/lit/ - Literature

>>11435266
I cannot argue with even a single word you have written.

>>11435266
>the virgin grrm
>the chad preston jacobs

>>11435291
>tfw watching preston's theorize is as close as you can get to seeing a normal person descend step by raw, unadulterated lovecraftian madness
He is to GRRM what Land is to Marx.

>>11435266
I'm not reading a 1.7 million word series if its unfinished. Fuck outta here.

>>11435266
>already so long that the 95% of /lit/ that take a month to read 200p novels will never touch it
That only applies to 200 pages of dense American postmodern doorstoppers and shit, I zipped through GRRM books when I was a dumbass highschooler in no time. It's not difficult reading by any stretch of the imagination, I'd be pretty surprised and disgusted at anybody who thought it was.

>>11435291
Preston should write his own book. It'd be a wonderful mess.

>>11435266
I read the first one. I just don't think fantasy does it for me. Which, is fine. My gf has been a fan for a long time. She's frustrated that the show has surpassed the series. So, she's pretty much written him off for good. Which, if I was a fan of a series for longer than a decade, and the author didn't seem to have any intentions of completing it, I'd be fiery, too. What do you think, OP?

>>11435266
I read about 100 pages of this book and it was so bad I'll probably never read anything else he's written.

This book felt like it was written by a 15 year old boy with aspergers. I'm going to go ahead and credit whatever success he's had to his editor, because he can't write worth half a fuck without one.

>>11435266
I read it.
First 3 books were not bad.
4th one was garbage.
5th one was half and half.
Would not read again though.

Tolkien is to creative literary genius what Martin is to hack pulp idiocy. They both so far surpass anyone else in their field that they will be remembered 1,000 years from now as a kind of yin and yang of fantasy, a Manichaen duality of speculative letters. For every sublime, luminous beauty that Tolkien has gifted the world, Martin has cursed us with a tedious, banal ugliness. It is unfair to compare the two directly on any one point, because Martin is in every way the anti-Tolkien, patently sterile, parasitical, and inferior, but so much so that he becomes a monument in his own right, and counterbalances Tolkien. Could one exist without the other? Tolkien obviously could. But it is only by the contrast that Martin offers that we can truly appreciate the full depths and heights of Tolkien. Our understanding of Tolkien would be incomplete if Martin had never set pen to page. It is through only the abject failure and futility of Martin that we can approach an apprehension of the true scope and scale of Tolkien's hitherto inconceivable greatness. Perhaps this is what Tolkien had in mind when he wrote about the Music of the Ainur. If Tolkien is a subcreator in the image of Eru, truly Martin is like unto Melkor. It is only reflected in the awfulness of the one that we can fully see the goodness of the other.

>>11435266
lmao. I've read every book other than part 2 of ADwD. It's a good read at a times(especially compared to other fiction books), but it's not something remarkable, to be discussed in academia

why would I waste my time on a series that a) has been spoiled by the show and b) will never EVER be finished by the original author?

>>11435266
>tfw the Tattered Prince is your favorite character

>>11435672
Uhm, anon, he did...
https://prestonjacobs.weebly.com/the-novel

>>11435730
>literally the plebbiest opinion
Books 4 and 5 are the best ones.

>>11435988
Nice.

>>11435266
I unironically agree. Even if you don't want to read it, the first 3 books of the series are some of the best, most well constructed fantasy ever written. The 4th and 5th books are harder to defend, and arguably of a stunning drop in quality, but the entire project of the series can be pretty fascinating until you realize Grrm is never going to finish them and the show is entertaining garbage.

>>11436049
*it

>>11435266
>filled with incredible prose and unbelievable scenes

Post an example

>>11436128
Sunset found her squatting in the grass etc etc

>>11435672

>>11436238
Is this guy trolling or just retarded?

Westeros is literally just Ireland turned upside down. The wall is Hadrian's wall, and the wildlings are either the Scottish fighting the English, or the Celts fighting the Romans.

It's completely generic fantasy based on the British isles, just like most of the old generic fantasy.

>>11434797
Please delete this thread on your fucking way out GRRMfag.

>>11436238
The autism of this post
>Nuclear war?
top kek

>>11435992
>Fails to meaningfully advance the plot
>Handcuffs himself by creating a jumbled mess if subplots, thus ensuring that he will never release another installment

How can you think the 4th and 5th were the best?

>>11435266
tldr, just like the books :^)

>>11435266
High likelihood that this is a bait, you just have to look at how inflammatory and divisive the statements are

>>11436238
God, I wish he were a girl.

