The Punning Pundit

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November 19, 2005

Feast for Crows.

Well, I've just finished reading the new one by George R. R. Martin. If you’ve not read the series, start with Game of Thrones...

I won’t do too much review of the latest book, save to say that the Author didn’t want to write it, and it shows. It isn’t that he did a bad job, it’s just that he wanted to write about the next events in the character’s lives, rather than these events. As a consequence of that, the story is a bit bare. There is an entire political movement, and we readers only find out about it afterwards. This is ordinarily something that we readers would have seen forming, or at least heard whispers of. But since the effect was more important to the Author than the story, we’re left out. Not to say that the story is bad, or unimportant, just that the book suffers from middle-child syndrome.

The difference between a good author and a great author is the ability to show characters being clever—and doing it believably. Martin is a great author. Just as a contrast: Robert Jordan’s character’s cleverest moments all happen off stage. Fiest’s character’s aren’t believably clever. With Martin, Characters behave reasonably, and their actions always have realistic and unintended consequences. Not only do characters do clever things, they do them while we watch through their eyes...

To put it a different way, when I was growing up, I’d read everything I could get my hands on. In many books, I’d walk away thinking but how does politics work. I took a bunch of poli-sci classes and found out. With Martin, I’d not have had to do so...

Anyway, I can’t wait for book 5. Hopefully it’ll be sooner than 5 years...

Posted by Andrew at November 19, 2005 11:01 PM

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Comments

Posted by: Scorpio at November 20, 2005 02:37 PM

Posted by: Andrew Cory at November 20, 2005 04:30 PM