A Song of Ice and Fire (TV/Book spoilers)

[FlyingElvis]

I know they had some elements in season one that were from later books. Nothing huge and it sounds like they'll continue basically doing it in a time frame they think will translate best to a 10 show season. So we will may still see the relationship w/Sansa and the Hound since they made it a point to show the exchange between her and Tyrion in episode one.

Book 3 is being discussed as 2 seasons b/c there's just so much there. Let's hope they make it that far! Here's a solid article (interview w/the writer/producers) that explains it all pretty well.

[Gay Ork Wang]

Well him talking to her all the time, e.g. telling her how he got the scar was pretty huge for me that got left out. in the show it as littlefinger telling the story.

[Razor]

Is this something that I should watch? It starts tomorrow over here and the trailer looks kinda interesting. A friend of mine have been telling me to watch it for some months now but I wasn't sure it was worth my time..

[brat316]

watch season 1, read book 1, watch season 2, read book 2. or some order like that, but make sure to read the book.

I tried re watching the season after reading, i couldn't get into it again, cause the book was that good.

[vidae]

If you have the time you should definitely read the books. It's the best fantasy series of all time and it isn't close at all. George R R Martin is a fantastic writer.

[killxswitch]

Originally Posted by vidae

If you have the time you should definitely read the books. It's the best fantasy series of all time and it isn't close at all. George R R Martin is a fantastic writer.

I wouldn't go that far. I like Wheel of Time, and the new stuff Brandon Sanderson is writing is also very good. Martin is a grittier writer but that is a stylistic choice. I wouldn't call it better, just different.

[vidae]

Originally Posted by killxswitch

I wouldn't go that far. I like Wheel of Time, and the new stuff Brandon Sanderson is writing is also very good. Martin is a grittier writer but that is a stylistic choice. I wouldn't call it better, just different.

I'd call it better. I've read Sanderson and Jordan. Jordan might be the most infuriating writer of all time. He takes five pages to explain something that can be done in one. It's a great way to paint a picture in your mind, but 10+ books of that is just flat out ANNOYING.

Sanderson is the new kid on the block and he is very talented. Mistborn is a great series and easy to pick up and read, and I've heard nothing but good things about his new series Stormlight Archive.

I'm also not a fan of a series where NO ONE DIES. It isn't realistic.

All of that said, neither of them touch George R R Martin. At least for me.

I'm just glad you didn't include Terry Goodkind. We would have had to resort to fisticuffs.

[wogitalia]

I hear what you are saying... but Tolkein is the greatest fantasy writer, period.

I really do need to read GoT though, wish I had more free time!

[brat316]

Its called A song of Ice and Fire

[Razor]

I have to say that the fantasy genre has a tough time keeping me entertained. But perhaps this is different.. I'll start by watching the first episode and take it from there.. Thanks guys.

[Gay Ork Wang]

Originally Posted by wogitalia

I hear what you are saying... but Tolkein is the greatest fantasy writer, period.

I really do need to read GoT though, wish I had more free time!

All i say is: No.

[killxswitch]

Originally Posted by vidae

I'd call it better. I've read Sanderson and Jordan. Jordan might be the most infuriating writer of all time. He takes five pages to explain something that can be done in one. It's a great way to paint a picture in your mind, but 10+ books of that is just flat out ANNOYING.

Sanderson is the new kid on the block and he is very talented. Mistborn is a great series and easy to pick up and read, and I've heard nothing but good things about his new series Stormlight Archive.

I'm also not a fan of a series where NO ONE DIES. It isn't realistic.

All of that said, neither of them touch George R R Martin. At least for me.

I'm just glad you didn't include Terry Goodkind. We would have had to resort to fisticuffs.

I agree that Jordan got pretty bad in his later books. I am kind of glad he died before he finished the books because books 6 and 11 are hard to read, and 7-10 were unbearable. I don't know how I got through 7-10. I remember one chapter in book 10 where the character didn't even leave her tent. She just sat there thinking about stuff the entire time. That was the whole chapter: a woman sitting in a tent thinking about dumb ****. I think that entire book, which was probably more than 700 pages, only covered a 2 week span of time. Ridiculous.