>>11436492
The problem is that grrm has written plenty of stories about post-apocalyptic civilizations unaware of the previous high water marks in their history. At the very least they are in a post-Rome-esque interregnum with no idea what caused Rome (Valyria) to fall

>>11436295
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about so just shut the fuck up, please.

>>11436295
>>11436238
>>11436492
Some people cannot into suspension of disbelief.
I'm a historian phd candidate (Not medieval exatcly but close, late antiquity) I blantanty noticed GRRM's plagirism from history, Manicheanism, Black Wedding, or the more known ones like the wall. But one can still enjoy fantasy without autistically nickpicking it.
Some cannot

>>11436571
preston can only enjoy fiction by autisticly nitpicking it, that's why hes the GOAT

>>11435992
In the fourth book the masculine chick goes on a trip through a forest to do something pointless, then goes back to where she came and then does the trip again. Book 4 is when grrm lost the last tiny bit of control he had over the plot.

4 and 5 are still good books though. Better than the first three.

>>11436528
>How can you think the 4th and 5th were the best?
For many reasons.
While the first three books read more like genre fiction, the last two books make strides towards becoming more literary. Whether it's Jaime's parts in the fourth book or Theon's in the fifth, there's a massive shift from plot to characterization.
This is not to say that there is no story in the fourth and fifth, as indeed there is probably more than in the other two combined. The difference is that now the backstory has become a part of the main story, as we see many things like, say, the Blackfyre Rebellion explaining the motivations of characters in the past books. Many of the things people hate, like the Brienne chapters or the Sam ones are some of the most important things ever written in the context of ASoIaF.
At last you actually see that Martin pulls back from even the final remnants of fantasy/Hollywoody things leftover from the first three.
Arya, who everyone was rooting for, turns out to actually be a shitty person.
Daenerys finally reveals herself to be an incompetent moron.
Tyrion, who he wrongfully realized he portrayed as a hero, is made to accept the fact that he is a bully that ruined his own family.
The list goes on...
Even in terms of prose, the writing in the fifth book is MILES above what can be found in the first one, for example. Just pick up a random chapter from Game of Thrones and then one in Dance with Dragons and you'll see a stark difference. Pun intended.
You know why people like you hate books four and five? There's a reason that's where they stopped adapting the books into the show, I hope you realize. Because they are the mature work of a man that finally realized in his twilight years that his project was a failed one. The man who supposedly set out to write the anti-fantasy novel realized that his work contained even bigger cliches than Tolkien's and wasn't even as dark. Late GRRM realized he was a complete hack that could only save the fantasy genre and sublate ASoIaF beyond it in a single way: by plunging the knife not in the Tolkien, but in himself.
>>11435960
BASED.

>>11436568
Yes, I clearly can't understand the brilliance that is the fantasy genre. It's clear the GRRMartin is a genius going where nobody has gone before.

Fucking brainlet, you know absolutely nothing about history.

>>11436635
Wew, listen to this faggot. Not only am I from /his/, but I'm an actual unironic historian. And I wasn't referring to the
>the brilliance that is the fantasy genre
but only to the fact that you're a dumb piece of shit that hasn't watched Preston and yet finds himself talking. Of course Preston knows all those trivial things you mentioned - he knows just about everything about ASoIaF and has compulsively studied all of Martin's work at great length.
You are the one who is retarded. Not to mention that even the little thing your brain could think of writing, namely that Westeros is inspired by the British Isles, literally has nothing to do with whether or not nuclear winter is a thing in this setting. Not only is it a constant motif in Martin's writing, but his use of dragons is intentionally made to replace weapons of mass destruction.
Dumb summerposting retard.

>>11436619
Good examination, although I disagree with you on some points.
I do agree books 4th and 5th are very different. The time gap between them (compared to first 3 books) or how GRRM intented to write fewer books at first (3 iirc) but then wrote Clash and Storm. Which really shows. I think a lot of negative criticism came from the exceptations of readers due to those two books. Maybe he should have skipped them alltogether, and wrote them later on as a filler ?

That being said I disagree that 4th book was not liked due to the tv show. It was hated even in 2005-2010, pre tv show. I think he went too experimental and bite more than he chew, next novel, Dance, shows the imrpovement. I doubt books 6 and 7 will have the problems of 4th but I do believe 4th had valid reasons to be considered "the worst book"

>>11436650
You must be almost as autistic as this Preston guy lmao.

>Studying GRRMartin

I bet you own a model train set, kek.

>>11436651
I didn't mean that it wasn't liked due to the TV show, what I said was that there's a reason D&D didn't adapt much from it - it's not palatable to the same people that want the ebin action of the first three books.
I remember reading the 3rd and 4th and hating them when they came out. Then I changed my mind. The show only proved to me just how retarded the story could've been if he continued in a different manner.
The show, and to a certain extent the first three books, have a Hollywody shlock appeal to them. If the first three books and the show are Gladiator, then books three and four are definitely Rome.

