Who here thinks A Feast For Crows and A Dance With Dragons should have been 1 book?

[Michael]

Who cares if it would have been a really long book.Better one boring book then 2.And we would have had one more book in the series also on account of the 7 book statement.He really horrified the series splitting the book since fans had to wait years and years for their favorite character and shortened the series immensely.How in the world is he going to end the book series with only two more books when winter comes in one of them!!

[Gianluca]

I'm a fan of long books, but +2000 pages is way too much even by Epic Fantasy standards.
Do you really think that a 2000 pages-long boring book is better than two 1000 pages-long boring books? I disagree. I think people would give up halfway through it.
That said, I personally did not find either book boring. Sure, A Feast for Crows dragged a bit for me (because it introduced a bunch of new PoV characters, and it took me some time to get used to them), but that's it.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean when you say "And we would have had one more book in the series also on account of the 7 book statement" and "How in the world is he going to end the book series with only two more books when winter comes in one of them". Are you saying that he can't release more than 7 books so he now has to shorten the story because what was going to be Book 4 has been split in two? I really don't think that's the case. I'm sure he can easily release an 8th book if the story requires it.

[Michael]

I disagree, I think it was perfect he split up the books. If only for the fact that it wouldn't be handy to read. But also because I feel now that the stories were split up, it actually contributed some to my reading expierence.
Although I read them recently and all in one line, one after the other, so I didn't really have to wait years...

It is possible for Martin to finish in 2 books, the more because I think they will be split up too... I only hope he doesn't do any time-leaps, cause that's a big kill-joy

[Mitali]

If GRRM had made it one long book, fans would have to wait 10-11 years after ASoS to read it, since he would have finished it only when he did actually finish ADwD. I'm not sure how that's better than getting at least half the content in the form of AFfC 6 years earlier.

From the point of view of publishing logistics too it would be formidable. There's no way a publisher would have been ok with a 2000 page book. ADwD has, as it is, been split into two part as a paperback - if it was combined with AFfC, the resulting book would have to be released in 3 or 4 parts.

That said, I do agree that now that both books are out, it makes more sense to think of them as part 1 & 2 of one big book, and maybe read them that way too. There are lots of suggestions on the net on how to combine the two books into one mega-book for the story to make most sense. Here are a couple:
http://ballofbeasts.weebly.com/chapte...
http://boiledleather.com/post/2454321...

[Michael]

If he publishes an 8th book,what will happen with the tv show? And to answer your question about wether a publisher will publish that long of a book the answer is yes,look at atlas shrugged that is roughly the same wordcount as both the books would be put together,and atlas shrugged even got a mass market paperback,not 3 or 4,1.So yes it was very possible to publish these 2 books into 1.And it wouldn't have been 2000 pages,it all depends on how many words you include on a page.It could have been 1200 as atlas shrugged was.If you don't know what I word count is you should look it up on google.

[Mitali]

Atlas Shrugged has 645,000 words. AFfC and ADwD combined have 732,400. That's more than one normal-sized novel longer. I don't know if you're aware of the logistics of book publishing (why not google it?), but books that long are extremely difficult to print in paperback. The thicker a book is, the more likely the spine is to crack. In order to make it thinner, major compromises have to be made, such as making the font size extremely small, and using very low quality paper. There comes a point when these two issues would actively turn off buyers - who would want to buy a book that has ultra-thin paper and an almost unreadable font?

And as I said, the paperback version of ADwD is already in two volumes, so no publisher in their right mind would issue a single paperback volume of it with yet another novel added to it.

And what has the 8th book got to do with the TV show? The show is in any case going to outstrip the books by the time the 7th book is released, and maybe even by the time the 6th book is released. GRRM would have to be an idiot to let a TV adaptation of his books curtail how many of them he chooses to write.

[Michael]

What I meant is that the show may catch up with him and if that happens it might get cancelled or they may finish before Martin because Martin told them the ending,if they finish before him and then he decodes to write an eighth book then the show story would be unfinished.
I am quit aware of book publishing logistics however atlas shrugged and the combined 2 book are extremely close in word count they could have made it work,if they had altered the font.I'm not sure if your aware of this book,but Clarissa by Samuel Richardson is 1 million word in length and that wasn't turned down for publication and is a classic

[Mitali]

I don't know if you're deliberately trying to be condescending or it's just that tone doesn't come through on the Internet (if it's the latter, I apologize in advance). But I'm perfectly aware of Clarissa. It was published in the 18th century, when the concept of paperback did not exist, and novels (which was a new literary form in itself then) were published in three or more volumes. So I don't see how that helps your point in any case.

