Reading in July 2011

I'm reading two books at the moment.

1. A Dance with Dragons, by Martin. This is my commute to work reading.

2. The People of Sparks, by Jeanne DuPrau. It's children's 9-12 literature, but it's fun. This is my bed time reading.

I don't think I could be reading any two different books, to be honest.
 
NickeeCoco said:
1. A Dance with Dragons, by Martin. This is my commute to work reading.
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Is it also your daily exercise? :p

I'm still reading Modesitt's Imager's Intrigue, and I hit page 300 on my lunchbreak. It's shaping up to be my favourite book of the series so far, although I do kinda miss Rhennthyl's courting of his partner (Seliora, if my spelling is correct), because there was something very sweet and touching about it. Well, I'll hopefully have it finished this week, and then it's just a wait until November (I believe) for the next book, Scholar, which starts another trilogy.
 
Loerwyn said:
I was thinking more about you having to lug that thing around ;)
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It's an eBook so it weighs all of 221 grams. And, it only cost $9.99 as opposed to the HC cost, which at the store here was going for $25.98.
 
10 000 ebook copies sold in the first week: and I think that's just UK copies!

LINK

Mark
 
Hobbit said:
10 000 ebook copies sold in the first week: and I think that's just UK copies!

LINK
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I've not seen many print copies of ADWD, to be honest. I thought I'd see them piled up in stores, but the most I've seen so far is about seven or so copies on display. Mind you, for a fantasy novel, that's a lot.
 
From an article in the NY Times last week (this has info pertaining to the first day only. Numbers have undoubtedly gone up since):

According to first-day sales collected by Random House, more than 170,000 print copies and 110,000 e-book copies sold on Tuesday, the largest opening for a Random House book in 2011.

“What’s been really interesting is the physical-digital split,” said Scott Shannon, the publisher of digital content for the Random House Publishing Group. “These days, for a lot of our big titles, digital is outselling physical. That’s not what we’re seeing here, and it really speaks to George’s fan base.”
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Full article here.
 
Loerwyn said:
I've not seen many print copies of ADWD, to be honest. I thought I'd see them piled up in stores, but the most I've seen so far is about seven or so copies on display. Mind you, for a fantasy novel, that's a lot.
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Here there were posters everywhere and massive displays. And I'm not cheating. I'm being smart. ;)
 
NickeeCoco said:
Here there were posters everywhere and massive displays. And I'm not cheating. I'm being smart. ;)
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Oh, you can't get away from ADWD stuff, that's true, it's just I've seen no really big displays with a bazillion copies. I remember just after Under the Dome's release, and WH Smith had the book piled up in a few places in store, maybe 8-9 high each. That's not something I've seen with ADWD, which has puzzled me.
 
Publishers have to pay some serious cash (co-op) for those upfront displays and Martin's publishers might have felt they didn't need or want to do that with this book, seeing as they already knew there were boatloads of people waiting to read it.
 
Loerwyn said:
Oh, you can't get away from ADWD stuff, that's true, it's just I've seen no really big displays with a bazillion copies. I remember just after Under the Dome's release, and WH Smith had the book piled up in a few places in store, maybe 8-9 high each. That's not something I've seen with ADWD, which has puzzled me.
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No matter how popular Martin may be in our circles, he's no Stephen King. I don't even think the bump the HBO show gives him will get him into SK land, as far as popularity goes.
 
Erfael said:
No matter how popular Martin may be in our circles, he's no Stephen King. I don't even think the bump the HBO show gives him will get him into SK land, as far as popularity goes.
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Agreed, not quite in Stephen King land, but maybe one zip code over.
  • ADWD is the bestselling fiction book of the year...and this happened two days after release.
  • ASOIAF has over 1million copies in print
  • aGoT hit #1 on NY Times paperback bestseller list...15 years after first publication

People I know personally and would never imagine reading these books have been buying the books and are loving the show.

So...a 30 year overnight success is what you could call GRRM>
 
This made me curious in my mind....how many books has SK sold? The first figure I came across is 350,000,000 worldwide. That's a lot of books.

Any idea where Martin is worldwide? I can't find a number for that. I can find that in 2005 he was at 7 million worldwide for ASoIaF. I assume it's jumped up significantly, but even including his non-ASoIaF books I can't see him getting to be anywhere near King's numbers.

None of which particularly matters, but I think it is the primary reason Loerwyn could see stacks and stacks of SK books at the store and only a few ADwD. A much bigger slice of the book-buying pie will read King than will read Martin.
 
Erfael said:
No matter how popular Martin may be in our circles, he's no Stephen King. I don't even think the bump the HBO show gives him will get him into SK land, as far as popularity goes.
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Under the Dome was still a sci-fi book, and I'm curious as to whether it sold as well as his other books. It seems to me that he's lesser known and respected for his non-horror works.
 
King has also been a lot more prolific and consistent with his output than Martin, which is where a big difference lies.

Back to the topic at hand...

I finished A Dance with Dragons this morning and mostly loved it. I posted some thoughts in the two spoiler threads floating around. All in all, a terrific book.
 
Rob B said:
I finished A Dance with Dragons this morning and mostly loved it. I posted some thoughts in the two spoiler threads floating around. All in all, a terrific book.
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Good to hear. I'm only on page 300, and I'm really enjoying it, but I've seen some mixed reviews out there. Would you say it's better than AFFC overall?
 
Evil Agent said:
Good to hear. I'm only on page 300, and I'm really enjoying it, but I've seen some mixed reviews out there. Would you say it's better than AFFC overall?
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I'm nearing the end myself, so I'll give my answer to that one, too. You know my bent when it comes to books like this, so I won't give that disclaimer. It's been an enjoyable read. I haven't felt at any point that it's been tedium, which is good for a book this long. As to whether it's better than AFFC, Id say it depends on what people did or didn't like about AFFC. I liked the political wranglings in King's Landing. This book is largely lacking in that type of politics (it has other types, of less interest to me). So in that respect I liked AFFC better. Most people were put off that AFFC didn't have Jon, Tyrion, Dany -- This book does have them, so if that ticks your boxes, this one is better.

I'll reserve final judgment until tomorrow mid-afternoon when I've turned the last page, but as of now I'd rate it the same as AFFC (which I gave a solid 3 stars to on Goodreads - "I liked it"). On the whole, though, I think I'm falling into the camp that thinks Martin shouldn't have bothered with AFFC or ADWD and just fast-forwarded to the point he had initially planned and gone forward to the later parts. I say that because (and this may be because I know too much from being part of this forum for years) you can almost see the man behind the curtain too often through both AFFC and ADWD saying, "Now I need to get this person over here....check!....and this person needs to hate this person......check!....etc. Maybe he'll make the events of AFFC and ADWD essential, but thus far it feels like a lot of narrative dead-ends just to get certain people in place for the later books.
 
I have about an hour reading left in Stephen Deas' Adamantine Palace than I get to start "The Dance". Great read overall. Really enjoyed it. Actually my only quibble would be that its too short. Definitely will be picking up the next two in the trilogy.

Some of the previous posts itt are comparing ADWD to AFFC. You guys kinda got me worried. Although I really liked AFFC, its definitely not as good as the first three. Two friends of mine who've finished ADWD put it on par with ASOS, if not better. I am so psyched to start this book but now am a little let down :(
 
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