>>11436692
>I remember reading the 3rd and 4th and hating them when they came out
>then books three and four are definitely Rome.
I'm retarded, I meant 4 and 5. Not sure why I kept writing 3 and 4.

>>11436690
I'm not so autistic as to waste my time shitposting in a thread about something I know nothing about, though.
And no, I don't own a model train set. Though I do collect terrariums.

>>11435741
The most embarrasing pasta on /lit/, everybody

>>11436650

so this is the power of autism

>>11435266
CAN I GET A QUICK RUNDOWN AND ALSO DOES IT SIMULATE THAT FEEL OF NO GF

>>11436619
Good post. The plot had still spiraled out of control though.

>>11435266
I'm just not a fan. He's too edgy
>muh sex
>muh swear words
You're not cool, George.

>>11436786
>spot the guy that hasn't read the books
There's almost no sex whatsoever in ASoIaF and barely any swearing. Yet again, a dumb pleb thinking the show is the books. Congratulations.

>come in this thread
>Read a few posts
>All pure autism
So this is the power of GRRM

>>11436794
You can't fool me, I am on the third book already. Totally not a fan though
>the show
>he actually watches tv
loser

>>11436794
Dont make me post the shit water text

>>11435266
This post is unironically true. I hate how il/lit/erates criticize GRRM while thinking Stephen King is God's gift to mankind.

I wonder how many people know that asoiaf's endgame is a meteor crashing into the moon and shattering it into dust that clouds the sky and plunges the world into eternal winter.

>>11435266
>transcends the genre

I read about half the first book and put it down, he could write decent dramatic scenes but it just wasn't interesting enough to keep me reading, sex and gore felt forced

>>11436800
>>11436799
Like I said, there is barely any. I literally just did a search on my Kindle to see out of curiosity how many times "fuck" (that includes fucked/fucking) is used in Dance with Dragons. 51 times. In a book that's 1040p long.
DAMN, the guy truly can't stop swearing guys :(.
You people are fucking embarrassing. Read the goddamn books first, you show-watching pieces of trash.

>>11436794
There's plenty of sex, I've read the books

>>11436805

Nobody here says Stephen King is good. Your taste is shit.

>>11436833
>51 times
That's actually a lot. What's he trying to prove? You're not cool George
You're not cool for reading edgy swear words or literary depictions of sex, anon

>>11436841
Name all the scenes. I can think of only three. And none of them are detailed by any means.

>>11436843
They like Ligotti, and he's an actual worse writer.

>>11436833

Using "fuck" every 20 pages is actually quite a lot mate. Also your argument is flawed. I don't need to eat a plate of shit to be allowed to judge that shit is shit and I don't want to eat it.

>>11436805
I don't even like Stephen King, I've probably read like 4 of his books, but the stuff he wrote when he was 23 is better written than anything Martin has produced.

King got to the level of "readable", and stopped improving.

Martin has not reached the level of readable yet, same with Sanderson. Fantasy readers care more about dragons and spoopy ghost men than they do about quality writing.

>>11436833
>fuck is the only swearword
The state of Amerisharts

>>11436846
t.different anon
stopped reading when the blond 14 year old girl was getting fingered by the horse guy, just felt like the author was some pervert who watches porn

>>11436860
>king is good
>but martin is bad
>comparing martin to sanderson
Why is it that I'm almost certain you're a female?

>>11436846
Off the top of my head, Daenerys with Drogo, Daenerys with Dario, Jon with redhead, Tyrion with shae, Tyrion with whore, mountain raping a girl, Cersei and Jaime, Cersei with a woman, Cersei with knights, Theon busting in a girls mouth, victarion fucking a mute

>>11436878
And that's a lot? That's not even one a chapter.

>>11436692
While I agree that the show panders to its audience too hard, the 4th and 5th books are flawed in their own right because of reasons already discussed, bloated storyline etc

>>11436867
But I'm not a female you dumb cunt. Martin and Sanderson are basically the two most popular modern fantasy authors, so I'm using them as examples of problems with the genre.

I also didn't say King is good, I guess fantasy fans really are retarded.

>>11436893
>I haven't read anything else other than Ice and Fire
Yes that is a lot.

>>11436893
There has to be one sex scene a chapter for you to call it a lot of sex? You have to be baiting

>>11435689
how hot is your girlfriend

>>11436909
I have brainlet, your complaint is a stupid one. He clearly only uses it in service of the story. I'm sorry it offended your delicate sensibilities.