Sanderson I think is new enough that you can't classify him. He killed off a pretty important character in Mistborn, and I don't use "will the author kill important people" as a main factor when rating a book. I read the first book of the Stormlight Archive and it was incredible. The big problem is that I will probably be in my 50s by the time he's done with it.

I read the Sword of Truth series. It was ok. His battle descriptions were entertaining. But a lot of it was really stupid, and he pretty obviously stole a lot of his ideas from the Wheel of Time. And once he started putting Ayn Rand ******** into the plot it got really bad.

Damn I sound like a complete dork. I haven't even read a book in probably a year.

Originally Posted by Razor

I have to say that the fantasy genre has a tough time keeping me entertained. But perhaps this is different.. I'll start by watching the first episode and take it from there.. Thanks guys.

As far as "fantasy" there isn't much fantasy at all, especially in the first season. It is basically a medieval story set in a fictional world. Not much magic, if any. I can't remember right now but it's not a bunch of wizards and witches flying around on brooms and magic carpets.

[FlyingElvis]

It's about the same as a GOAT QB discussion. There are a few that can be supported in the discussion.

Personally, my childhood spent reading Tolkein and C.S. Lewis will keep them near the top of the list. But Martin is a clear favorite if you're gripe w/fantasy is the lack of realism; specifically death, sex, and much wider gray areas of morality.

[killxswitch]

Originally Posted by FlyingElvis

It's about the same as a GOAT QB discussion. There are a few that can be supported in the discussion.

Personally, my childhood spent reading Tolkein and C.S. Lewis will keep them near the top of the list. But Martin is a clear favorite if you're gripe w/fantasy is the lack of realism; specifically death, sex, and much wider gray areas of morality.

I'm not sure Martin's world has that much gray area. It's not even right vs. wrong so much as multiple groups wanting power for themselves. If you take a step back, once that one important character dies in the first book (or first season if you're only watching the show), there aren't any particularly "good" characters. Just people driven by desire for power or revenge or both. Which I suppose does make it a lot more realistic.

[njx9]

Originally Posted by vidae

If you have the time you should definitely read the books. It's the best fantasy series of all time and it isn't close at all. George R R Martin is a fantastic writer.

bleh. he's a good writer, but the series gets weak after a good start. oddly like the WoT, although WoT went about 5.5 books of good, to about as many fillers, where SoIAF is just getting into serious filler territory.

and though i agree that no one dying is lame,

systematically killing every single important character

is equally lame.

[brat316]

Book 4 is useless, it probably could have been combined with book 5. Still have to finish 4.

[vidae]

Originally Posted by killxswitch

I agree that Jordan got pretty bad in his later books. I am kind of glad he died before he finished the books because books 6 and 11 are hard to read, and 7-10 were unbearable. I don't know how I got through 7-10. I remember one chapter in book 10 where the character didn't even leave her tent. She just sat there thinking about stuff the entire time. That was the whole chapter: a woman sitting in a tent thinking about dumb ****. I think that entire book, which was probably more than 700 pages, only covered a 2 week span of time. Ridiculous.

Sanderson I think is new enough that you can't classify him. He killed off a pretty important character in Mistborn, and I don't use "will the author kill important people" as a main factor when rating a book. I read the first book of the Stormlight Archive and it was incredible. The big problem is that I will probably be in my 50s by the time he's done with it.

I read the Sword of Truth series. It was ok. His battle descriptions were entertaining. But a lot of it was really stupid, and he pretty obviously stole a lot of his ideas from the Wheel of Time. And once he started putting Ayn Rand ******** into the plot it got really bad.

Damn I sound like a complete dork. I haven't even read a book in probably a year.

My biggest problem with Goodkind is his rampant use of deus ex machina. Oh no, we can't win.. but wait, now we can, because I remembered or thought of something that would work INSTANTLY!

I'd rather read books 5-10 of Wheel of Time for the rest of my life than read a single book of Sword of Truth again.

And I agree about the Stormlight Archive series. It's going to suck because he said it'll be something like a 10 book series. Don't get me wrong, I'll probably get through it all, but I will be pretty damn old by the time he's finished.

