WELL, I FINISHED THE BOOK.
Jul. 5th, 2011 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
okayawesomeSo I just finished A Dance with Dragons, to begin the long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long wait for the next part of the ASOIAF story.
My reaction: I'm not exactly disappointed, but... I guess I'd say I'm a little underwhelmed. The first part of the book was pretty awesome, setting up a lot of cool new stuff as it addressed the questions from ASOS that had gone unanswered. It was a little slow, but it seemed like it was going to be slow like ACOK, where all the threads end up pulling together in a totally amazing extended climax.
Instead, the story just sort of... moved along. There were some great moments, but there was no one huge event to tie everything together the way there was in GOT, ACOK, and ASOS. And part of that, I understand, because the story is very fragmented at this point and there are a lot of threads. But... we're supposed to be in the second half of the series, now, and it's time to start trying to bring things together.
More than that, the "slow rise to great action" form of the first three books is one of the things that made me love the series in the first place. Slowly getting to know all those characters, learning about their lives... and then having the bam-bam-bam plot movement of Ned's death, Drogo's death, the Others, the King in the North, and the dragons, all at once, is one of the things that made AGOT so great and so monstrously addictive.
The other problem with it is that because there are soooo many characters, now, and sooooo much going on, a lot of fragments are left as -- well, fragments. Cersei and Jaime each have two chapters, Asha three. Their stories progress very little. Bran's story hits a resting point and then just stops altogether. It's frustrating!
Anyway. ADWD wasn't a bad book, by any means. I enjoyed it. It just didn't have the va-va-voom of the beginning of the series, and by the end, I was really missing that excited feeling that I used to have. I think some people will be very happy, some people will be very unhappy, and a lot of people will just kind of be going like: "So... when do we get the next one, already?"
My reaction: I'm not exactly disappointed, but... I guess I'd say I'm a little underwhelmed. The first part of the book was pretty awesome, setting up a lot of cool new stuff as it addressed the questions from ASOS that had gone unanswered. It was a little slow, but it seemed like it was going to be slow like ACOK, where all the threads end up pulling together in a totally amazing extended climax.
Instead, the story just sort of... moved along. There were some great moments, but there was no one huge event to tie everything together the way there was in GOT, ACOK, and ASOS. And part of that, I understand, because the story is very fragmented at this point and there are a lot of threads. But... we're supposed to be in the second half of the series, now, and it's time to start trying to bring things together.
More than that, the "slow rise to great action" form of the first three books is one of the things that made me love the series in the first place. Slowly getting to know all those characters, learning about their lives... and then having the bam-bam-bam plot movement of Ned's death, Drogo's death, the Others, the King in the North, and the dragons, all at once, is one of the things that made AGOT so great and so monstrously addictive.
The other problem with it is that because there are soooo many characters, now, and sooooo much going on, a lot of fragments are left as -- well, fragments. Cersei and Jaime each have two chapters, Asha three. Their stories progress very little. Bran's story hits a resting point and then just stops altogether. It's frustrating!
Anyway. ADWD wasn't a bad book, by any means. I enjoyed it. It just didn't have the va-va-voom of the beginning of the series, and by the end, I was really missing that excited feeling that I used to have. I think some people will be very happy, some people will be very unhappy, and a lot of people will just kind of be going like: "So... when do we get the next one, already?"