>>11435689
I feel like Martin hates the fact that it took him so long to reach his current level of fame. He basically doesn't give any fucks about his fans now, he hates his new fans and has forgotten about his old ones.

He's just a bitter old man who doesn't care about anything anymore, that's why he won't lose weight, that's why he won't finish ASOIAF, etc.

>>11436919
I've personally never read anything with as much sex as asoiaf, so I would say it's a lot

>>11435689
He better die. It can only turn to shit like Berserk and HxH now.

>>11436927
I think he was close to a finished product, but he tried to contrive new twists because the show revealed such important plot points. He's even confirmed this somewhat in his interviews

>>11436931
There are literal historical writings with way more sex and brutality. Also go read erotica. Maybe you'll realize a paragraph mentioning two people fucked isn't a sex scene.

>>11436846
There's this scene where theon's sister rides a guy's morning boner while he's still asleep. It's pretty detailed.

>>11436861
>I use a lot of different swear words! I'm so edgy and sophisticated!
The eternal eurotrash

>>11436794
You're an idiot. Who would critique a book they haven't even read? For what purpose? Why do you assume anyone who critiques your favorite series hasn't read it?

>>11436878
Lol jamie gets his dick sticky with cersei's period blood in one scene. That retard doesn't know what he's talking about.

>>11436927
I think that has more to do that he married a roastie, has no children and is gonna die looking like a fat walrus.

>>11436943
Asoiaf is neither historical writings nor erotica, which suggests that grrm is guilty of the same pandering that the show is

>>11436948
post it

Never gonna read a single page of Gay Rape Retard Manchikd's works. Fuck you

>>11435992
I've been shilling this opinion for years. always good to find a 4&5 bro.

>>11435992
That Jaime development was great, but Tyrion's arch in Essos mostly feels grating.

>>11435266
Quote a section with incredible prose pls

>>11436619
This deserves to be pasta

>>11435718
>people can't improve their writing in 20-30 years
Oh boy.

Does anyone hate the people that say he wastes time describing things? Twenty pages of description. These are people that don't read. They suck and they're stupid.

>>11436619
Damn.
Good post man.
Maybe if GRRM manages to wrap his story up, I might re-read it to see for myself.

>>11436619
>author realises he's become a hack and sabotages his own series
I would unironically read this

I love ASoIaF. Since it's apparently garbage fantasy could someone direct me to the good stuff?

>>11435291
> the virgin GRRM
> the chad Gene Wolfe
> the chadette JK Rowling

>>11439933
It's not garbage fantasy, it's brilliant.

I actually really like Sanderson but this board despises him. Try the Stormlight Archives, the most epic fantasy series in the making.

>>11439959
It looks cool. It seems to have minor sifi elements going on which is interesting. Thanks anon.

>>11439933
Start with the Greeks

>>11439959
>It's not garbage fantasy, it's brilliant.
If you have shit taste, sure, you cancerous pleb.

>>11439959
>It's not garbage
>also let me mention some more garbage that is similarly not garbage

>>11440172
>>11440192
*snap*

>>11436619

>>11435266
genre fic is garbo

>>11436137

>>11440550
I am delighted to see that you do like pissing arseways. Yes, now I can remember that night when you were squatting for so long in the grass. It was the dirtiest shitting you ever gave me, darling. The stools were coming out of you for hours, in and out under your upturned rump. At every thirst you had your shameless tongue came bursting out through your lips and if you sucked up more water, looser turds yet came spluttering out of your backside. You had an arseful of shits that night, darling, and it all came out of you, big fat fellows, long humid ones, quick little merry craps and a lot of tiny little naughty turdies ending in a long gush from your hole. It is wonderful to see a shitting woman when every drink drives one out of her.

>>11440560
mmm yummy

>>11439959
Sanderson is literally what you get when you combine a video game with an anime, and then give it to some Hollywood Jew to write you something that's accessible to all the goyim.

May Allah forgive me, but even Black Library is better.

>>11439952
>the autistic Bakker
muh daniel dennett

>>11435266
There are plenty of fantasy authors who claim to be doing something different with the genre. Ironically, they often write the most predictable books of all, as evidenced by Goodkind and Paolini. Though I'm not sure why they protest so much--predictability is hardly a death sentence in genre fantasy.

The archetypal story of a hero, a villain, a profound love, and a world to be saved never seems to get old--it's a great story when it's told well. At the best, it's exciting, exotic, and builds to a fulfilling climax. At the worst, it's just a bloodless rehash. Unfortunately, the worst are more common by far.

