Game of Thrones prequel series cancelled

[purlieu]

I found AFFC tedious on first read, because I was just really desperate to know what was happening at, and beyond, The Wall. That's always been my favourite part of the story. Knowing the basic plot makes it much easier going, but I still think splitting the full-on fantasy stuff from the King's Landing stuff meant two equally unbalanced books that didn't serve the series well.

I'm not going to re-read them until A Dream of Spring comes out, so I'll be interested to see what I make of it all with the hindsight of the series.

[Phil_A]

Westeros as a geographical point is basically Britain and Ireland connected top to bottom with the lower edges (Dorne) more akin to sub-tropical Spain and the top something like Greenland and Iceland. But GRRM's measurements have always been slightly off in regards to say the height of the wall or the number of men in armies and such. He admits it himself that he regrets making the wall so tall and fumbled his numbers somewhat in his stories (albeit keeping things consistent and mostly measured with his scales).

But yeah to step away from Westeros would be a good thing. You'd think Essos would be next as it's so richly detailed at least on the Western side (getting weirder the further East you go on the map), but alas the producers seem to be going for the safer option of like you say tits, dragons and monarchs. There's only so much feudalism I can take though. I'd much more prefer a golden age of exploration as a sequel.

I'm afraid I've not read it/any, but I'll keep an eye out, thanks for the suggestion. A quick google suggests Vance's work maybe talks of forgotten senses of civilisation and the loss of knowledge/power, which I guess can be applied to some of the more mysterious elements of GRMM's world. I think GRMM does it well in fable and legend, maybe only half of the horrors of the other continents are true and maybe half are Westerosi superstition and sea-folk tales passed on.
That said I do love GRRM's references to HP Lovecraft such as the oily black stone, House GreyJoy's house words and other references like K'dath etc and his way of keeping a wonderful veil over the numerous distant shores.

This short story is a good example of the tone of Vance's writing - the whole Dying Earth series is pretty easy to get hold of as it was given the Fantasy Masterworks treatment a few years back.

https://hell.pl//szymon/Baen/The%20best%20of%20Jim%20Baens%20Universe/The%20World%20Turned%20Upside%20Down/0743498747__26.htm

[purlieu]

I've popped that on my (ludicrously long) 'books to get' list, ta!

[Gurke and Hare]

I found AFFC tedious on first read, because I was just really desperate to know what was happening at, and beyond, The Wall. That's always been my favourite part of the story. Knowing the basic plot makes it much easier going, but I still think splitting the full-on fantasy stuff from the King's Landing stuff meant two equally unbalanced books that didn't serve the series well.

Yeah - although I don't feel the same, this is obviously understandable. My favourite stuff is the King's Landing intrigue stuff, and I enjoyed the Brienne stuff but having a volume of an ongoing series without either of the two protagonists is clearly ridiculous.