Dance with Dragons
Jul. 18th, 2011 07:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skull_bearerDear George Martin: I know you're used to stand alone books, but we have been following the series, and you don't have to rehash everything that's happened for us kthnx.
Also: How did you world's attitude towards gay people go from 'whatever, more important things to do' to 'GOD HATES QUEERS' in the space of... what? A year? Less?
Dear Editors: My bad. Yeah, sorry for rushing you, you should have had more time. Most of Dany's chapters could have been condensed into one and nothing of value would have been lost. Sheesh.
Dear Dany: PLEASE GOD LET SOEMTHING HAPPEN FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK ooh, something did! Go Dragons! Dragons are officially my new favourite characters! Fire and Blood! Burn the lot of them!
Dear Quentyn: /Nelson Munz/ HAW-HAW! After dealing with one self-pitying chapter after another, your death by dragon was the best fucking thing in this book.
Dear Tyrion: Dear, we know you killed your father. We read the last book, remember? While I get you're upset it would be less annoying if SOMETHING WAS ACTUALLY HAPPENING. NOTHING DOES. You just get snatched up by one lot or another, while you have all the presence of a somewhat snarky bag of potatoes and the only halfway intesrting part (where join a band of sellswords) happens AT THE END.
Dear Barristan: Love you *huggles* as a guard it's not really your fault that NOTHING HAPPENS.
Dear Theon: /Nelson Munz/ HAW- oh, that wasn't funny at all actually. Ummm... yeah, sorry I laughed. Ever. Hope Asha takes care of you. You little bastard.
Dear Asha: Well, you tried. Your chapters were kinda okay really.
Dear Victarion: I hope Dragon eats you so we can be rid of your SELF PITYING POINTLESSNESS IN WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS.
Dear Stannis: Thank you for being one of the characters who is striving against impossible odds to GET THIS STORY MOVING. Then GRRM kills you (I think, probably not). Fuck.
Dear Aegon and forgettable retinue: Excuse me? Did we ask for you? Do you see any 'extra Targaryans wanted here' signs? Do we look like we need new characters? What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Doing. Here. This is the fifth book, the fifth! If we needed you we've have met you at some point in the billion or so pages, we would have had some hint that you existed. But no, fully formed, like Athena from Zeus' head, you spring into the book from nowhere. It's almost enough to outweight the fact that you are one of the few characters who tries to do something. Almost. But then no one's paying you any attention so why are you here again?
Dear Jon: Okay, I supposed your excuse for NOTHING HAPPENING is that being stuck at the Wall you're not being too proactive, and there's enough going on around you that makes it almost okay. Almost. Ha-ha, you're dead.
Dear Jaime: That was... brief. Nice to know Brienne's okay.
Dear Arya: PLEASE NAMELESS GODS MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN PLEASE. Take chapters from Feast of Crows, remove any actual important stuff, copy, paste, publish. NOTHING HAPPENS.
Dear Cercei: Umm... Something sort of happens, which makes it a pity you only had two chapters, but it made me really uncomfortable because it seems to be happening in some way or another to most of the female characters. It's the whole 'bring a proud woman low' thing. It happens to Dany (until AWESOME DRAGONS), it happens to Asha, it's happening (albeit somewhat consentingly) to Arya. IT IS GETTING REALLY CREEPY PLEASE STOP. I can't believe I asked this book to stop where I've seen faster moving glaciers.
Dear Others: WHERE ARE YOU I WILL HAPPILY SACRIFICE WHATEVER YOU WANT AS LONG AS YOU GET A MOVE ON AND SOMETHING HAPPENS!
Dear Davos: Good to know you're not dead either. NOW DO SOMETHING.
Dear Melisandre: Your chapter was one I really enjoyed. Things sort-of happened and GRRM had one of his famous tricks revealed in your chapter. this one worked. Coolishness.
Dear Bran: For that... what, three chapters we saw you for, you did some stuff. Which makes you almost unique in this book. Hope you do something cool like chat with an Other next book.
Dear series: Most of the books up until this one were gamechangers. The world after Game of Thrones was not the same as the one at the beginning. Same with Clash of kings. Double same with Storm of Swords. Not so much with Feast for Crows, but that felt like a 'breather' book, in which we took stock of the carnage wrought by the civil war, even so, the situation did shift (what with Cercei). This book? We're still where we started off, we haven't advanced at all. It's all build up, as though it's one big advert for Winds of Winter which won't be out for at least another two years.
Also, the title is completely irrelevant. There is not 'Dance with Dragons'. There was a Game of Thrones in the first book, a Clash of Kings in the second, there was one hell of a Storm of Swords in the third, and a pretty big Feast for Crows in the Fourth. Here the dragons spend most of their time locked up and only do something right at the end, and even then nothing game changing as the other four were.
General points:
- The poetically named chapters got REALLY ANNOYING since the names changed all the time and I didn't give a shit about half the characters so I was constantly going 'who now?'
- THIS IS NOT A BOOK, IT'S A PREPERATORY READING TEXT FOR THE REAL BOOK. NOTHING HAPPENS.
- In case you're selectively blind to caplocks,nothing of note really happens in this book until the end, and that's only really enough to set up a really annoying cliffhanger, but not enough to balance out the sense 'well if the next book's like this count me out'.
