A Dance With Dragons
by George R. R. Martin · first published 2008
10% recommend81% neutral10% critical
In the aftermath of a colossal battle, the future of the Seven Kingdoms hangs in the balance once again–beset by newly emerging threats from every direction. In the east, Daenerys Targaryen, the last scion of House Targaryen, rules with her three dragons as queen of a city built on dust and death. But Daenerys has three times three thousand enemies, and many have set out to find her. Yet, as they gather, one young man embarks upon his own quest for the queen, with an entirely different goal in mind. Fleeing from Westeros with a price on his head, Tyrion Lannister, too, is making his way to
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The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand a revelation, much like encountering Tolstoy for the first time via Anna Karenina. A Dance with Dragons, George R. R. Martin, is the Tolkien of our times, but with a dark and raunchy twist ;-) Almost finished; book 6 is a year or more away if previous publishing trend continues -- we needs it ;-(
on “Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days?” ↗For work : Rework, from 37signals. Fresh, opinionated and funny. For leisure : A Dance with Dragons, from Georges R.R. Martin "Game of Thrones" series (the HBO version is superb, but do not miss the books either).
on “Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011” ↗Here are all the ones I read this year A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire) by George R. R. Martin A Feast for Crows: A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) by George R.R. Martin The Confident Speaker: Beat Your Nerves and Communicate at Your Best…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2015?” ↗…weekly comic books or webnovels). But even publications without deadlines can get impacted if the author isn't disciplined. George R. R. Martin famously wrote himself into a corner around the time of A Dance with Dragons and nobody has any hope left he'll get around to finishing ASOIAF. He tried to get away with it by using a cathedral and bazaar metaphor.
on “Another World: Genesis” ↗…the authors of all of the books in the library, but those authors will not be credited or paid. “Librarian, please generate a fantasy novel in the style of George R. R. Martin that continues where A Dance with Dragons left off”. If this is what libraries did, authors would not want their books there. This is not what libraries do, and the analogy does not hold up.
on “Anger from voice actors as NSFW mods use AI deepfakes to replicate their voices” ↗…percentile in every standardized test; it's kind of a shock to realize that I'm nowhere near the median of even my age group, let alone the general populace (I'm 20). That said, I'm currently reading A Dance with Dragons and there are tons of words in this series (A Song of Ice and Fire) that I'm not familiar with. Most of the ones I missed are words I recognize from this series, although since I'm not 100% sure of them,…
on “Estimate your English vocabulary size” ↗…love, LOVE the idea - It's one of those things that I would use every week if it worked. Critical feedback from a potential fan: #1 - When looking at best sellers, one of the first things I saw was, "A Dance With Dragons, 29 critic reviews | Published: August 28, 2012" - The "Published" date is obviously for something different than the book (Softcover? Trade Press?) - regardless, for book reviews what's most important…
on “Show HN: A RottenTomatoes for Books” ↗…true. George is a free human not a slave to our desire for _content_, also true. But I also understand fan frustration. When Gaiman wrote that, "A Game of Thrones" was already 15 years in the past. "A Dance With Dragons" had been promised for 2005-ish and was still 2 years in the future. Since "GRRM is not your bitch", George has published 10 books, of which one advanced the core story of ASoIaF. Meanwhile, on his not-a-blog,…
on “Entitlement issues (2009)” ↗…finishing ASOIF books must feel like a chore, while for example writing "Dunk and Egg" stories is fun for him. Also, he tried to be too clever and had written himself into a corner at the end of "The Dance with Dragons", that's why "Winds of Winter" take so much time to finish.
on “How Faithful Is Amazon’s Rings of Power to JRR Tolkien’s Books?” ↗He wrote quite a lot about the difficulty of solving a series of events in Meereen in the lead up to A Dance With Dragons, which he referred to as "The Meereenese Knot". Looking at this analysis on Reddit, GRRM mentioned this particular piece of trouble multiple times over a 5-6 year period ( https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/2pp2m8/spoilers_all...…
on “Netflix Has Created a Self-Fulfilling Cancelation Loop with Its New Shows” ↗Currently reading GRRM's A Dance With Dragons in hardcover. Brutal! I read the first four on my Kobo (I'm Canadian) and it was a much more enjoyable aesthetic experience.
on “Everything's broken and nobody's upset” ↗…shortcuts to get the characters in the position he had planned for them to be in, he apparently decided the solution was... more plot. The end product was the long and tedious boat journey that was "A Dance With Dragons".)
on “Fantasy must shake off the tyranny of the mega-novel” ↗…individual audiobooks. It definitely pushes you to strike a balance between longer and shorter books, though. It's kinda crazy that a 4-hour story like The Magic Goes Away and a a 50-hour novel like A Dance with Dragons both end up consuming 1 credit.
on “Books Are Getting Longer” ↗…approach to dropping books if not interesting within 20 pages or, towards the end, abandoning if I find myself skimming or skipping pages. With these, it never happened. When I read the 4th book, however, A Dance with Dragons, I kept reading far longer than I would any other book, hoping that it would get better and start getting somewhere. It never did. It was a slow motion train wreck. Finally, I threw in the towel and dropped…
on “Nancy Pearl’s Rule of 50 for dropping a bad book” ↗…each came out within two years of each other, in 1996, 1998, and 2000 respectively. However, it took another eleven years for Martin to write the fourth and fifth books, A Feast for Crows (2005) and A Dance with Dragons (2011). Partially, this was because A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons were originally one novel, which grew so long that author George R.R. Martin later decided to split it up into two books…
on “George RR Martin: ‘When I began GoT I thought it might be a short story’” ↗