[lev]

I think the deeper question here is: What are the important factors for a great artful story/novel/epic fantasy? To me, what's most important is to have a carefully crafted story that the reader can relate to (i.e. a message about the human condition or something, a unique universe can provide a backdrop to tell unique messages, as Ursula Le Guin has emphasized before). I think the fact that Martin first said there were going to be 5 books, and now there will be 7+, is testament to the fact that ASOIAF simply is not as well crafted a story, it's not tight with precise moments of tension and resolve and that sort of thing.

However, on a different aspect, I don't think great fantasy has to necessarily copy Tolkien's PG/PG-13 tone. Tolkien's tone lends itself very nicely to metaphor and archetypal characters (like Bombadil), but I don't think that's essential to great epic fantasy. People enjoy tightly crafted non-fantasy novels at all "ratings" so to speak, and the same goes for fantasy I think. So it's cool that Martin's universe is rated R. It's convincing as a universe that way. Also, I think there are characters and situations in Martin's universe that people can relate to, so that's cool. However, ASOIAF is not tightly crafted, it "drags" as others have said. And because of that, the story gets reduced to simply a series of events rather than a great story/epic fantasy, in my opinion.

To me, great epic fantasy creates a unique universe FOR THE PURPOSE of telling a story with a message. The universe isn't an end to itself. I have read ASOIAF books, and WoT books, and have enjoyed most of them very much. But I now see that my enjoyment wasn't because the stories were enriching my life with messages to take to heart. Instead, they were simply a means to relax. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, but I read ASOIAF and WoT books excessively, because the universes were more exciting with less at stake than it was to fully engage in the real world with all its disappointments and failures, etc.. It was more predictable in it's excitement and lack of dread to follow the characters than it was to fully live my "character", my life. I used to play Diablo2 for the same reason. Most TV shows I have watched in recent years have been for the same reason, although granted not as excessively as I played Diablo 2. I see most people that live on my urban street come home every day after work, and watch more episodes from a TV show, then go to bed and start all over again. Those tv shows, like ASOIAF, are not art, not a means to enrich their lives, but a means to escape it. Again, I don' think it's necessarily a terrible thing to being excited to come home and simply follow the next series of events in Don Draper's story, or Tyrion's, or whoever. I just don't want to kid myself, I don't engage those stories in order to glean messages from them. They don't enrich my life as art. I engage them to escape.

When I see people reading ASOIAF on the train commuting to work in my city, I doubt if any are reading it to enjoy a great work of high fantasy, a great story that enriches their lives with a message about the human condition or whatever. I think they are reading instead it simply relax. Not a bad thing to relax, just not a great story like LotR.

Perhaps a great and tight story cannot exceed 1,000 pages ish. Lord of the Rings is just short enough I think that the story stays very tight. But with these newer epic fantasy's like Martin's, the total story is going to be many thousands of pages long, and there's no way that can be tight. Don't get me wrong, I agree with that other person that it would be cool to learn more about the extra details, like about Fatty in the Fellowship, for example. But I also agree with that person that more on Fatty in the Fellowship story would have made it drag.

I think story premises like ASOIAF's could actually make "great" stories, if they are done in certain ways. Some of my ideas are next.

If the ideas are written as multiple 1,000ish page stories, instead of one mother story. That way, each story could be tight (a standalone story of Lord of the Rings scale), and the presence of all the stories would make up one fascinating universe (the stories could even overlap!) There could even be novellas and short stories within the universe too! And perhaps even some stories written in a "nonfiction" style, like some of the bland (I think) but cool historical stories that Tolkien tells in some of his other books. How cool would that be?!

Sadly, I don't think this exists. So back to the Lord of the Rings I go. There's just so much that rings true to me in that story about what it means to be human in this world, I can just read it over and over, a great story...