A Dance with Dragons blurb released

[replicant2]

Contrast this transparency of obvious "new" directions and "false conflicts" in both Wheel of Time and Sword of Truth with GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire. I do not see the false conflict, save perhaps between Jaime and Cersei Lannister. (Any other intra-Lannister conflict was foreshadowed from the very first chapters in GoT - GRRM was always going there.)

More importantly, I do not detect a false change in metaplot direction to deliberately lengthen the story. While it may well be that the tale "grew in the telling" and is taking much longer to reach its goal than first thought, it does not seem to me that GRRM has bent his tale out of shape or diverted its course from that originally intended with respect to his main plot. It's simply taking him longer to get where he was always going. The emerging subplot in AFFC involving the High Septon and the sparrows seems a little contrived and out of place in light of the previous books perhaps. But that's really the only part in SoIaF where there seems some artificiality. GRRM is doing, on a comparative basis, extremely well with such an unexpected meandering, as it has not affected the main metaplot.

I think that is the principal difference between comparing the overly long Wheel of Time to the not-yet-overly-long Song of Ice and Fire. It is a distinction with a difference.

You make some good points here, Steel Wind--at least from my recollection. It's been over two years since I've read A Feast for Crows, and my memories of it are a bit hazy.

However, your post prompted me to check out the Wiki entry on A Song of Ice and Fire, and the recap of A Feast for Crows again reminded me of how little actually occured in the novel. You're right in that there are no "new directions" or "false conflicts," but there's also a lot of needless meandering and side developments without any semblance of pay-off.

There was some interesting character development in Feast, and I if I didn't become a fan of Jaime Lannister over the course of the book, I at least now see him as an interesting three-dimensional character with strengths and flaws. I liked the Brienne chapters. But as for the rest, it was like Martin spent it playing around in Westeros, showing us some neat cultures and personalities in an indulgent and largely unnecessary world-building exercise. The whole book just felt watered-down and in need of an edit.

I've heard many people describe Crows as a "calm before the storm" or a book that "sets up big events to come." That may be, but was a 700-page tome really necessary to accomplish this?

 

[Fast Learner]

My gripe with the delay is that GRRM stated (or at least implied) that ADWD was essentially done when AFFC was written, since they were written together, and it was only toward the end he decided to split them into two parallel books due to length. It was supposed to be a year or less between AFFC and ADWD. So if a significant amount of the book was done, why does it look like it will end up being 3 years between books?

Because it's taking longer to write than he thought. When you're writing richly complex fiction, sometimes things come to light and to life that you hadn't considered when you made a previous estimate. And so what?

 

[Steel_Wind]

You make some good points here, Steel Wind--at least from my recollection. It's been over two years since I've read A Feast for Crows, and my memories of it are a bit hazy.

You're right in that there are no "new directions" or "false conflicts," but there's also a lot of needless meandering and side developments without any semblance of pay-off.

There was some interesting character development in Feast ...The whole book just felt watered-down and in need of an edit.

I've heard many people describe Crows as a "calm before the storm" or a book that "sets up big events to come." That may be, but was a 700-page tome really necessary to accomplish this?

If that was all it was intended to do - be a mere setup - than I would have to agree with your unspoken point that it seems indulgent.

And in fairness, there IS a lot of AFFC which is intended to be a setup of later events. The problem is that the payoff of plot advancement that was intended to be happening in the other chapters in AFFC was mostly left out of it as the "Big Three" characters' POV (Jon, Danaerys and Tyrion) were cut from the novel. And perhaps most importantly - Bran was left out of it completely - so we do not get the payoff of the exposition concerning the "gathering evil" that Bran's POV is intended to show.

FWIW, I would argue, however, that Cersei's point of view in AFFC was used as an exposition of the metaplot concerning the Iron Throne; that a lot did happen in her POV chapters. It's just that because Cersei is so stupid, and because GRRM is true to his character's point of view, that the reader senses not much is happening. Because Cersei does not notice her own subtle manipulation throughout the novel by Lady Merryweather, many readers miss it as well. There's a lot more happening in AFFC than meets the eye. If you are inclined to re-read the novel, pay particular attention to Lady Merryweather and view everything she does or says - or does not say or do - with the unwavering assumption that the Lady is a fabulously cunning mole of Littlefinger and the Queen of Thorns. It's worth the re-read for that purpose if you missed it the first time around.

But to address the balance of your post, I think its key to remember that AFFC was released early and unfinished as a response to publisher's pressure and growing frustration by fans with the delays. AFFC was supposed to be a little larger than Storm of Swords in size with the vast majority of the chapters which are forthcoming in ADWD in it as well. In the end, that did not happen.

Put another way, the ADWD we will be getting is not the ADWD we were originally intended to get. The series was supposed to be only six novels, not seven. We will get the "original AFFC" spread out over two books, not one. The ADWD originally intended will be the sixth novel, Winds of Winter, and so on.

As a consequence, we get half a book with AFFC, and most of the metaplot advancement was left out of it.

If ADWD fails to advance the metaplot of the series in a manner that you believe it should, than I think your criticism will be well supported.

But if in ADWD we read about King Stanis dying in the North on the tip of Longclaw, while Bran meets the Green Men and talks to a undead man with cold back hands astride an elk who looks a lot like his Uncle Benjen Stark, you might be inclined to forgive GRRM his meanderings in the Riverlands with Brienne.

 

[Steel_Wind]

My gripe with the delay is that GRRM stated (or at least implied) that ADWD was essentially done when AFFC was written, since they were written together, and it was only toward the end he decided to split them into two parallel books due to length.

No. He said that he wasn't done and that was the problem. I think you are confusing the decision "cut the book in two" with the state of the manuscript at the time that decision was made.

GRRM explained to a group of us in Toronto in January 2006 the following:

AFFC was originally conceived as a novel about the length of Storm of Swords. The hardcover version of SoS was about 975 pages long.

As he was writing and the manuscript page count passed about 100 pages over that which Storm of Swords was when that book was finished - and AFFC was STILL hundreds of pages shy of being close to "done" as GRRM had conceived it, he faced a choice.

The problem was that the paperpack version of Storm of Swords pushed the technology of paperback book binding in North America and in the UK to its limit. Indeed, in some European countries, his local publishers had released Storm of Swords in two separate volumes, not in one, as its length had pushed the physical limits of their binding machines to the max.

So at 1100 pages in hardcover, AFFC would "break the paperback press". And he thought he would go 300 or 400 pages more beyond this page count at least. 1100 hardcover pages was a maybe to his publishers at Bantam/Spectra; 1500 or 1600 hardcover pages was a non-starter.

So GRRM faced a choice: cut chapters, or cut the book in half.

GRRM said the choice was his and he elected to cut the book in two. He reorganized his manuscript and began to write and adjust some of the Southern chapters so that the book had a clear beginning and an end.

AFFC was then released in November 2005.

He then proceeded to write that 400 or more pages he needed for his Book of the North and East - and then added some more and tweaked some more. That's where he is right now and where, it appears, that GRRM is still - and about 2 or 3 months shy of finishing off his work on that part of the manuscript if the publisher is to be believed.

So he was not finished when AFFC was released - he was 400 or more pages away from complete. About half done with ADWD.

In the end, it means that instead of one Storm of Swords length novel (what AFFC was supposed to be), we are getting a "Clash of Kings" length novel (AFFC) and a "Game of Thrones" length novel (ADWD's reported length) instead.