For all the self-styled geeks here (yes, I are one), I don’t think there’s been a single (San Diego) ComicCon post this time. Here’s a tidbit from Vulture:
George R.R. Martin dropped some big news on Vulture when we ran into him at the Bates Motel party at Comic-Con last night: He will essentially be sitting out the upcoming season of Game of Thrones to finish up The Winds of Winter, the sixth book in his best-selling “A Song of Ice and Fire” saga. So far through the show’s four seasons, Martin has contributed one script per season, but No. 5 won’t be happening this time around; he also told us he’ll be less involved in the production this season in general. Priorities!…
“Three-minute chat”, with spoilers & potential plotline clues, at the link.
What are y’all (well, mostly you Left Coasters) watching, as we gear up for another week?
Alison
I am 100% fine with that as I’ve pretty much thrown in the towel on the show and I WANT THE GOD DAMN BOOK ALREADY YOU FUCKER, I know he hates when people get demanding but seriously can we pass a law that says he ain’t allowed to fuck all else besides sleep, crap and WRITE. Even sleep needs to be limited. And maybe get him a lap desk so he can write in the loo.
Just gimme the book. All will be forgiven. Almost all.
Karen in GA
@Alison: Oh, dear. Cue the “George R.R. Martin ain’t your bitch” responses in 3… 2…
(To clarify, you won’t get that response from me — I’m not spending too much time thinking about the timing of the books either way, especially since George R.R.R.R.R. Martin told the show runners where it’s all going. So essentially the show is going to tell the story with or without the rest of the books.)
Meanwhile, Iggy shows restraint, kind of.
RandomMonster
George sounds like a school-kid writing his essay at the last minute.
Mike J
What did I do today? http://imgur.com/gallery/X0sHv
Thanks to JefferyW for steering me towards it.
kdaug
Guillermo del Toro’s “The Strain” is promising on FX. Three episodes in as of tonight. Monsters, natch.
SyFy’s “Dominion” isn’t bad either.
Keith P
So that takes care of Winds of Winter, but he’s still got to write all of A Dream of Spring. Cracked.com did a thing a few weeks back about how GoT, and they made a good case as to why the TV show is on a pace to easily outpace the books.
Alison
@Karen in GA: Oh, I know. And I mean…I was fine with it being a couple years, but you know…it’s over three now, and just. Come on. Plus like most other fantasy readers I’m always worried about another Robert Jordan experience.
Steeplejack
Watched Poirot tonight, mostly for the prewar furnishings. Series is about played out.
Still slightly bummed that last week’s cliffhanger Endeavour was the end of the season. WTF.
Now off to watch Pandora’s Box (1929) on TCM. Louise Brooks scorches the screen as femme fatale Lulu.
Major Major Major Major (formerly J.Ty)
Smokeables and Ken Follett for me tonight. Crazy weekend, just want something vaguely educational but still forgettable.
Mike J
@Steeplejack: Freshman year I dated her twin.
Suffern ACE
Found this article on the vision of cats that I thought was interesting. Although it is almost a year old. I guess it must be a slow news day.
Steeplejack
@Mike J:
She went on to do some great work with Swing Out Sister.
WaterGirl
I googled just now and I’m so pleased to see that Orphan Black has been officially renewed. Yay!
Heading for bed, but I hope to find lots of good info on the new tv shows this summer. ‘night all
NotMax
What is pictured here, rusty but afloat?
It’s the gunboat Bodrog, which fired the first shots of World War One (Austria-Hungary attacking Serbia), 100 years ago on July 28, 1914.
Roger Moore
@Alison:
My advice is to stop reading the books until he’s finally finished. There are plenty of other things out there to read that won’t cause frustration waiting for the next installment. That was the approach I eventually adopted with The Wheel of Time, though I wound up not bothering to pick it up again even after it was finished; I just gave up caring about the characters enough to want to know what happened to them.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Do you (or anyone) know of a site that is going to do a day-by-day centennial time line of World War I? That would be cool, and I can’t believe someone hasn’t thought of it and is going to do it.
ruemara
I’m exhausted. I’m going to have to work out a balance between the neat home I prefer to live in, the near 100% home cooked meals my health demands, the level of overwork my job demands and the need for me to put much more time into achieving completion of my own creative projects. If I do things write, who knows, maybe I’ll be creating the next program you’re annoyed at.
Suffern ACE
The technology for backyard warfare just took a tremendous leap forward.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Good thought. Don’t know of any offhand, but very likely there is more than one such site.
