A Song of Ice and Fire... and Geeks

[Bugbear]

A while back, a friend started reading the novel series, A Song of Ice and Fire, and suggested I read the novels, as well.

We both found George R. R. Martin's writing style, or perhaps his story telling style, to be a bit irritating. I suspect this is intentional, however, he did make up interesting mythologies, superstitions, and beliefs for his characters.

Now that I have read, A Dance with Dragons, the last book, I've started trying to pick out parallels between Martin's mythologies etc, and other mythology's. I also did this after reading the Katherine Kurtz Adept series, only she was fairly directly using sources of modern esoteric mythologies; some of which had actually been accepted by academics at one short time, Frazer et al; as well as, using a lot of old Scottish folklore and legend. We talked a little about that here on the forum.

I think Martin used bits and pieces of mythologies and folklore, world wide, along with his own creations, throughout the novels, and it does seem to give the stories a distant but slightly familiar feel. In some ways, like an adult Grimm's Fairy Tales. They remind me of some of the things you might find at Ren Fair events, as well.

That's my take so far.

[CDNSushi]

We both found George R. R. Martin's writing style, or perhaps his story telling style, to be a bit irritating.

Just curious -- can you articulate what it was that irritated you about his writing style?

[aziraphale]

I read the first book a year or two ago and have all of them, my friends are bugging me to read them but I refuse to finish reading any fantasy series until Wheel Of Time finally ends, sure Dance with Dragons was a long time coming, but Wheel of time has been 'nearly finished' for the last ten years and I can't bring myself to finish anything before it haha.

His writing style for me wasnt so much as annoying, more unpolished. The storylines were good, the atmosphere was all set up well, but i found his dialogue came across as a little unrealistic at times. But not irritating. I found it quite a smooth easy read, which is more than can be said for a lot of fantasy novels attempting a story on a scale as big as this.

[Bugbear]

Just curious -- can you articulate what it was that irritated you about his writing style?

I will try. It kind of felt as if he was stringing the reader along with no overall direction in some parts of the novels. Often it seemed as if you were left at a cliff hanger and then there was no resolution. You invest a lot of emotion in following some characters or story line, then they were just completely dropped from the plot, or almost never mentioned again. It became a bit exhausting to read at times, and I almost didn't bother to read the last novel. I did want to see what happened to at least one character, though, so I guess it worked a little.
I felt jerked around a little too much by the story lines that never ended or were just dropped.

[Bugbear]

His writing style for me wasnt so much as annoying, more unpolished. The storylines were good, the atmosphere was all set up well, but i found his dialogue came across as a little unrealistic at times. But not irritating. I found it quite a smooth easy read, which is more than can be said for a lot of fantasy novels attempting a story on a scale as big as this.

I understand what you're saying about the dialogue, but it didn't bother me too much. It was kind of cartoon-like in some ways... but that's ok with me having grown up in the eighties with story cartoons like Dungeons and Dragons, etc.

I was thinking across the whole series. I read them back to back, except this last one, which hadn't come out yet.

Guess that's most of what I had to say on the style.

[CDNSushi]

Sure... That makes sense. I don't like it either when in the course of a book, TV show, movie, theatre play, what-have-you, a plot element or character, or even a prop gets introduced that doesn't get used. I got that from my high school English teacher.

I remember when I was in our high school play, my part was that of an old, retired man whose highlight of the day was going out to see firefighters fight fires. We were encouraged to explore our characters and give them a life of their own... And I felt that my old man would have enjoyed smoking pipes.

When I asked our director, who was also our English teacher and a great aficionado of the theatre, what he thought of my having a pipe on set as a prop, he told me, "Only if you smoke it, or at the very least, light it." He went on to explain that it was a particular pet peeve of his to see characters walk around stage with a cigarette, cigar, pipe, etc., as a prop, but never smoke it. Tobacco is meant to be smoked -- not carried around, he explained. He said that it was very distracting for him to watch, because as an audience member he would silently be drawn to the cigarette, and keep saying to himself: "Smoke it. Smoke it. Smoke it. Smoke it. Smoke it. Damnit, why don't you light it already? C'mon! SMOKE IT!"

So we worked out that about halfway through my scene I would pull out the pipe, start filling it, and as the spotlight started to dim off me, I would light the pipe and emit a puff of smoke as we faded to black.

I don't think I would like it very much to be taken for that kind of ride in a book, with a storyline or character that would then get yoinked out randomly, never to be seen again...

[Bugbear]

Ya, Sushi, that's kind of what I mean...

You know, I don't want to bash Martin or complain too much. He has lots of really cool characters and concepts in the books. You could go on to write several more books just off the story lines he doesn't bring to any sort of a conclusion or explain in a satisfactory way, though. Maybe that's what he plans to do.

I'm sorry if my comments sounded too negative.

[J_Mimbs]

Bugbear, I know what you mean. I haven't read A Dance with Dragons yet (waiting for the paperback; sue me lol) but as much as I enjoyed the story thus far, some of the writing bothered me. Plot lines meander about, which is fine, and the twists and turns are great, but the lack of any resolution in some of them is annoying. I'd name names but I don't want to give anything away. But especially in A Feast For Crows it seemed like stories you'd been following for a while just suddenly ended, with no warning.

All that said, I do love the books. The immersion into the world is wonderful, and it does seem just familiar enough that you keep wondering if its somehow connected to our world.

[Meggers]

Ok ok....I will admit it.....

*sighs*

I may have Daenerys as my avatar but I've never read the series yet I'm an English major and have 92389023840982304823 books to read for school and even though my dad is trying to get me to read the Ice and Fire books, I haven't had time

BUT I am a huge fan of Game of Thrones show which is why she is my profile pic.

I know Im a poser. I hate beign a poser! The minute I get free time, I will read them!....after I finish the LOTR....and my Irish Country series

[J_Mimbs]

Well I will say, A Game of Thrones has been shockingly accurate to the books (graphically in some places) in a way that many fantasy series' have not. (I.E. - Lord of the Rings) So even though you haven't read the books there isn't too much in the first book that will surprise you when you read it.

Of course, everything that happens in the later books...well that might surprise you just a bit.