Perhaps it was this abundance of cliche romances that drove Martin to aim for something different. Unfortunately, you can't just choose to be different, any more than you can choose to be creative. Sure, Moorcock's original concept for Elric was to be the anti-Conan, but at some point, he had to push his limits and move beyond difference for difference's sake--and he did.

In similar gesture, Martin rejects the allegorical romance of epic fantasy, which basically means tearing out the guts of the genre: the wonder, the ideals, the heroism, and with them, the moral purpose. Fine, so he took out the rollicking fun and the social message--what did he replace them with?

Like the post-Moore comics of the nineties, fantasy has already borne witness to a backlash against the upright, moral hero--and then a backlash against the grim antihero who succeeded him. Hell, if all Martin wanted was grim and gritty antiheroes in an amoral world, he didn't have to reject the staples of fantasy, he could have gone to its roots: Howard, Leiber, and Anderson.

Like many authors aiming for realism, he forgets 'truth is stranger than fiction'. The real world is full of unbelievable events, coincidences, and odd characters. When authors remove these elements in an attempt to make their world seem real, they make their fiction duller than reality; after all, unexpected details are the heart of verisimilitude. When Chekhov and Peake eschewed the easy thrill of romance, they replaced it with the odd and absurd--moments strange enough to feel true. In comparison, Martin's world is dull and gray. Instead of innovating new, radical elements, he merely removes familiar staples--and any style defined by lack is going to end up feeling thin.

Yet, despite trying inject the book with history and realism, he does not reject the melodramatic characterization of his fantasy forefathers, as evidenced by his brooding bastard antihero protagonist (with pet albino wolf). Apparently to him, 'grim realism' is 'Draco in Leather Pants'. This produces a conflicted tone: a soap opera cast lost in an existentialist film.

>>11441026
There's also lots of sex and misogyny, and 'wall-to-wall rape'--not that books should shy away from sex, or from any uncomfortable, unpleasant reality of life. The problem is when people who are not comfortable with their own sexuality start writing about it, which seems to plague every mainstream fantasy author. Their pen gets away from them, their own hangups start leaking into the scene, until it's not even about the characters anymore, it's just the author cybering about his favorite fetish--and if I cyber with a fat, bearded stranger, I expect to be paid for it.

I know a lot of fans probably get into it more than I do (like night elf hunters humping away in WOW), but reading Goodkind, Jordan, and Martin--it's like seeing a Playboy at your uncle's where all the pages are wrinkled. That's not to say there isn't serviceable pop fantasy sex out there--it's just written by women.

Though I didn't save any choice examples, I did come across this quote from a later book:
"... she wore faded sandsilk pants and woven grass sandals. Her small breasts moved freely beneath a painted Dothraki vest . . ."

Imagine the process: Martin sits, hands hovering over the keys, trying to get inside his character's head:

"Okay, I'm a woman. How do I see and feel the world differently? My cultural role is defined by childbirth. I can be bought and sold in marriage by my own--Oh, hey! I've got tits! Man, look at those things go. *whooshing mammary sound effects* Okay, time to write."

Where are the descriptions of variously-sized dongs swinging within the confines of absurdly-detailed clothing? There are a set of manboobs (which perhaps Martin has some personal experience with) but not until book five. Even then, it's not the dude being hyperaware of his own--they're just there to gross out a dwarf. Not really a balanced depiction.

If you're familiar with the show (and its parodies on South Park and SNL) this lack of dongs may surprise you. But as Martin himself explained, when asked why there's no gay sex in his books, despite having gay characters, 'they’re not the viewpoint characters'--as if somehow, the viewpoints he chooses to depict are beyond his control. Apparently, he plots as well as your average NaNoWriMo author: sorry none of my characters chose to be gay, nothing I can do about it.

And balance really is the problem here--if you only depict the dark, gritty stuff that you're into, that's not realism, it's just a fetish. If you depict the grimness of war by having every female character threatened with rape, but the same thing never happens to a male character, despite the fact that more men get raped in the military than women, then your 'gritty realism card' definitely gets revoked.

>>11441030

The books are notorious for the sudden, pointless deaths, which some suggest is another sign of realism--but, of course, nothing is pointless in fiction, because everything that shows up on the page is only there because the author put it there. Sure, in real life, people suddenly die before finishing their life's work (fantasy authors do it all the time), but there's a reason we don't tend to tell stories of people who die unexpectedly in the middle of things: they are boring and pointless. They build up for a while then eventually, lead nowhere.

Novelists often write in isolation, so it's easy to forget the rule to which playwrights adhere: your story is always a fiction. Any time you treat it as if it were real, you are working against yourself. The writing that feels the most natural is never effortless, it is carefully and painstakingly constructed to seem that way.

