George R. R. Martin, A Dance With Dragons

So, now that I have finished A Dance With Dragons I am up to date on the Song of Ice and Fire.  It's been a summer-long project that has stretched into Fall--guess I'm not a fast reader.  My perspective is a little different in that I have swallowed the whole thing in one sitting, as opposed to reading the series over 15 years as some have done. 

I confess to being slightly relieved at having finished the series to this point.  Not that it wasn't entertaining, it certainly was.  The craftsmanship in this work is excellent, second to none.  It's a comfortable read, knowing that the author is keeping careful track of 1000 plus characters and taking the time (five years, in this case) to sort out the plot.

What may be tiring me a bit is that it is very much beginning to feel like a soap opera.  Soap operas can be very entertaining in their subplots.  Will Tyrion ever find happiness, or at least Tysha?  Are the Starks truly crushed now that Jon Snow is slain and the children have gone to ground?  Will Daenarys Targaryen get her act together, or will her brother take the lead, or what?  Would we actually want any of these families to prevail?

But fantasies aren't soap operas, at least not the ones I like.  They build toward something.  Rather the opposite of The Wheel of Time, where one knows exactly where the whole thing is headed.  Maybe too much the opposite, but the Lord of the Rings wasn't.  Nor was Harry Potter.  This series aims for comparison to the above, at least in popularity, so the comparison is fair.  The Hundred Years' War was actually 127 years long, all told, and this series takes a lot from it.  It's Westeros Lives of the Rich and Famous, and like life it goes on.

We do get some hints in this volume about the price of progress--perhaps Valyria was too advanced, and discovered something that brought about the Doom.  That's very Fantasy.  They seem to have invented Cyvasse, or chess, in this book.  It's a good read, but I'm not as anxious as some for the next one.  I can wait.

I took advantage of an e-reader glitch to read this as an e-book from my local library.  Simply loaded it to my old Kindle and turned off the wireless, and had as much time as I needed to complete it.  Since I could not renew this was the only way a library loan was practical.  We'll see if they ever close that.

Give this one three stars, like the rest.

Martin, George R. R. - A Feast for Crows

I have just finished A Feast for Crows, book four in A Song of Ice and Fire.  It's definitely a bridge to the rest of the story--at least I hope so.  Mostly it seemed to be focused on people destined to be minor players, with the exception of the Lannisters.  In the end, it was hard for me to get excited about it, though it did hold my interest.  Martin has carefully woven a first-rate Age of Chivalry soap opera, with a bit of supernatural thrown in.  It's enjoyable to see all this clockwork execute.

I am still wondering how a society with eight thousand years of written or remembered history fails to progress.  Could the key be in Valyria?  Not yet, according to this article on Valyria.  Oh well.  I am finally at a point to read the Hugo award nominated most current installment, after which I can move on to some other good literature.  By then a Song of Ice and Fire will have consumed about five months, somewhat more than the Vorkosigan novels did last year.  Worth it?  The last entry will tell...

Younger Women, by Karen Joy Fowler

A short story this time--Younger Women, a World Fantasy 2011 nominee in the short story category.  Short stories really have to bowl me over to get me to like them, and this one doesn't, quite.  Part of the wave of vampire stories.  This is a more mundane encounter, which is different, but the characters don't get a chance to stand out.  It's nice, but not nearly as strong as the other online nominees--The Paper Menagerie and The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees.  Just two stars, for average.

A Small Price to Pay For Birdsong, by K. J. Parker

As promised, I am taking a short break from Song of Ice and Fire to look at the World Fantasy Award winners available online, through my favorite website, Free SF Online.  Over the past two days I read A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong, by K. J. Parker, a nominee in the Novella category.  And am really glad of it.

This story is one of the best I have read in a long time, as much as anything because it caught me by surprise.  For the first couple of paragraphs, it reads like a cover of the movie Amadeus, and I was ready to dismiss it.  But it quickly goes far beyond the resemblance.  While our protagonist remains very much Saligheri, his nemesis (Subtilius) is a much more talented and crueler version of Mozart.  His instrument of torture? 

Music comes easily for Subtilius, while it's much more of a chore for P.  Subtilius corrupts P. into helping him by offering him a piece of music written in P's own style--but so much better. 