Should I come across any, shall give a holler.
joel hanes
@Steeplejack:
Brad DeLong’s Grasping Reality is liveblogging WW I
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/liveblogging-world-war-i/
Alison
@Roger Moore: Eh, I don’t think making myself wait what’s likely to be at least another 6-7 years (and probably longer) will be any easier. I read a shit ton, it;s not like I’m sitting around not reading until the next one comes out. I’m just eagerly awaiting it, is all.
Hal
Since we’re on books, and given Cole’s issues as of late, I want to plug again one of my favorite biographies, Drinking a Love Story by Caroline Knapp. I translated drinks into my food obsession and weight problems when I first read the book, but it is a lyrical and insightful even if you don’t have a Love of the drink.
“A love story. Yes: this is a love story. It’s about passion, sensual pleasure, deep pulls, lust, fears, yearning hungers. It’s about needs so strong they’re crippling. It’s about saying good-bye to something you can’t fathom living without. I loved the way drink made me feel, and I loved its special power of deflection, its ability to shift my focus away from my own awareness of self and onto something else, something less painful than my own feelings. I loved the sounds of drink: the slide of a cork as it eased out of a wine bottle, the distinct glug-glug of booze pouring into a glass, the clatter of ice cubes in a tumbler. I loved the rituals, the camaraderie of drinking with others, the warming, melting feelings of ease and courage it gave me.”
“
JustRuss
I’m getting an ad for the Blaze with featuring a lovely photo of Glen Beck’s mug. I don’t care where Cole is, this needs to be rectified pronto.
Suzanne
I am a completist. If I start reading a series, I have to finish all the books, even if I didn’t like it. I read the first Song of Ice and Fire book, so now I have to read them all. I have resisted reading any of the Discworld, even though Mr. Suzanne loves them, for this very reason. And now I am considering reading those damn Fifty Shades of Gray books, because a few of my friends have said that I will enjoy hate-reading them. I just don’t know if I can do it. I hear they suck so, so bad, and while I can definitely enjoy lowbrow trashy stuff, I just don’t know if I will be able to enjoy them on any level. Are the sex scenes hot at all? I know the writing is embarrassingly bad, but it’s not like I need a Pulitzer for that.
Jewish Steel
I clicked on this by mistake today but read it with interest.
Especially this part:
Wait, what did you say they call it in Cornwall again?
Suzanne
@Hal: Has anyone heard from Cole? Did he make it to Hazelden? I have been trying to check on him on Book of Faces but no luck so far.
Joseph Nobles
I suspect that “got to write the book, can’t write an episode or visit the set this year” is a great cover for “things have changed so much in the series, I’m going to let them do them and me do me and we’ll all make money.” But that’s just me.
Anoniminous
@Steeplejack:
Wikipedia has a timeline. Not quite day-by-day but close.
Steeplejack
@joel hanes:
Thanks. Will check it out.
I still remember a detailed, week-by-week “comic strip” about the Civil War that ran in the Sunday funnies back in the &rsquo’60s. Very informative, with a sort of weird immediacy about it. A World War I thing could be the same way.
Suffern ACE
@Jewish Steel: mmmm. Devil Dogs. They were delicious. Not as good as funny bones or yodels, but close.
joel hanes
@Suzanne:
I have resisted reading any of the Discworld, even though Mr. Suzanne loves them, for this very reason.
But but but
Unlike Song of Ice and Fire or Wheel of Time or almost any other series of books, the Diskworld books do not form a unified narrative arc. Each book stands on its own, and its narrative is nicely concluded by the last page.
So the series can’t be unfinished. It’s always finished, fine just the way it is — until the next book comes out.
It seems to me that you’re missing a large amount of enjoyment because of a misapprehension.
Jewish Steel
@Suffern ACE: My family in part comes from Cornwall. Why do we get the silliest a version of the Wild Hunt? Dandy dogs indeed!
CaseyL
@Suzanne: Since we haven’t heard from him, I’m going to assume/hope he has, at long last, been admitted to a rehab center. He’ll probably be incommunicado for as long as he’s there.
Suzanne
@joel hanes: I’ve agreed to try one out. I am just a binger, and he has every one if them, so I could see my reading life being booked up for the next three months, easy, once I get started. It’s awesome if I end up liking it, but if I hate it, I still want to finish. Yes, I realize that that’s maniacal.
bago
In rehab you’re cut off from the world. No internets, no phones, and you’re allowed to have one emergency contact number entered into your record.
joel hanes
I could see my reading life being booked up for the next three months, easy, once I get started.
You say that as if it were a problem.
Far better to spend those three months laughing at Pratchett’s jokes and marveling at his inventiveness than toiling through the noissome swamps of Shade of Gray.
I haven’t binged like that on Pratchett myself, but I did read all of the Aubrey/Maturin books from one end to the other in a single vacation, and all of the Vorkosigan books in a single week, and all of Peter Wimsey in a month, in order, and all of the Dorothy Dunnett Lymond and Nicolo books in a single summer.