Originally Posted by FlyingElvis

It's about the same as a GOAT QB discussion. There are a few that can be supported in the discussion.

Personally, my childhood spent reading Tolkein and C.S. Lewis will keep them near the top of the list. But Martin is a clear favorite if you're gripe w/fantasy is the lack of realism; specifically death, sex, and much wider gray areas of morality.

Tolkein will always have a special place in my heart, but it's hard for me to go back and read his stuff now. After reading Martin, and more specifically Glen Cook, it's hard for me to read the older fantasy stuff.

Speaking of Glen Cook, if you haven't read his Black Company series, you should DEFINITELY check it out. It's a really great series and it's unlike most of the fantasy stuff out there. The first three books are his best, but the first six are worth reading. They're basically two different trilogies.

[Vox Populi]

Don't read the spoiler if you haven't read all of the books unless you're interested in speculation-ish stuff about the future of the series.

ADWD might have seemed weaker than it otherwise would have to a lot of readers because Martin had to cut two huge battle scenes out of it and push them into tWoW (Book 6). His editor made the call because the book would have been even longer than aSoS.

So tWoW will pretty much right away start with the battle of Mereen (through Tyrion, Victarion and Barristan) and Winterfell (through Stannis and Theon) taking place simultaneously, and will feature Aegon attacking Stormsend not too far into the book as well based on the Arianne chapter that was already released.

tWoW will also inevitably involve Jaime and Brienne going to do something with Lady Stoneheart which should be interesting. Cersei's trial (more than likely to be decided in a trial of 7 melee) should be pretty bad ass as well. If you don't know what that might be like, read the Dunk & Egg novellas set ~90ish years before ASOIAF in Westeros.

Bran can basically time travel through trees now so he can at least provide insight into some cool stuff, but probably not have much of a direct affect on anything unless he can legitimately talk through the trees.

The Arya, Sansa, Davos and Dany chapters have some legwork to do before they do anything really interesting right now.

And as far as Jon goes, I really don't think he is dead forever. At the very least he will 100% do what Varamyr did in the prologue chapter where he "warged" into his (wolf?), so Jon would do that with Ghost. Alternatively, and more drastically, he could somehow be resurrected by Melisandre and her magic, or somehow have his corpse restored and then warg back into it from Ghost, but I won't make any guarantees beyond him living on as Ghost. A lot of chaos will be going on at the Wall probably as well so any Jon or Melisandre chapter should be interesting as well.

aDwD and aFfC were an 11 year trap for Martin that he struggled to work through, but right now his only real obstacle is getting Dany to Westeros, which in my opinion will happen basically right after the battle of Mereen. She'll probably end up bringing a lot of the Dothraki with her as well considering where she is right now as well.

[Rosebud]

While I really love this show...This thread is upsetting in the lack of Chronicles of Amber mentions for greatest fantasy series of all time. Roger Zelasny is amazing.

EDIT: Speaking Zelasny and Martin, anyone read any of the Wild Cards books?

[nepg]

Originally Posted by wogitalia

I hear what you are saying... but Tolkein is the greatest fantasy writer, period.

I really do need to read GoT though, wish I had more free time!

Tolkien takes forever to get to the point. I don't think he's particularly good/great, just very wordy (dude, I know what a ******* tree looks like, you don't need to describe every single one the characters walk by) and the world he created is pretty cool. All he really has going for him, in my mind, is a cool world.

You could chop down each of the Tolkien books by at least 25% by getting rid of all of the filler and fluff words and the books wouldn't lose anything. ****, they might be even better if you did that.

[Caddy]

Any other Skins fans enjoying the presence of not one, but two former cast members?

[Nalej]

Just saw the premier. Awesome. Excited for Sunday night!

[XxXdragonXxX]

I get so angry every time an episode ends, I just want it to go on forever.

This is easily the best show on TV in my opinion.

[Caddy]

Anyone catch the pre-air episode 2 yet? I don't know whether to wait or not...

[FlyingElvis]

pre-air? I don't even watch the previews of the next episode when the show ends. lol