A staple of Creative Writing 101 is to 'listen to how people really talk', which is terrible advice. A transcript of any conversation will be so full of repetition, half-thoughts, and non-specific words ('stuff', 'thing') as to be incomprehensible--especially without the cues of tone and body language. Written communication has its own rules, so making dialogue feel like speech is a trick writers play. It's the same with sudden character deaths: treat them like a history, and your plot will become choppy and hard to follow.

Not that the deaths are truly unpredictable. Like in an action film, they are a plot convenience: kill off a villain, and you don't have to wrap up his arc. You don't have to defeat him psychologically--the finality of his death is the great equalizer. You skip the hard work of demonstrating that the hero was morally right, because he's the only option left.

Likewise, in Martin's book, death ties up loose threads--namely, plot threads. Often, this is the only ending we get to his plot arcs, which makes them rather predictable: any time a character is about to build up enough influence to make things better, or more stable, he will die. Any character who poses a threat to the continuing chaos which drives the action will first be built up, and then killed off.

I found this interview to be a particularly telling example of how Martin thinks of character deaths:
"I killed [Ned] because everybody thinks he’s the hero ... sure, he’s going to get into trouble, but then he’ll somehow get out of it. The next predictable thing [someone] is going to rise up and avenge his [death] ... So immediately [killing [Robb]] became the next thing I had to do.

He's not talking about the characters' motivations, or the ideas they represent, or their role in the story--he isn't laying out a well-structured plot, he's just killing them off for pure shock value.

>>11441037
Yet the only reason we think these characters are important in the first place is that Martin treats them as central heroes, spending time and energy building them Then it all ends up being a red herring, a cheap twist, the equivalent of a horror movie jump scare It's like mystery novels in the 70's, after all the good plots had been done, so authors added ghosts or secret twins in the last chapter--it's only surprising because the author has obliterated the story structure

All plots are made up of arcs that grow and change, building tension and purpose Normally, when an arc ends, the author must use all his skill to deal with themes and answer questions, providing a satisfying conclusion to a promising idea that his readers watched grow Or just kill off a character central to the conflict and bury the plot arc with him. Then you don't have to worry about closure, you can just hook your readers by focusing on the mess caused by the previous arc falling apart. Make the reader believe that things might get better, get them to believe in a character, then wave your arms in distraction, point and yell 'look at that terrible thing, over there!', and hope they become so caught up in worrying about the new problem that they forget the old one was never resolved

Chaining false endings together creates perpetual tension that never requires solution--like in most soap operas--plus, the author never has to do the hard work of finishing what they started. If an author is lucky, they die before reaching the Final Conclusion the readership is clamoring for, and never have to meet the collective expectation which long years of deferral have built up. It's easy to idolize Kurt Cobain because you never had to see him bald and old and crazy like David Lee Roth

Unlucky authors live to write the Final Book, breaking the spell of unending tension that kept their readers enthralled Since the plot isn't resolving into a tight, intertwined conclusion (in fact, it's probably spiraling out of control, with even more characters and scenes), the author must wrap things up conveniently and suddenly, leaving fans confused and upset. Having thrown out the grand romance of fantasy, Martin cannot even end on the dazzling trick of the vaguely-spiritual transgressive Death Event on which the great majority of fantasy books rely for a handy tacked-on climax (actually, he'll probably do it anyways, with dragons--the longer the series goes on, the more it starts to resemble the cliche monomyth that Martin was praised for eschewing in the first place)

The drawback is that even if a conclusion gets stuck on at the end, the story fundamentally leads nowhere--it winds back and forth without resolving psychological or tonal arcs. But then, doesn't that sound more like real life? Martin tore out the moralistic heart and magic of fantasy, and in doing so, rejected the notion of grandly realized conclusions Perhaps we shouldn't compare him to works of romance, but to histories

>>11441050
He asks us to believe in his intrigue, his grimness, and his amoral world of war, power, and death--not the false Europe of Arthur, Robin Hood, and Orlando, but the real Europe of plagues, political struggles, religious wars, witch hunts, and roving companies of soldiery forever ravaging the countryside. Unfortunately, he doesn't compare very well to them, either. His intrigue is not as interesting as Cicero's, Machiavelli's, Enguerrand de Coucy's--or even Sallust's, who was practically writing fiction, anyways. Some might suggest it unfair to compare a piece of fiction to a true history, but these are the same histories that lent Howard, Leiber, and Moorcock their touches of verisimilitude. Martin might have taken a lesson from them and drawn inspiration from further afield: even Tolkien had his Eddas. Despite being fictionalized and dramatized, Martin's take on The War of the Roses is far duller than the original.