Also, you've completely misunderstood my point. Obviously, no publisher would turn down printing the fourth/fifth volumes of a best-selling series like ASoIaF, whatever their length. What they would do - which is also what they did do - is tell GRRM not to publish it as one book, as it would be unwieldy to publish and would actively turn off readers. That's why, though these two books are technically one story, they are published as two separate books.

[Michael]

I Wasn't trying to be rude or anything,I was just discussing the topic.Clarissa is publish in multiple volumes but it is also published in one volume,that volume is advertised as the main here on goodreads.What I meant at the beginning of the topic is I think it should have been cleaner to publish it in one volume,because of the wait,the tv show,the leaving out of characters in each volume,and the sheer complexity of it being 2 books that follow a storm of swords chronologically.

[Manuel]

Since I semi liked AFfC and kind of hated ADwD I think I would have been completely put off if they had come together.
I am a GRRM fanboy, well was, but I have not enjoyed where he took the series after the third book, it feels stalled and went from "oh man did that just happen?" and ended up being a series of dumber decisions by a lot of characters.
I waited the million years between Feast and Dance and that made it only much more disappointing.
I do have some faith that he'll go back to his awesome ways and wow us again.

[Matthew]

Sure, if you don't mind 1200 page books. And sure, fans did have to wait five years for part II, but that has more to do with Martin's process (and being a lazy bastard!) than him splitting the book in two. Really, if you think about it, if he'd kept it all in one volume, we'd still have to waited for years after A Storm of Swords, and we'd be leafing through a massive tome instead of two large books.

[Daniel]

It should have been a single 300 page book. That's all the was any good in them. A stark fall-off in quality from the first three.

[Matthew]

Daniel wrote: "It should have been a single 300 page book. That's all the was any good in them."

And which three-quarters of the story would you have him eliminate? More importantly, which characters would be marginalized or killed off so we wouldn't be hearing from them anymore? You know why I ask, of course. After the third book, the characters were moving in different directions and doing different things to bring all the elements and twists of the story at this point back together. It would have been impossible to convey all that in just 300 pages, so the only way he could cut the story down was to kill off a whole lot more people.

[Bill]

I wish he had edited them down a lot and combined them, or perhaps even skipped several years. There were too many new characters and too many minor characters and plot lines. It has been a while since I read the books, but from memory I feel he could have cut down on Brienne, Daenerys, the Dornish, the Iron Born, and Samwell in particular (some of that may have been in book 3). The story just began to sprawl too much, and the story arcs were mostly too minor or too grand.

[Daniel]

Matthew wrote: " the characters were moving in different directions and doing different things to bring all the elements and twists of the story at this point back together. It would have been impossible to convey all that in just 300 pages, so the only way he could cut the story down was to kill off a whole lot more people. "

Not only is it not impossible, it wouldn't have even been hard, but that's hardly the point. The issue is that he's in serious need of a real editor, or at least one he'll listen to. Everything essential to the overarching story in book four could have easily been put into a couple of chapters.

Don't get me wrong. I understand that he finally has a series that sells and he wants to maximize how much money he can make from it while he can, and I have no issue with that. But to create giant stall tactics pointlessly adding to the story just so he can get an extra book or two out of it is amateurish.

“Perfection is achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Virtually none of the plots in book four were important to the overarching story so cutting them risks nothing. I expect he'll try to make them important later, but if he hadn't added them, he wouldn't have to do that. For instance, if what is essential is for the the warrior maid to end up with stone heart in book four, you can simply add a few sentences up to that point and put her there. Nothing that happens between really matters. It doesn't even add to the character. We don't really know anything about the character now (than we didn't before) which contributes to her story. Everything essential about the character herself we know from her journey with Jaime. It's just pages and pages of pointless wandering. You could even make it more dramatic by starting with her there and having her reflect back a little on how she came to be there. This isn't rocket science.

Ask yourself what happened in just book four that was truly essential to the main plot. Not that one can never stray from the main plot but that it should be done carefully and willfully rather than just rambling on pointlessly. Creating new characters just to stretch it out doesn't count as well done just because he later tries to make them essential to the plot. They weren't essential to the plot and since they didn't make the story better, he should have left them out.

