Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 5394591" data-attributes="member: 58197">Sharply? Don't know that I'd say that. But it was something of a disappointment, for me anyway.Without giving away any plot details, Martin decided to split up books 4 and 5, giving half the established points of view to one and half to the other. Then he added a bunch of new PoVs to &quot;Feast&quot; to round it out. IMO, this is always a mistake when you're several books into a series; the audience is deeply invested in the existing PoVs by this point, which makes the new ones feel like filler.More serious for the long-term health of the series, many of the new points of view are heading off in different directions. They introduce tangential storylines that don't look like they're going to join up with the main branches anytime soon. There's a lot of new threads being added into the narrative and very few old threads being tied off.Whether this is the harbinger of an overall decline in series quality, or a one-off dip, remains to be seen. In large part I think it depends on whether Martin recognizes the need to prune his plot tree; &quot;Song of Ice and Fire&quot; is in some danger of descending into the morass that swallowed &quot;Wheel of Time.&quot; The fact that we're five years out from &quot;Feast&quot; and he's still working on the next volume is an ominous sign to me--it suggests that the plot is continuing to sprawl--but we'll see how it goes.(Oh, yeah. Did I mention you have to wait years and years between books? That's the real problem with &quot;Song&quot; at the moment.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 5394591, member: 58197"] Sharply? Don't know that I'd say that. But it was something of a disappointment, for me anyway. Without giving away any plot details, Martin decided to split up books 4 and 5, giving half the established points of view to one and half to the other. Then he added a bunch of new PoVs to "Feast" to round it out. IMO, this is always a mistake when you're several books into a series; the audience is deeply invested in the existing PoVs by this point, which makes the new ones feel like filler. More serious for the long-term health of the series, many of the new points of view are heading off in different directions. They introduce tangential storylines that don't look like they're going to join up with the main branches anytime soon. There's a lot of new threads being added into the narrative and very few old threads being tied off. Whether this is the harbinger of an overall decline in series quality, or a one-off dip, remains to be seen. In large part I think it depends on whether Martin recognizes the need to prune his plot tree; "Song of Ice and Fire" is in some danger of descending into the morass that swallowed "Wheel of Time." The fact that we're five years out from "Feast" and he's still working on the next volume is an ominous sign to me--it suggests that the plot is continuing to sprawl--but we'll see how it goes. (Oh, yeah. Did I mention you have to wait years and years between books? That's the real problem with "Song" at the moment.) [/QUOTE]

Verification