REVIEW: A Dance With Dragons
Haven't posted anywhere in a million years, hopefully this will change.
Warning: Some of this is spoilery.
I like GRRM for his systematic demolishing of fantasy tropes that really, when you think about it (if you think about it) don't make a lot of sense. This remains, IMO, this book's best strength.
+1 for young heroes without training in leadership and kingship making bad decisions, second-guessing themselves, and generally defeating the trope that because you're the good guy, you suddenly acquire knowledge it takes a normal person a lifetime to gain.
+1 for travel in a medieval world being a Pain. In. The. Ass. There is nothing remotely romantic about trekking around Martin's world. Storms suck. Snow sucks. Magical wildernesses suck too. And starvation really, really sucks.
+1 for difficult dragons who are not urbane, not mentors, not easily trained, and scare the pants off the local population
+10 for Tyrion's Brains. I don't always love him (even if his snark is delicious), but he's the one character in here who seems to have forward momentum-- he's bright, and his plans pay off way more often than they fail. Something that can't be said for... almost anyone else.
+100 for recognizing that if it's hard to travel across the snowy wilderness as a small group, it's multiplied exponentially for an army. Especially an army of people with people who've never truly encountered winter before. Especially especially a poorly provisioned, poorly planned army with people who've never truly encountered winter before.
+100 for awesome Wildlings. Tormund and Val, in particular, were a delight. I enjoyed the Wall chapters well and above the rest, and the Wildlings were a big part of why. After suffering through chapter after chapter of oily treachery and double-dealing in Slaver's Bay, it was a palate cleanser to listen to Wildling straight-talk.
+1000 for tossing lampshades on the misogyny of this world. I had reservations about ASOIAF on this front in the past, both from the text and from the frequently shitty behavior of the author (his bitterness at JKR, his pervyness over the (very) young actresses in his TV show) IRL, but ADWD did a lot to calm me down on this front. Asha Greyjoy, in particular, has an astute observation that made me adore her and thank GRRM for putting it in.
+1000 for Melisandre. In a few short bits and one chapter, hers was the best "make you do a 180 on a character" reversal since Jaime Lannister meeting Brienne of Tarth. I really want to see more of her, she's easily the most intriguing character in this book.
-- Reserving judgement but so help me if you've actually killed off the character who got stabbed, I am probably done buying more books. I know this is a series where it doesn't pay to get too attached to anyone, but there are four characters who I want to see live to see the end. That one is one of them. I realize they could well be alive since it was written in such an "ending could be anything" kind of way, so I'm going to cross my fingers and hope.
-100 for blink-and-you-miss-it Arya. She's got the same problem Dany originally had, she's isolated from other characters and her chapters jerk you out of the book's flow, and there isn't much in the way of plot for her to observe (unlike, say, the "Reek" who gets too damn much ink) so it's all character development. Still, I wanted to see more of her.
-INFINITY for 10 years of glacially slow writing only to deliver a glacially slow book where nothing fucking *happens*. Just chapter after chapter after chapter of slowly setting up the pieces, only to have the action either fizzle, or (in one particularly frustrating bit) happen completely off-screen. I can deal with cliffhangers. I expect cliffhangers. I don't expect that every single goddamned plotline is left dangling. Nothing is accomplished, there's only one thing that I could really call a fist-pumping Fuck Yeah! moment, and even that loses its momentum as quickly as it gains it.
ADWD feels incredibly passive to me, like the series has somehow lost its active voice. There's tons and tons of GRRM's patented heraldry porn, tons and tons of grisly torture (Ramsay Bolton, need I say more?), but it feels like the proof of the thing I most worried about-- that he's lost interest in this series and writing it is more of a grind than a joy. Sadly, that's how it felt *reading* it. Like those grind-y daily quests you do in World of Warcraft because you committed to it, so you're damn well going to see it through, even if you do have to kill 10,000 of this and 20,000 of that. And when you're done and the achievement goes up, you find yourself feeling kind of empty, and wondering why you bothered.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment on whichever you'd like. :)
Warning: Some of this is spoilery.
