knows if it'll be worth reading, but even a plot summary would be nice, just to see how it was supposed to wrap up.

TwoBits · #24 May 18th, 2009, 09:52 PM

Ugh, probably as "nice" as when Frank Herbert's son tried to finish his father's Dune series :P

P3D · #25 May 18th, 2009, 09:58 PM

There's nothing bad about Sanderson. IMHO he is better writer than Jordan was. I hope his style would match the novel, though.

thejeff · #26 May 19th, 2009, 07:34 AM

Well, the big difference between finishing the WoT and "finishing" Dune is that Herbert was done with Dune so the new books were just an attempt to cash in. Jordan was working on the ending, knew he was dying, and left copious notes. So, regardless of the quality of the writing, it should follow the basic plot Jordan had intended and clear up a lot of the questions and mysteries set up in the series.

Agema · #27 May 19th, 2009, 08:48 AM

My biggest problem with A Song of Fire and Ice is that the plot twists and scheming got rather too convoluted and too likely to work, which isn't helped by the large number of characters. Ultimately, some things should be more simple.

I found there's a sort of disconnect between the action and the time frame as well. There have been so many battles - with considerable casualties - in such a short space of time, and add on the reality of deaths by disease and so on, it's hard to believe any of the antagonists could still have a military force left capable of more than besieging a cottage.