12/9 (and spoilers)

The Shadow over Portsmouth: unchanged
Player Choice:
104,525

I finished A Dance with Dragons the other night, and though I feel enriched as a person just by reading it, and worship George R.R. Martin as the world-building, word-slinging, merciless god that he is, I do have many questions, perhaps more than when I started the book.  So many unfinished pieces of business.  So here you go… and if you haven’t finished the book, do not read on. Spoilers.

I said, SPOILER ALERT.

SPOILERS FOR A DANCE WITH DRAGONS!

Okay, everyone good now?  So…

*Who the eff is Coldhands?
*Who the eff is Robert Strong?
*What happened to Brienne? Why did we only glimpse her offhand for one chapter, when she was supposed to be dead?
*What’s the deal with Manderly?
*What’s the deal with the “perfumed seneschal”?
*Where the eff did Osha and Rickon go?
*Where the eff is Victarion?  Why even bother getting into his storyline if he wouldn’t reach his destination by the end of the book?
*What was the point of the Quentyn material? There had to be an easier way to spring the big lizards…

Player Choice moves only a little.  Shadow over Portsmouth moves not at all, but I was able to sketch out a map of the town that should help somewhat with future installments; I’d been starting to lose track of where my pieces were on the board.

A Shared Kingdom

Something that I’ve been looking forward to literally for years is about to make its debut on Sunday evening. That’s when HBO’s 10-part adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones begins to air. It’s the first book in a masterful fantasy series that I and many of my friends, both male and female, have enjoyed, and we’re all eagerly awaiting how the screen edition will turn out.

According to one writer at the New York Times, however, that latter half of my Martin-loving friends apparently doesn’t exist. Continue reading “A Shared Kingdom”