I'm a big fan of the first three books, where virtually everything was essential. Now he's just being self-indulgent and it makes me sad.

[Manuel]

Both feast of crows and dance with dragons dabbled with new characters (in a series that already had a lot) and added new stories that lead nowhere.
Out of all the new plots in DwD only the lost prince (to avoid spoilers) will have any sort of relevance in the future. The dornish prince story was beyond awful and unnecesary, the Arya and Bran chapters are stagnant because it's been like a year since the series started so they are still kids.
I agree that he needs a hardass editor that tells him what is fodder and to make him get rid of it.
At this point I'm only kin of waiting for the next book to come out, but nothing compared to the years of expectation that lead up to DwD.

[Daniel]

Manuel wrote: Out of all the new plots in DwD only the lost prince (to avoid spoilers) will have any sort of relevance in the future. "

And though I assume he will force this into the plot, it wasn't even really needed and serves more to distract than anything else. He could have done everything with the story that needs to be done without ever bringing this plot into it at all and the story would have been sharper and more powerful.

[Daniel]

I've read Stephen King talking about how his editors made him cut 600 pages from The Stand before publication and that he was mad at the time considering it all good, but now he realizes that they were right and while not everything that got cut was bad on it's own merits, it didn't really add anything important and, extra elements, even good ones, distract from the story and keep the reader from being able to engage as fully as they would otherwise.

Martin should take a cue from King on it.

Storm of Swords ran long because it had to, but these two run long because he has no self-control and the story suffers because of it.

[Manuel]

Daniel wrote: "Manuel wrote: Out of all the new plots in DwD only the lost prince (to avoid spoilers) will have any sort of relevance in the future. "

And though I assume he will force this into the plot, it was..."
He could have added him if he's going to play a huge part, I think he will be interesting for Westeros basically because Martin has decided to make Daenerys a fixture in the free cities and I can't see a logical way for her to get out of there.
But he should have closed more gaping holes in the story rather than add and add characters and plots.
Like I said, the coming book I kind of am waiting for it, when it comes out I will probably wait for reviews and see how it is received and not go and buy it and devour it like I did with this one.

[Matthew]

Daniel wrote: "Ask yourself what happened in just book four that was truly essential to the main plot."

Aside from Catelyn being shown to be alive, the Martells conspiracy to bring Daenerys back to Westeros, the Iron Islanders plot to do the same, Cersei's ongoing incompetence in running King's Landing which is vital to Varys' efforts to prepare the way for Aegon's return, Samwell and Aemon travelling to Oldtown to investigate the prophecy of the Others and Azor Ahai, and Sansa having to deal with Petyr Baelish and his new schemes to use her to get more power?

Sure, he could have nixed several sections and cut out a lot of filler, but there was no way he could have cut it all down to one 300 page volume. And the majority of the page time in book 4 and 5 involved characters that were already introduced in the previous three. I thought much of book IV dragged on interminably and that there were twists in book V that were a bit tiresome. But ultimately, things did come together.

And keep in mind he's got a massive, richly detailed world which he wants to flesh out too. Sure, he could have done what Tolkien and Herbert did and left most of the information about the history, geography and backstory of his universe in a series of appendices, but that would have robbed him of the chance to get into them in any detail.

[Daniel]

Matthew wrote: "Aside from Catelyn being shown to be alive, the Martells conspiracy to bring Daenerys back to Westeros, the Iron Islanders plot to do the same, Cersei's ongoing incompetence in running King's Landing which is vital to Varys' efforts to prepare the way for Aegon's return, Samwell and Aemon travelling to Oldtown to investigate the prophecy of the Others and Azor Ahai, and Sansa having to deal with Petyr Baelish and his new schemes to use her to get more power?"

I agree that you've listed things that happened in the story, but not that these things are essential by any means. They're filler. I'm not sold on the idea that the Caitlyn plot was needed at all. They could have left her dead and the story wouldn't really have suffered. You could get both the next two just by having their people show up as envoys to meet her. No need to for the rest of it. We already knew Cersei was incompetent and wasting away chapter after chapter on it was just more filler. One small chapter could have covered all the main ground in that story without losing anything. Also a short bit would have covered all the needed things on Samwell/Aemon and I'd personally add a bit of the Arya stuff. 50-75 pages total from this book that really needed to be there. More in DwD, but it's much that same.

