very, very, very long books.

[zwol]

I am finally (more than a year after it came out and I bought it) getting around to reading George R. R. Martin's A Feast for Crows. As you know Bob, this is a very long series and the individual volumes are taking a really long time to be written, so when this book came out I had to reread the entire series up to that point first, just to remind myself what was going on. I got stuck about a third of the way through volume 3 because I just couldn't deal with the grimness. Last week I finally finished it, which means I can start A Feast for Crows.

My attitude to the series has changed considerably since I first read it. I no longer care who ends up with the Iron Throne. I no longer care whether there is ever a Stark in Winterfell again. It would be nice to see Cersei die a gruesome and painful death, but I wouldn't be that disappointed if it didn't happen. I'm still reading because I still care what happens to some of the characters (unfortunately, mostly those who are not much appearing in AFfC) and because there is something that I really want to see happen in the end:

( I want the red priests to be wrong. )

I want it to turn out that Rh'llor (or however you spell it) is just as inimical to humanity as its unnamed opponent. I want it to have been an error with catastrophic supernatural consequences for Stannis to have let Melisandre burn down the godswood at Storm's End. I don't much care about the Seven. I'd be fine if it turned out they don't exist. There's already been plenty of in-text evidence that the old gods are real, though, and I want them to be the side you should be on, driving back fire and ice both.

I will be furious if GRRM railroads the story into a Manichean scenario with an epic last battle between clear-cut Good and clear-cut Evil. That has been done. It is boring. It is not what the story wants. I hold out some hope still — enough people are digging in their heels when Melisandre comes with her prophecies of apocalyptic battle and proposals of fiery sacrifice, and there's enough suggestion that necromancy is just bad, even when it isn't the Others doing it. But I am uncomfortable with the way volume 3 ends, and I worry that the man doesn't see it. Perhaps AFfC will resolve my worries, but (given that it seems to be concentrating on events in and around King's Landing) I doubt it will.

Comments

[tejolote.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately I think AFfC is the weakest link in the series so far, in terms of storytelling skill. :\ I think the editors pressed him a little too hard--I hate to say he should have taken more time, but it has that feeling.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

I am only a couple hundred pages in but I think I agree with you already. The plot is failing to advance. :-(

[papersky.livejournal.com]

There's not much in aFFC on this either way, but I wanted to say I'm with you on this, and it's more important that the other stuff, and I think he knows it... or at least before aFFC I was sure he did.

This is a world where the closest we have to clear-cut good gets its head chopped off by Jeffrey on the steps, after all.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the vote of confidence. I don't entirely trust my own sense of story, but I trust yours.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

I don't know how trustworthy mine is, but I get the strong sense that GRRM knows better than to go Manichean on us.