We are under a week away from our “Dance with Dragons” and evidently the world is excited. Just six months ago I made a post saying that A Dance with Dragons was one of 2011’s most anticipated titles. Within a couple of hours people were tweeting me telling me I was crazy and commenting that it would never happen. People seemed to think that A Dance with Dragons had been shelved long term, and in all honesty, who could blame them? The book was actually meant to come out about six years ago. It has been eleven years since we have read the voices of some characters too.
It’s quite scary that a character who has not been given a voice in eleven years could still be on the minds of readers and this is testament to the skill of George R. R. Martin as an author. Very few books would be able to put the brakes on certain story-lines for over a decade and still have readers who cared enough to re-read everything and refresh their memories enough to read this sequel knowing the same thing is likely to happen with book six and seven.
So what is it about Martin that makes his work so addictive and A Song of Ice and Fire such a must read series? Well, in my opinion it is Martin’s willingness to destroy and kill everything he has written up to that point. Almost no other author has spent as much time as Martin building characters and landscapes to such an extent that we care about them and know huge amounts about them, before killing them off in literally a single page. Imagine spending ten years writing about a character, 1000s of pages building him/her up and then deciding well, it is time for them to die. A lot of books draw it out, have funerals, but Martin’s ability to quickly and realistically kill a character keeps us on edge and knowing that no matter how central to the story or how adored, they could die at any moment.
There can be no doubt of course that the television show has elevated Martin’s status even further. Very few fantasy television shows have ever done the genre justice – but Game of Thrones was quite simply amazing. As a result HarperCollins have stated that they had to print over one million copies of the George R. R. Martin’s series A Song of Ice and Fire and that was in the first six months of 2011 alone!
I guess the question that remains is how many people will actually buy A Dance with Dragons? Well, it is difficult to guess, but the previous volumes in total have sold over seven million copies worldwide to date. On 12th July there are a lot of people who will not be willing to wait or borrow the book, nor purchase it second hand (as many had with other books in the series) so the figure could well surprise even the people expecting big numbers. Voyager has stated in a press release that: “It is on course to make publishing history by becoming one of the highest pre-ordered titles of all time, with over 15,000 pre-orders received thus far.”
The publishing director, Jane Johnson also added onto that same press release her delight: “It gives you a warm glow when a series you’ve been championing for fifteen years finally hits the big-time. At the moment it’s like riding a comet, George’s sales are so astronomical. I haven’t seen anything like this since our sales of The Lord of the Rings went through the roof with the release of Peter Jackson’s movie adaptation.”
Many of us fans are desperately re-reading the series in order to be up to date and refreshed when the book finally hits the shelves (I myself am 1/4 through Feast For Crows!), and the good news is that we will perhaps get an even better experience then those who read the series through to book four. “Why?” you may ask, well, A Feast For Crows and A Dance with Dragons was intended to be one book. What actually happened is it got too long. Rather than doing a part one and a part two, Martin and his team decided to put it into two novels and therefore extend the series. Not too many fans were bothered initially until they realised that the way they were able to do this was to completely remove half the cast (the favourite half in many people’s eyes). So, for those who have only just finished or are soon to be reading A Feast For Crows before moving straight into A Dance with Dragons you will end up without that six years of disappointment and anticipation that the genre seems to have held to this book.
Geoff Matthews
Julia Kitvaria Sarene
I agree, Marc, that the “favorite half” of characters got cut. I could barely make it through Feast for Crows because of that. But I am looking forward to Dance with Dragons. But I have it on hold at the library — not sure I’m willing to invest $30 yet.
I loved FfCs even though many of my favourite characters weren’t in it (or were hardly in it). It was the same incredible writing as previous books, and I have no doubt that DwD is going to give us some SoS-level surprises.
I’m one of those who has waited six years for the dance. I’m feeling light-headed at the thought that in the morning I get to go pick up my copy. GRRM is such a great story teller. His characters have been with me for many years. I’m a little jealous now that the series has become so popular with HBO… it was special being a fan of the series when most hadn’t heard of it. But I’m happy for GRRM and his success. It is well-deserved and decades in the making. I also felt that most of the favorites were cut out of AFFC, but I learned to love the characters in that book through the 3 rereads I did while waiting for Dance. Jaime has become my favorite, I think. Anyway, it’s exciting to finally have the wait over. GRRM will go down in history as one of the greats.