Books again

[damerell]

Cor, George R.R. Martin, you don't half like to make us think someone's the protagonist and then kill them off unexpectedly, don't you?

But I think I am becoming wise to your trick of having someone appear to be killed in one chapter, usually blacking out in the last sentence, only to pop back up later.

Also... are any new viewpoint characters being introduced, or are we eventually going to run out? At this rate the next book but one will have to be totally empty.

Comments

[jack]

You might want to be careful, as vague as this is, it's the sort of thing that might spoil someone at just the wrong point.

But yeah, he'd done very well at keeping me guessing, but in the most recent book he did too much "nice person dies" and "person ambiguously dies", and I got numb to it. Yes, in a civil war, it may be realistic, but I got to the point where it wasn't really tense any more, because I stopped empathising with anyone, just in case.

[damerell]

Well, the first book's six years old, and he does it in there, I think I can discuss the writing style without a spoiler warning.

I don't mind "nice person dies" so much, although I was rather expecting someone to come back for a spot of blood-spattered revenge, but I don't want to be keeping a list of people not actively confirmed as dead.

[watervole]

Yes, there's lots of new characters. That's half the problem really. The plot keeps expanding widthways as new people get added.

[damerell]

Ah, but I meant specifically characters who get to be the viewpoint character for a chapter. (Maybe you did too, I dunno).

But, on reflection, Samwell Tarly got a few chapters recently and he is definitely newly promoted to that role.

Keeps expanding widthways, yes, but at least there's some wastage in the middle keeping things more sensible. :-)

[watervole]

There will be many more POV characters. Some die, but the number seems to increase overall.