Like I said, not much that was essential. To clarify, by essential, I don't mean "things he put in there," I mean things that were actually necessary to keep the story going and drive forward the main plot.

[Matthew]

Daniel wrote: "Matthew wrote: "Aside from Catelyn being shown to be alive, the Martells conspiracy to bring Daenerys back to Westeros, the Iron Islanders plot to do the same, Cersei's ongoing incompetence in runn..."

And I maintain that that's a highly subjective position to be taking. Calling all that happened mere filler that could be done without is arguable at best. And I don't agree that the threads you've mentioned here could be so easily summed up has merit. All that happens with Arya, Sansa, Catelyn, Brienne, Tyrion, et al could be simply mentioned in passing or summed up in single chapters? That's a very tall order to fill and wouldn't have been believable at all.

And how did we know Cersei was incompetent before book IV? Prior to that, Joffrey was ruling and her influence was limited to making sure appointments made after Robert's death were loyal to her and her son (largely by sleeping with them). It wasn't until she had control over the council and began becoming insanely jealous of Margaery Tyrell that her incompetence was made evident.

[Manuel]

I have to agree with Daniel. I don't remember most of what happened in all those plots you mention because I found them uninteresting and dull. I liked the Brienne chapters because they were a change of pace and she and Pod were unlikely heroes, but that was that.
We knew Cersei was incompetent the minute Robert died and she let joffrey be in charge, we didn't need a whole book and a half devoted to us seeing just how incompetent she was, I would have personally prefered the story to move forward rather than keep on showing Cersei as an immature womanchild who had no place being near a throne room.

[Manuel]

And like I said before, I'm a huge GRRM fan. I think that he can really weave a story together.
Back in the day I even gave AFfC a chance and defended it.
But when I got DwD and read it I came to the realization that it was basically a 1500 page book that made the story stall for the most part, that Bran and Arya became completely uninteresting to me (Bran was always an awful character, he just became worse) and that a new Targaryen came out of nowhere to justify Daenerys never leaving the free cities.

Some of the richest lore GRRM has created has come from stuff untold, like exactly how was the battle in the Trident or how did Eddard go to the tower and killed 3 Kingsguard, all that to me is what has made Westeros such a rich world.
When he spends pages upon pages explaining and detailing it loses a lot.

[Daniel]

Matthew wrote: "All that happens with Arya, Sansa, Catelyn, Brienne, Tyrion, et al could be simply mentioned in passing or summed up in single chapters? That's a very tall order to fill and wouldn't have been believable at all."

Tyrion isn't in book 4. And anyone could see that she was incompetent by listening to every suggestion and idea she ever had.

That said, we shall have to agree to disagree. I don't believe that something is essential just because he put it in there. To define it that way would render the word meaningless. I get that you liked the book, but that's neither here nor there. All I'm talking about is what's essential.

[Daniel]

Manuel wrote: "When he spends pages upon pages explaining and detailing it loses a lot. "

Agreed. And a good point for storytelling in general. Some stories are better left with a little mystery to them because it allows the reader to elevate them by imagining them any way that pleases him/her.

Hitchcock used to talk about how you never want to show the "monster" because once you see it, all the terror is gone. When it's only shadows and movement, there is a bigger space for fear in the experience because nothing can measure up to an imagined evil. The exposure immediately makes it less scary. The same concept applies to myth-making and storytelling of all varieties.

Martin seems to get this on some level (his treatment of the whites is a good example), but he only applies it selectively.

[Felix]

Let me add this," FOC & DWD" were originally turned in as 1 manuscript as I understand it. GRRM was told by the publisher he had to cut into 2 books.Re-editing into 2 books & GRRM being Jean Auel-ish Slow increased the wait.
I talked to GRRM at "ARCON" in which only "GOT" was published. He swore that it would be concluded in 4 or 5 volumes- now I hear rumored at least 9! GRRM is 64, 4 more books @ average 5 years per = age 84 years GRRM conservatively. Conclusion GRRM ( Not very Healthy)dies before it's concluded or I die before its finished. I love the series but I fear the conclusion will not be written by GRRM-himself!