- For all this hate speech, I got through it in less than a week so it does flow, only it feels like it's going nowhere.
Also: How did you world's attitude towards gay people go from 'whatever, more important things to do' to 'GOD HATES QUEERS' in the space of... what? A year? Less?
Dear Editors: My bad. Yeah, sorry for rushing you, you should have had more time. Most of Dany's chapters could have been condensed into one and nothing of value would have been lost. Sheesh.
Dear Dany: PLEASE GOD LET SOEMTHING HAPPEN FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK ooh, something did! Go Dragons! Dragons are officially my new favourite characters! Fire and Blood! Burn the lot of them!
Dear Quentyn: /Nelson Munz/ HAW-HAW! After dealing with one self-pitying chapter after another, your death by dragon was the best fucking thing in this book.
Dear Tyrion: Dear, we know you killed your father. We read the last book, remember? While I get you're upset it would be less annoying if SOMETHING WAS ACTUALLY HAPPENING. NOTHING DOES. You just get snatched up by one lot or another, while you have all the presence of a somewhat snarky bag of potatoes and the only halfway intesrting part (where join a band of sellswords) happens AT THE END.
Dear Barristan: Love you *huggles* as a guard it's not really your fault that NOTHING HAPPENS.
Dear Theon: /Nelson Munz/ HAW- oh, that wasn't funny at all actually. Ummm... yeah, sorry I laughed. Ever. Hope Asha takes care of you. You little bastard.
Dear Asha: Well, you tried. Your chapters were kinda okay really.
Dear Victarion: I hope Dragon eats you so we can be rid of your SELF PITYING POINTLESSNESS IN WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS.
Dear Stannis: Thank you for being one of the characters who is striving against impossible odds to GET THIS STORY MOVING. Then GRRM kills you (I think, probably not). Fuck.
Dear Aegon and forgettable retinue: Excuse me? Did we ask for you? Do you see any 'extra Targaryans wanted here' signs? Do we look like we need new characters? What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Doing. Here. This is the fifth book, the fifth! If we needed you we've have met you at some point in the billion or so pages, we would have had some hint that you existed. But no, fully formed, like Athena from Zeus' head, you spring into the book from nowhere. It's almost enough to outweight the fact that you are one of the few characters who tries to do something. Almost. But then no one's paying you any attention so why are you here again?
Dear Jon: Okay, I supposed your excuse for NOTHING HAPPENING is that being stuck at the Wall you're not being too proactive, and there's enough going on around you that makes it almost okay. Almost. Ha-ha, you're dead.
Dear Jaime: That was... brief. Nice to know Brienne's okay.
Dear Arya: PLEASE NAMELESS GODS MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN PLEASE. Take chapters from Feast of Crows, remove any actual important stuff, copy, paste, publish. NOTHING HAPPENS.
Dear Cercei: Umm... Something sort of happens, which makes it a pity you only had two chapters, but it made me really uncomfortable because it seems to be happening in some way or another to most of the female characters. It's the whole 'bring a proud woman low' thing. It happens to Dany (until AWESOME DRAGONS), it happens to Asha, it's happening (albeit somewhat consentingly) to Arya. IT IS GETTING REALLY CREEPY PLEASE STOP. I can't believe I asked this book to stop where I've seen faster moving glaciers.
Dear Others: WHERE ARE YOU I WILL HAPPILY SACRIFICE WHATEVER YOU WANT AS LONG AS YOU GET A MOVE ON AND SOMETHING HAPPENS!
Dear Davos: Good to know you're not dead either. NOW DO SOMETHING.
Dear Melisandre: Your chapter was one I really enjoyed. Things sort-of happened and GRRM had one of his famous tricks revealed in your chapter. this one worked. Coolishness.
Dear Bran: For that... what, three chapters we saw you for, you did some stuff. Which makes you almost unique in this book. Hope you do something cool like chat with an Other next book.
Dear series: Most of the books up until this one were gamechangers. The world after Game of Thrones was not the same as the one at the beginning. Same with Clash of kings. Double same with Storm of Swords. Not so much with Feast for Crows, but that felt like a 'breather' book, in which we took stock of the carnage wrought by the civil war, even so, the situation did shift (what with Cercei). This book? We're still where we started off, we haven't advanced at all. It's all build up, as though it's one big advert for Winds of Winter which won't be out for at least another two years.
Also, the title is completely irrelevant. There is not 'Dance with Dragons'. There was a Game of Thrones in the first book, a Clash of Kings in the second, there was one hell of a Storm of Swords in the third, and a pretty big Feast for Crows in the Fourth. Here the dragons spend most of their time locked up and only do something right at the end, and even then nothing game changing as the other four were.
General points:
- The poetically named chapters got REALLY ANNOYING since the names changed all the time and I didn't give a shit about half the characters so I was constantly going 'who now?'
- THIS IS NOT A BOOK, IT'S A PREPERATORY READING TEXT FOR THE REAL BOOK. NOTHING HAPPENS.
- In case you're selectively blind to caplocks,nothing of note really happens in this book until the end, and that's only really enough to set up a really annoying cliffhanger, but not enough to balance out the sense 'well if the next book's like this count me out'.
- For all this hate speech, I got through it in less than a week so it does flow, only it feels like it's going nowhere.