More than anything, this book felt like a serial melodrama: the hardships of an ensemble cast who we are meant to watch over and sympathize with, being drawn in by emotional appeals (the hope that things will 'get better' in this dark place, 'tragic' deaths), even if these appeals conflict with the supposed realism, and in the end, there is no grander story to unify the whole. This 'grittiness' is just Martin replacing the standard fantasy theme of 'glory' with one of 'hardship', and despite flipping this switch, it's still just an emotional appeal. 'Heroes always win' is just as blandly predictable as 'heroes always lose'.

>>11441057
It's been suggested that I didn't read enough of Martin to judge him, but if the first four hundred pages aren't good, I don't expect the next thousand will be different. If you combine the three Del Rey collections of Conan The Barbarian stories, you get 1,263 pages (including introductions, endnotes, and variant scripts). If you take Martin's first two books in this series, you get 1,504 pages. Already, less than a third of the way into the series, he's written more than Howard's entire Conan output, and all I can do is ask myself: why does he need that extra length?

People get into it, but it's neither revolutionary nor realistic. You also hear the same things from the fans: that it's all carefully planned, all interconnected, all going somewhere. Apparently, they didn't learn their lesson from the anticlimactic fizzling out of Twin Peaks, X-Files, Lost, and Battlestar. Then again, you wouldn't keep watching if you didn't think it was going somewhere.

Some say 'at least he isn't as bad as all the drivel that gets published in genre fantasy', but saying he's better than dreck is really not very high praise. Others have intimated that I must not like fantasy at all, pointing to my low-star reviews of Martin, Wolfe, Jordan, and Goodkind, but it is precisely because I am passionate about fantasy that I fall heavily on these authors.

A lover of fine wines winces the more at a corked bottle of vinegar, a ballet enthusiast's love of dance would not leave him breathless at a high school competition--and likewise, having learned to appreciate epics, histories, knightly ballads, fairy tales, and their modern offspring in fantasy, I find Martin woefully lacking. There's plenty of grim fantasy and intrigue out there, from its roots to the dozens of fantasy authors, both old and modern, whom I list in the link at the end of this review

There seems to be a sense that Martin's work is somehow revolutionary, that it represents a 'new direction' for fantasy, but all I see is a reversion. Sure, he's different than Jordan, Goodkind, and their ilk, who simply took the pseudo-medieval high-magic world from Tolkien and the blood-and-guts heroism from Howard. Martin, on the other hand, has more closely followed Tolkien's lead than any other modern high fantasy author--and I don't just mean in terms of racism.

>>11441050
WHERE'S MY ARC

>>11441074
It's the same thing Martin's trying to do: cover a bland story with a litany of details that don't contribute meaningfully to his characters, plot, or tone. So, if Martin is good because he is different, then it stands to reason that he's not very good, because he's not that different. He may seem different if all someone has read is Tolkien and the authors who ape his style, but that's just one small corner of a very expansive genre. Anyone who thinks Tolkien is the 'father of fantasy' doesn't know enough about the genre to judge what 'originality' means.

So, if Martin neither an homage nor an original, I'm not sure what's left. In his attempt to set himself apart, he tore out the joyful heart of fantasy, but failed replace it with anything. There is no revolutionary voice here, and there is nothing in Martin's book that has not been done better by other authors.

However, there is one thing Martin has done that no other author has been able to do: kill the longrunning High Fantasy series. According to some friends of mine in publishing (and some on-the-nose remarks by Caleb Carr in an NPR interview on his own foray into fantasy), Martin's inability to deliver a book on time, combined with his strained relationship with his publisher means that literary agents are no longer accepting manuscripts for high fantasy series--even from recognized authors. Apparently, Martin is so bad at plot structure that he actually pre-emptively ruined books by other authors. Perhaps it is true what they say about silver linings . . .

Though I declined to finish this book, I'll leave you with a caution compiled from various respectable friends of mine who did continue on:

"If you need some kind of closure, avoid this series. No arcs will ever be completed, nothing will ever really change. The tagline is 'Winter is Coming'--it's not. As the series goes on, there will be more and more characters and diverging plotlines to keep track of, many of them apparently completely unrelated to each other, even as it increasingly becomes just another cliche, fascist 'chosen one' monomyth, like every other fantasy series out there. If you enjoy a grim, excessively long soap opera with lots of deaths and constant unresolved tension, pick up the series--otherwise, maybe check out the show."

>>11441074
It's the same thing Martin's trying to do: cover a bland story with a litany of details that don't contribute meaningfully to his characters, plot, or tone. So, if Martin is good because he is different, then it stands to reason that he's not very good, because he's not that different. He may seem different if all someone has read is Tolkien and the authors who ape his style, but that's just one small corner of a very expansive genre. Anyone who thinks Tolkien is the 'father of fantasy' doesn't know enough about the genre to judge what 'originality' means.

