A Dance with Dragons

Still waiting. Trying to be patient.


Related posts:

• Audiobooks of a Song of Ice and Fire
• A Dance of Dragons is really coming soon!
• A Storm of Waiting

2009 Audiobook challenge

I've been really parsimonious about signing up for any challenges lately, but given the length of my commute this one seems do-able. The gauntlet is down, and I'm taking on the 2009 Audiobook Challenge. Already, I imagine that my first set of recordings will be George R R Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series to refresh my memory of the characters and plot before the release of Dance with Dragons. Which is going to happen any day now. Really seriously.

Thank you Ex Libris for letting me know about he challenge, and good luck to you too!

A dance with dragons is really coming soon!

Today I buckled down and pre-ordered George R.R. Martin's next book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. Somehow, having an order number makes it seem much more likely that the book will actually arrive someday. I've been passing time at towerofthehand.com and westeros.org reading all kinds of quasi mathematical (r+l=J ?) and philosophical theories about the books. aDwD is due out, per Random House, by 9/30/08. But dear George has said never to believe any date other than those he publishes on his site, and he hasn't put one out there yet.

Audiobooks of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

I have been waiting and waiting for dear George's next book to come out and thought I'd best refresh my memory on the characters and places before it did. (See my prior post, A Storm of Waiting for further thoughts on my travails). Unfortunately, I have more than an hour in the car daily on my regular commute so I'm becoming friendly with audiobooks. The first audiobooks for the Song of Ice and Fire series were narrated by Roy Dotrice and he is just perfect; his range is incredible and transports one into the story in the way of great dramatists, making you loose the barrier between your thinking and the story as it unfolds. In the narration, Mr. Dotrice is given no easy task - he has to encompass a multitude of characters, from a nanny a century old to a wary old smuggler. This is does elegantly, exquisitely, and unobtrusively. At the end of each book, I was ready to applaud. I restrained myself, and lived through the rush hour with both hands firmly on the wheel.

Any other narrator would be profoundly challenged to meet Mr. Dotrice's feat. John Lee, the narrator for Feast, seems unaware that there is a challenge. He pronounces character names differently from one chapter to the next (is Cersei "Sir-say" or "Seer-see"? I can forgive screwing up a minor character, but Cersei's a key character), and has characters from hugely divergent regions of Westeros speaking in the same tones, with no accent or diversity. Worse yet, Dotrice had established precedents for pronunciation "Da-Naer-is" as an example, vs. Lee's "Dan-air-is" and the precedents were not honored. In fairness, perhaps Mr. Lee was not given sufficient time to prepare for the role, and certainly he was going to be nitpicked by a bunch of nitpickers like myself who have combed over the books again and again. But I do recall that craftsmen have the ability - responsibility, perhaps - to turn down work they can't do well, given the constraints a client may impose.

I sure do hope as they look to turn these books into a movie that the producers can reflect back upon the excellent work that Dotrice did for the audiobooks - heck, maybe even cast him as narrator in the movie. But I'd be quite happy if they could simply review the beauty of Dotrice's work, and learn the lesson of the cost of the switch to another narrator.


To listen to Lee's recording, check out this narrative of a scene regarding three Citadel students A Feast for Crows:

For comparison, here is a clip of Dotrice's reading of the beginning scene with the night's watch in A Game of Thrones (note how he so well represents the brash lordling, the naive commoner and the old timer):

If you're over the top in outrage, check out the online petition “A Feast for Crows” Deserves Roy Dotrice!

A storm of waiting

I have been eagerly anticipating the release of George R.R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons for most of 2007, and to assuage my waiting time I opted to re-read the series up to this point. No news yet on when the book will be ready. Sigh. Although there are some wonderful sample chapters available on his site for Danny, Jon and Tyrion.

As part of this re-read, I've been investigating more deeply some lingering plot threads that were nagging me. Who is the Knight of the laughing tree? Who was Jon's mother? How are dragons trained? These questions led me to a vital and engaging community of readers who dialog about the stories and many other unrelated topics. To pursue your questions on this topic, check out a few blogs and wikis I've found:

• http://www.towerofthehand.com
  
• Amazon forum re: Who are Jon's parents? (link not available)


• Westeros.org

Most reviews of this book focus on its epic length and long list of characters. All true. If you're looking for a quick set of entertainment, move along. If you like the Chronicles in Amber, Dune, or other dynastic-lengthy series, you'll probably like this. Did I say probably? I meant "surely." Or else you're a grumpkin.

Gaming

I have to thank (and curse) my friend Zantor for letting me know about George R.R. Martin's wonderful series, A Song of Ice and Fire.In anticipation of the next book in the series coming out... sometime... I'm re-reading the series to refresh my memory of events and characters. Additionally, since I've been reading info on some wonderful fan sites such as Tower of the Hand and others speculating as to how certain plot points will resolve, my re-read is letting me explore some of the theories that have been put out and see if they have a solid basis. This whole series is engaging enough - and I am frustrated while trying to wait patiently for the next book - that I am scouring the internet for tidbits of the future book in the series, such as a Prologue from the POV of Varamyr.

The first book sets the stage for the rest of the series in detailing a conflict that spans a continent and dribbles out to the rest of this fantasy world of Westeros as well; the basic plot line is that while kings and highborn lords scheme over the kingdom's leadership, a far greater threat than any of them pose to one another is rising in the icelands to the North. Oblivious, they scheme against one another in a massive waste of resources and lives, typical of war. While the kingdom fragments, a young woman comes of age and into her destiny as the daughter of a deposed king, eager to return to the land of her birth and claim the throne for herself.

I'm off to read A Clash of Kings next.