So I understand.
OTOH, I threw the fourth Dune sequel across the room in disgust and vowed never to read another word except to re-read the first book — and I lost interest in Wheel of Time somewhere before the middle of book six.
Steeplejack
@Suzanne:
The Discworld books are (mostly) very good. I would read one of the subseries in order—say, the City Watch—and keep in mind that Pratchett took a while to hit his stride. My experience was that the first novel in each subseries was a little rough and they improved greatly after that. (I am a completist like you, and a must-read-in-order person.)
Possibly helpful reading guide here.
I liked the City Watch best, with Death and the Witches tied in close second. The Rincewind series is good too, but not quite as good as the others. YMMV.
ETA: I want to emphasize again that something happened in Pratchett’s writing career where he really stepped up to a higher level in the early ’90s. The novels before are good, but the ones after are markedly better.
cckids
@Suzanne: Just from your comments here, I cannot imagine that you won’t love Discworld. I have a great fondness for Monstrous Regiment, and for Moving Pictures (esp. if you are a movie history buff), but really, start anywhere & enjoy.
Oh, and Hogfather. Funny, funny.
Karen in GA
@Suzanne: Listen to these wise people. Read the Discworld novels.
Anne Laurie
@Suzanne:
Just don’t start with the first two chronologically — The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic are Mad-magazine-style parodies which have unfairly discouraged more than one dogged start-from-the-beginning reader from going any further. Wyrd Sisters isn’t a bad place to start — it was the first one I read, and I described it at the time as “imagine Clifford Simak doing a parody of all of Shakespeare’s plays, with extra jokes from Terry Gilliam and Henry Beard.”
The Truth is also a good one-off — if I had to pick one Pratchett for a Balloon Juice book chat, I’d use that one. Pyramids is pretty much a stand-alone, too, although Joel is right that almost all of the books can be read solo & enjoyed in any order.
Guards! Guards! may be the best introduction to both Ankh-Morpork and Pratchett’s cosmological theories (I’m just sad Harrison Ford is now too old to play Captain Vimes, especially since Melissa McCarthy would be perfect for Lady Sybil Ramkin.) Hogfather‘s the one I’ve re-read most often, because for me it’s almost Jane-Austen-quality in creating an entire terrible & wonderful moral universe.
NotMax
Always had a soft spot for the MythAdventures novels.
And what a treat (for those who don’t own the paper versions) that Phil Foglio’s masterful comic adaptation of same is available online.
One loved original drawing Mr. Foglio was kind enough to grace me with back when is of Skeeve on a surfboard in Hawaii.
Joel Hanes
My current reading plan for Pratchett is to read them in the order in which I encounter one I haven’t already read in some used book store.
Robert Sneddon
@Anne Laurie: Another standalone Diskworld book is “Small Gods” — warning, it’s not a funny-funny book, it’s more about the banality of evil when evil is around you everyday. It’s a theme Terry has mined thoroughly in other Diskworld books but in this one he puts it front and centre. See, for example the “World’s Greatest Dad” coffee mug…
Anne Laurie
@Robert Sneddon: Small Gods (and Moving Pictures) are the two Pratchetts I always forget. Brutha, IMO, is Pratchett’s least believable character — representing the banality of the banal. At least MP has Gaspode, world’s most cynical wonder dog!
Debbie(aussie)
@joel hanes:
Lots & lots of likes.
Please reconsider Suzanne, you wont regret it, promise?
Aimai
@WaterGirl: yes we are breathlessly awaiting the third season.
Ramalama
Youse all know that Martin writes on a DOS computer? It kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?
Ramalama
@Hal: For some reason now I’m reminded of Don’t Let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight, though this story offers plenty of dust, poverty, and bright writing.
muddy
I have all the Pratchett books in paperback, and made a special bookcase for them. Only trouble is that I turned my son on to them a couplefew years ago, and he rushed out and got the new books as hardbacks because he couldn’t wait.
So now I have the last 4 in hardback and they don’t fit the case. I’d be happy to trade them for the paperback versions (can’t afford to replace all 30 or whatever paperbacks). Does anyone have the opposite problem, we could help each other out?
ETA: Oh, dead thread, not a good place for a bleg.
Matt McIrvin
@Jewish Steel: Started reading that and immediately “Ghost Riders In The Sky” started running through my head… and that article mentioned that the tune of the verses is basically “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” which I had not realized until this moment.
Matt McIrvin
@Anne Laurie: Strangely, The Colour of Magic/The Light Fantastic got made into probably the best of the Sky One TV adaptations. Pratchett tweaked them a bit to bring the characters more in line with the later books.