[Michael]

Then it can be concluded by another author,like the fantastic ending to The Wheel Of Time.Im so happy that you heard it could be 9 books,but I fear that if someone else were to finish that it wouldn't be as long and it wouldn't be as many books.Robert Jordan had planned more stand alone books and more prequel novellas and sanderson will not do those.Martin seems heathy and hes only in his 60s,worry when he gets into his late 70s.Hell anne rice is still writing and shes 70++++++

[Manuel]

Michael wrote: "Then it can be concluded by another author,like the fantastic ending to The Wheel Of Time.Im so happy that you heard it could be 9 books,but I fear that if someone else were to finish that it woul..."

Problem is that GRRM has stated, and I think put it in his will, that nobody finishes the series if he dies.
He told the people at HBO where he wants plots to end (like if Jon is Lyanna's and Raeghar's son and so on) in case he hits the bucket so they can finish the tv series.

[Manuel]

Daniel wrote:

Agreed. And a good point for storytelling in general. Some stories are better left with a little mystery..."

Personally I think where he does it masterfully is in the Doom of Valyria. We have no clue what happened in Valyria, only that the Targaryens got away with dragons, it's a smoldering ruin now and people are scared to even go near.
Do we care what happened? Not really, we know it's a hellish place now.

There is another long winded author called Ian Irvine who writes a very special form of fantasy who is a master of the buildup. I read his books waiting for DwD and he has a character called Rulke who is talked about for 2 books, so you imagine this godlike creature, then he appears and...he's even more of a badass than you ever could have imagined.
And Irvine doesn't spend thousands of pages describing him, just what others say about him and what is left unsaid.

[Michael]

Manuel wrote: "Michael wrote: "Then it can be concluded by another author,like the fantastic ending to The Wheel Of Time.Im so happy that you heard it could be 9 books,but I fear that if someone else were to fin..."
I don't believe believe that it's his choice that no one finishes the series,if his wife signs off on it it would be good to go,but if that's true and he'd rather his series to go on unfinished forever he is an idiot.He better write faster.

[Allison]

I've yet to read Dance with Dragons. Feast of Crows so thoroughly turned me off the series I need a break. What I would have preferred was for him to keep all the characters in the two books and split it by time rather than geography.

One of the things that made the other books manageable for me was I knew that, even though I didn't like a certain narrator, he or she would be gone in a chapter and I'd probably get someone I liked. Having a book full of my unlikable characters made it more than a little daunting to finish the series. And while DwD will be tipped in the balance towards my favorites supposedly, I still find that the time split makes more sense than the geography split in my head.

[Manuel]

Michael wrote: "Manuel wrote: "Michael wrote: "Then it can be concluded by another author,like the fantastic ending to The Wheel Of Time.Im so happy that you heard it could be 9 books,but I fear that if someone e..."
I read it somewhere that he was against fan fiction and when presented with the idea of someone finishing his work for him if he died like the Wheel of Time series he said he was against that.

[Josh]

well, to play devil's advocate here, grrm himself wanted it to be one book.

he started writing it as one book, and he wrote it originally as if a few years had passed since the events in a storm of swords, but as he wrote he found he was spending an inordinate amount of time writing flashbacks and filling in the gaps. he decided the writing was becoming awkward, so he scrapped the idea of flashbacks and wrote it as a direct sequel. however, in writing this second draft he realized how long it would be and thus had to figure out someway to split it. to him, he felt that geographically splitting the book would allow for more closure in the storylines than for an entire book of cliffhangers.

[Matthew]

Daniel wrote: "Matthew wrote: "All that happens with Arya, Sansa, Catelyn, Brienne, Tyrion, et al could be simply mentioned in passing or summed up in single chapters? That's a very tall order to fill and wouldn'..."

Actually, I didn't like a lot of book IV until the big reveal was there at the end. But that's doesn't change the fact that I felt that a good deal of what led to the reveal was in fact necessary. We do have to disagree on that, in the sense that I don't agree that getting rid of three quarters of books IV and V would have been easy or even desirable just because you say so.

And I know Tyrion wasn't in book IV, but we're talking about the merging of book IV and V, and you said that you didn't think the plot with Aegon and John Connington was necessary, which was only in book V. So what I said still applies.

[Daniel]

Matthew wrote: " just because you say so."

I'm not asking anyone to think anything based on what I say, only asking them to apply their own sense and reach their own conclusions. To that end, there's nothing wrong with disagreement but let's not pretend I'm asking people to do other than exercise their own judgment, separate from the automatic acceptance that because he put it in there, it must be essential.