There are a lot of simple turns this story could have taken and been pretty good.  But Parker resists them all and makes it even better.  We get a very powerful exposition of what plagiarism, and creating one's own work, means.  And as if that weren't enough we get fully developed characters to work through it--they are more than just illustrations of the point, though that would have been enough. 

For another perspective on the ethics of borrowing someone else's talent, see Nothing to Declare, linked from this post on this blog.  Together they make you think very seriously about how we create our own work from the work of others.

Four stars for this one.  Go read.

A Storm of Swords, by George R. R. Martin

I am progressing steadily in the Song of Ice and Fire series, having just finished A Storm of Swords.  The book definitely has the feel of a midpoint in an epic, and it can be hard to sustain the momentum during these spells.  Since Martin eschews sensationalizing the fantasy elements of the story, it ends up reading a lot like history. But really well done history--we move smoothly from viewpoint to viewpoint, with each teller coming forward in turn, moving the plot along and revealing more about themselves in steady measure.  We see the decline of Westeros here, though none of the characters seem all that conscious of it.  This is consistent with their mostly noble positions--there is some concern here and there for the "smallfolk" and how they will get through the winter since the country is squandering several harvests on war, but in the end glory wins out.

And the lives of the players are quite tumultuous--more Starks get killed, and even the Lannisters suffer major losses.  Spoiler alert, am going to talk specifics.  Though I have not spoiled it for myself.  Seems like Tyrion is going to be one of the continuity characters.  Martin seems to be fond of him, it's hard to imagine him dying.  Of course, one fantasy element that DOES appear to be playing a large role is returning from the dead--Berric Dondarrion set that up, then Catelyn Stark does so at the end.  Most of Storm of Swords is chess moves, but at the end things are really hopping.

I am still wondering about the lack of standard progress in Westeros and the world.  Eight thousand years, and they have actually gone backward a bit, at least as regards the Wall.  But no explanations (just a bare hint in that Valyria seems to have been rather advanced before its Doom--no clue of what that is yet).  Are long winters truly that catastrophic?  We shall see.

I will be back shortly, am taking a break from Westeros to catch up on the online World Fantasy Award nominees. 

A Clash of Kings, by George R. R. Martin

Well, these Song of Ice and Fire books are thick ones, so I won't be posting too frequently until three more books are done.  But I have just finished the second--A Clash of Kings.  Since this series is an epic, the second book is not surprisingly similar to the first.  The plots deepen as the entire area of Westeros falls into war--a not unusual result of the fall of a strong family.  I had speculated that Martin was drawing inspiration from the War of the Roses before seeing the Wikipedia article above, and that confirms it.  The series is supposed to be seven books in all--they should win awards, assuming Martin lives to complete them in good health.  That's the challenge for most all major fantasy series

Of interest in this volume for me is that Tyrion continues to show a more sensitive side than the rest of the royalty.  We'll see whether he keeps it, events at the end of the book would sour anyone.

A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin

This post won't have live links yet--I will fix it later. I have taken the plunge and started Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, since the latest installment has been nominated for a Hugo. Kind of odd, I thought the Hugo was more for hard SF, but no matter. There are a few thousand reviews of A Game of Thrones out there, so it is hard to know what I will add. The first installment, at least, is pretty much a fantasy retelling of medieval England/Europe, in the time of the War of the Roses or perhaps the Hundred Years' War. The cast of characters is set out--the honorable Starks, the cunning Lannisters, the blundering Baratheons, the deposed but looming Targaryens, and their supporters. There is a supernatural presence beyond the Wall (think Hadrian's), but it does not drive the story yet. In this place the seasons are long and unpredictable--it has been summer for ten years, but as the Starks say, "Winter is coming". The most interesting character so far, and very deliberately, is Tyrion Lannister, the dwarf second son of his House. He lives by his wits in a time when strength is more prized, and he is mostly despised. Yet all end up listening to him. This is Martin's master work, and it is oh so carefully planned. It will not break new ground, I don't think, but it will be very enjoyable. It remains to be seen whether this will transcend good soap opera, but I will read on to find out. Four stars for this one, let's hope he can finish it.

 Frozen in Time

A very common speculation in fantasy, thoroughly indulged here, is that technology progresses to a certain point, then just stops. The world of Ice and Fire has had knights in armor for at least eight thousand years. How is it that progress stops? We do not know here. Jordan's Wheel of Time proposes resets. Is it the magic? We shall see what Martin does...