So, if Martin neither an homage nor an original, I'm not sure what's left. In his attempt to set himself apart, he tore out the joyful heart of fantasy, but failed replace it with anything. There is no revolutionary voice here, and there is nothing in Martin's book that has not been done better by other authors.

However, there is one thing Martin has done that no other author has been able to do: kill the longrunning High Fantasy series. According to some friends of mine in publishing (and some on-the-nose remarks by Caleb Carr in an NPR interview on his own foray into fantasy), Martin's inability to deliver a book on time, combined with his strained relationship with his publisher means that literary agents are no longer accepting manuscripts for high fantasy series--even from recognized authors. Apparently, Martin is so bad at plot structure that he actually pre-emptively ruined books by other authors. Perhaps it is true what they say about silver linings . . .

Though I declined to finish this book, I'll leave you with a caution compiled from various respectable friends of mine who did continue on:

"If you need some kind of closure, avoid this series. No arcs will ever be completed, nothing will ever really change. The tagline is 'Winter is Coming'--it's not. As the series goes on, there will be more and more characters and diverging plotlines to keep track of, many of them apparently completely unrelated to each other, even as it increasingly becomes just another cliche, fascist 'chosen one' monomyth, like every other fantasy series out there. If you enjoy a grim, excessively long soap opera with lots of deaths and constant unresolved tension, pick up the series--otherwise, maybe check out the show."

The Forsaken is the best thing he has written, period.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxQYLWljCvI&t=4s

I have a "buddy" who won't stop saying arse at every opportunity.

how I loathe him.

>>11441090
>fascist 'chosen one' monomyth

>>11435266
I have read ASoIaF (what is published of it) and it's bad.

>>11436619
honestly, i think this is giving him too much credit, and read the sprawl in the 4th and 5th books as professional incompetence.

Why would I want to read some fucking stupid swords and dragons fantasy series? The show is alright I guess but the books are a third rate Lord of the Rings knockoff

>>11436619
>This is not to say that there is no story in the fourth and fifth
Feast is literally nothing happens - the book. Cersei being stupid, Brienne being stupid. The only parts worth reading is the Greyjoy stuff.

I just dont like fantasy

>>11441074
>anticlimactic fizzling out of Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks went to shit when it picked up story stucture and finish arcs (ie season 2); Lynch saved it by literally doing everything you say ruins a story. Its funny because I was actually thinking about twin peaks while reading your essay, and how it runs counter to the whole argument.

>>11441168
Beowulf, you say? It's got swords and dragons in it, what kinda plebs like that shit?

>>11441074
>racist tolkien
Enough. This leftist meme is Down syndrome-tier. No niggers in a series based on a fatadtical Europe written by a English prof whom felt Britain lacked its own mythos the way other "white" countries had. That was one of his main drives for making the world for his fictional languages to inhabit.
Then you go on to say he's not the father if fantasy- which no one claims, people say " Modern day " fantasy which is entirely true. You started out fairly well of your critique but quickley became respetitive and now your just spouting incoherent drivel.

>>11441444
It's a pasta from a goodreads review by J.G. Keely. He's got good taste, but often misses the point entirely.

>>11441077
Watch it, Chrissy!

>>11441451
>J.G. Keely. He's got good taste
kys reddit

>>11441512
>t: wrong

>>11441512
What? How is he reddit? He recommend stuff like Paradise Lost and the Iliad.

>>11442002
>He recommend stuff like Paradise Lost and the Iliad.
Reddit books.

>>11442002
>>11442031
Reddit is more recommending these sorts of books and saying "I understand why it didn't have strong female characters / first person narration / lack of any prose not directly relevant to the plot because it was of its time, so I appreciate it for what it is, but it wouldn't fly by modern standards, I prefer modern fantasy"

The Theon chapters in book 5 might be the finest work ever written in the fantasy genre

>>11435266
are the Song of Ice and fire decent novels?

>>11442118
This.

>>11442934
yeah

>>11442934
More like excellent. You won't find prose that comes close in other contemporary writers, but you also won't find characterization or plots as interesting in classic fantasy.
It is a masterpiece unparalleled by anything except Tolkien's Silmarillion.

>>11435741
This only replace Martin with Robert Jordan

>>11435669
This.

In an hour I may read less than 20 pages of Joyce. For got, I’d average like 50. Don’t get me wrong asoiaf has its place, but it’s definitely not next to lotr. GRRM’s work is on par with - albeit the best - television script producers.

>>11436049
It was entertaining garbage until the last season, then it was just garbage