Every book has plenty of unessential elements. Every book. So let me ask you this: what do you consider unessential from these books?

Let's define it in some helpful way just to make it easy. If an item is essential, it cannot be removed without fundamentally breaking the story. Looking at the series coming out of book 3: For instance, if no book from here on mentioned Jon Snow, that would break the story. He is essential to the story. Not that he could not be written out, but that would still require him to appear further on in order to do so. As it stands, he is essential.

A non-essential item could be removed without breaking the story. For instance, if there was no further mention of The Warrior Maid, everything in the main plot could still be resolved without it really breaking anything, even if he had to adjust his future plans slightly.

So what do you consider to be non-essential in these two books?

[Matthew]

Daniel wrote: "Matthew wrote: " just because you say so."

I'm not asking anyone to think anything based on what I say, only asking them to apply their own sense and reach their own conclusions. To that end, the..."

Non-essential? Well let's explore that. I would venture that Brienne's wandering through the Riverlands perhaps. But that would have made the big reveal of Catelyn being alive and re-involving the Brotherhood Without Banners difficult. And the fact that it tied into Jaime's ongoing thread made it useful.

Tyrion's thread could have been cut down, but eliminating the entire Aegon and John Connington thread with the Golden Company would have left a hole in the story. He had to go into exile after killing his father. How to do this and be compelled to come back if not in a way that assisted in the Targaryens return to power? Enlist with Daenerys? Possible, but challenging...

The Martell storyline... removing that would have meant that a lot of what took place in book III would have lacked context. Sure, we would know the Martells were planning revenge for the deaths of Elia and her two children, but we wouldn't know the full extent of their plans or how it involved an alliance with Varys and Daenerys.

Then there's Sansa and Arya. Both have stories which I felt went off into left field, but to remove them at this point would mean we don't hear from them at all after book III when Arya goes to Braavos and Sansa escapes King's Landing. Their tales could be called long and meandering, but that doesn't meant they could simply be cut out or written about through mentions and references.

And Sam's trip to Oldtown, this too seemed long-winded and aimless, but given that his purpose was to uncover as much of the prophecy relating to Azor Ahai and the Others as he could, I would say it is absolutely essential. And its tie-in with Danaerys and her role in the prophecy of Ahai's return made it doubly so.

So really, the only thing I could see as unessential was the Kingsmoot at the Iron Islands and the way they too wanted to get their hands on Daenerys. I think it was enough to reintroduce Theon and Osha and have them reunited in the north as he did in book V.

I now return it to you. Rather than saying what is unessential, what can you tell me is unnecessary? You're the one saying that much of book IV and V could be done away with, so really the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate what could be removed, not on me to show what couldn't be. What would you eliminate and how would you compensate for the relevant info that was conveyed within?

[Forest]

Matthew wrote: "Daniel wrote: "Matthew wrote: " just because you say so."

I'm not asking anyone to think anything based on what I say, only asking them to apply their own sense and reach their own conclusions. T..."

The things you mention about Brienne happened in one chapter, she had eight in affc. The Quentyn storyline could have been told from Daenarys POV and then expanded upon in a Dorne POV. Not everyone has to have a POV to tell their story, the first three novels relied on hearsay and rumors to tell the story and it worked well. That's 10ish chapters gone. A lot of the unnecessary travelogs could have been trimmed and made it fit into one book. Especially since they felt the lengths were too long to give feast/dance proper endings. They cut out two battles to be released when the author gets around to writing.

[Phil]

I think that some defenders of the two books are missing the point. When readers say that many things can be cut, they mean that many chapters have no bearing on the main story lines. Though they may be interesting and very detailed, they do get to be monotonous after awhile.

Even in some of the defenders comments we see the words long, monotonous, and meandering appear. That in itself should tell you there are severe problems with the writing.

The reason we read the series is for the advancement of the story. If we wanted to read a bunch of short tales we would read a short story compilation.

Martin is a very detailed writer who now is completely caught up in his own prowess. These 2 books could have been easily combined. Maybe not in 300 pages, but easily in 1000 pages with great detail. Elimination and condensing of chapters would have made both books much better.

I am starting to wonder if Martin is a little lost on how to proceed with his grand tale and that is why we get so many unnecessary story lines. Hopefully this will all be corrected in the next one.