A Song of Ice and Fire [2]

halfwise wrote:Well, you can't really expect that he'd publish a teaser that would give away that much.  The spoilers I was talking about were not that significant.

Ringdrotten wrote:Try the combined reading of 4 and 5, Eldo - I'd say GRRM was never "out of form", the publishers screwed him over

In January 1977...my editor at Doubleday suggested I do "An important book -- a Foundation novel perhaps."  I said, "I'd rather do an autobiography." And I did, 64,000 words of it.

In January 1981, Doubleday apparently lost its temper. At least Hugh O'neill, then my editor, said "Betty Prashkar wants to see you" and marched me into her office. She was then one of the senior editors, a sweet and gentle person.

She wasted no time. "Isaac" she said, "you are going to write a novel for us and you are going to sign a contract to that effect."

"Betty" I said, "I already am working on a big science book for Doubleday and I have to revise the Biographical Encyclopedia for Doubleday and --"

"It can all wait" she said. You are going to sign a contract for a novel.  What's more, we are going to give you a $50,000 dollar advance for it."

That was a stunner.  I don't like advances, they put me under too much obligation. ...
"That's too much money, Betty."
"No it isn't."
"Doubleday will lose it's shirt."
"No it won't."

I said desperately, "All right, have the contract read that I don't get any money until I inform you in writing that I have started the novel."

"Are you crazy?" She said.  "You'll never start it if that's in the contract.  You'll get $25,000 now and $25,000 when you turn in the manuscript."

"But suppose the novel's no good?"

"Now you're being silly."  And she ended the conversation.

That night, the science fiction editor at Doubleday called to express his pleasure.  "And remember, when we say 'novel', we mean a science fiction novel, and nothing else.  And when we say 'science fiction novel', we mean a Foundation novel, and nothing else."

I moaned that I was not my master anymore, and Hugh O'Neill said cheerfully "That's right."

“Ser? My lady?” said Podrick. “Is a broken man an outlaw?”

“More or less,” Brienne answered.

Septon Meribald disagreed. “More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous.

“Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They’ve heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know.

“Then they get a taste of battle.

“For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they’ve been gutted by an axe.

“They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that’s still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water.

“If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they’re fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it’s just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don’t know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they’re fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world…

“And the man breaks.

“He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them… but he should pity them as well.”

Ringdrotten wrote:I read it on a kindle, so I just switched between books. But there's no need to mark the chapters beforehand as long as you follow the order in blue's link a couple of pages back - bar a few exceptions it's very straight forward, all you need is both books at hand