I like GRRM for his systematic demolishing of fantasy tropes that really, when you think about it (if you think about it) don't make a lot of sense. This remains, IMO, this book's best strength.
+1 for young heroes without training in leadership and kingship making bad decisions, second-guessing themselves, and generally defeating the trope that because you're the good guy, you suddenly acquire knowledge it takes a normal person a lifetime to gain.
+1 for travel in a medieval world being a Pain. In. The. Ass. There is nothing remotely romantic about trekking around Martin's world. Storms suck. Snow sucks. Magical wildernesses suck too. And starvation really, really sucks.
+1 for difficult dragons who are not urbane, not mentors, not easily trained, and scare the pants off the local population
+10 for Tyrion's Brains. I don't always love him (even if his snark is delicious), but he's the one character in here who seems to have forward momentum-- he's bright, and his plans pay off way more often than they fail. Something that can't be said for... almost anyone else.
+100 for recognizing that if it's hard to travel across the snowy wilderness as a small group, it's multiplied exponentially for an army. Especially an army of people with people who've never truly encountered winter before. Especially especially a poorly provisioned, poorly planned army with people who've never truly encountered winter before.
+100 for awesome Wildlings. Tormund and Val, in particular, were a delight. I enjoyed the Wall chapters well and above the rest, and the Wildlings were a big part of why. After suffering through chapter after chapter of oily treachery and double-dealing in Slaver's Bay, it was a palate cleanser to listen to Wildling straight-talk.
+1000 for tossing lampshades on the misogyny of this world. I had reservations about ASOIAF on this front in the past, both from the text and from the frequently shitty behavior of the author (his bitterness at JKR, his pervyness over the (very) young actresses in his TV show) IRL, but ADWD did a lot to calm me down on this front. Asha Greyjoy, in particular, has an astute observation that made me adore her and thank GRRM for putting it in.
+1000 for Melisandre. In a few short bits and one chapter, hers was the best "make you do a 180 on a character" reversal since Jaime Lannister meeting Brienne of Tarth. I really want to see more of her, she's easily the most intriguing character in this book.
-- Reserving judgement but so help me if you've actually killed off the character who got stabbed, I am probably done buying more books. I know this is a series where it doesn't pay to get too attached to anyone, but there are four characters who I want to see live to see the end. That one is one of them. I realize they could well be alive since it was written in such an "ending could be anything" kind of way, so I'm going to cross my fingers and hope.
-100 for blink-and-you-miss-it Arya. She's got the same problem Dany originally had, she's isolated from other characters and her chapters jerk you out of the book's flow, and there isn't much in the way of plot for her to observe (unlike, say, the "Reek" who gets too damn much ink) so it's all character development. Still, I wanted to see more of her.
-INFINITY for 10 years of glacially slow writing only to deliver a glacially slow book where nothing fucking *happens*. Just chapter after chapter after chapter of slowly setting up the pieces, only to have the action either fizzle, or (in one particularly frustrating bit) happen completely off-screen. I can deal with cliffhangers. I expect cliffhangers. I don't expect that every single goddamned plotline is left dangling. Nothing is accomplished, there's only one thing that I could really call a fist-pumping Fuck Yeah! moment, and even that loses its momentum as quickly as it gains it.
ADWD feels incredibly passive to me, like the series has somehow lost its active voice. There's tons and tons of GRRM's patented heraldry porn, tons and tons of grisly torture (Ramsay Bolton, need I say more?), but it feels like the proof of the thing I most worried about-- that he's lost interest in this series and writing it is more of a grind than a joy. Sadly, that's how it felt *reading* it. Like those grind-y daily quests you do in World of Warcraft because you committed to it, so you're damn well going to see it through, even if you do have to kill 10,000 of this and 20,000 of that. And when you're done and the achievement goes up, you find yourself feeling kind of empty, and wondering why you bothered.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comment on whichever you'd like. :)