Watch the show regularly but want to start reading before the show airs. Does the show jump around or can I read pretty much in line with show? Also if it can be done around what chapter does s2e3 end with. I don't have much time to be fucking around with chapters I just watched. I plan on going back and reading the first book but I feel like I'm missing good shit in the books.
Finals week. I know this seems like a bitch cop out for book fans but I'm pretty fucking busy and ill go back and read the part I skipped over the summer.
The problem is that the story lines are spread out over multiple chapters and fleshed out through multiple points of view (if you don't know, each chapter in the book is written in third person-limited point of view). For example, Arya's story from the first three episodes of season 2 spanned many of her POV chapters and was spread out over hundreds of pages of text. It would be damn near impossible for you to just read her POV's because you would miss things that she observes that have been previously referenced in other POVs (like maybe the small council was talking about some shit going on and you hear from Tyrion or Cersei's POV, and then Arya experiences a piece of it on the King's Road and you won't get why it is important). The show condenses a lot of these story lines for the sake of TV, and for the most part has maintained their integrity. I just don't see how anyone could point you to the exact portions of the text that cover the specific scenes in each show without you reading spoilers or just not getting what you need to from the text.
The show isn't completely true to the book. For example a conversation between Jaime and Cat happened about two books two early. Also they tend to skip certain chapters such as jons first two POVs in this current season. Those are actually very good summaries. I get that it's not what you want but it's a very good alternative. Plus you can post your put your scope on that site [say book 1/season 2] so that it doesn't spoil you with notes from book 3.
You want to start reading the books halfway through the series, you don't want any details. Stick with the Tower's sparknotes. They really are good, I use them all the time.
Does anybody have any experience with the audiobooks? I'm a slow reader, so reading through the entire series would take me approx. 25 years. On the other hand, I am in the car for 2 hours every workday.
If reading the books i would def. suggest starting with Book 1 and reading every chapter of every one. Just keep watching the series and start book 1. Read as much as you can during finals and really get into it this summer..
You can't just jump to certain chapters for the most part as was pointed out. Martin tells a story through multiple people's point of view. So a battle might be told from the perspectives of 3 characters. Part of the battle will be told from a different character so if you read only one character you're missing a ton of shit.
I actually have the audiobooks used to listen to them when I was driving between Miami and Atl a few years back and they were easy to follow for me (however I had already read the books so maybe that's why the audio books were so easy to follow). If you get them try and get the ones read by Roy Dotrice.
Read books first, then listened to audio books. While I think anyone would enjoy listening even without reading, there will certainly be things you miss because it's harder to pay attention to audio (at least it is for me or maybe its just that you can't go back and reread easily). Having said that, everyone of us missed things on our first read, so fuck it, just listen. If you are in the car two hours/day, there is no reason not to start the season.
Went ahead and bought the AGOT audio books last night and knocked out disc 1 this morning. I'm suspecting books 1 and 2 will be chores to get through since I know the majority of what happens from watching the show, but it should pay off when I get to books 3 and beyond. At least that's the hope. I calculated it out and listening to 2 hours a day will get me through the whole series by the end of September/early October.
I got the unabridged version from Barnes & Noble that's 28 discs and 33.5 hours. The other books, according to the ASOIAF Wikipedia page: ACOK: 37 hr 17 min ASOS: 47 hr 17 min AFFC: 31 hr 10 min ADWD: 48 hr 56 min
I listened the the audiobooks at work while doing boring shit and they're great. Some people complain about the voices but I like them except for Tyrion and Davos. I would second the advice on getting the ones by Roy Dotrice and also recommend torrenting them instead of probably paying >$30 per book
yeah I got the Dotrice version of AGOT. Paid $30 for it. I'm hoping my local library has copies of the other audiobooks because there's no way I'm buying the other ones new.
I'm going to have to read the books after this season. I keep fighting off the temptation to read all the spoilers.
figured out what it was. i created an mp3 for each part, and for whatever reason it left out about 7 hrs from each part.
I was. Then moved back on campus and the university blocks all torrance sites. About to go back off campus for good and will probably get one of you guys to get me back on the main sites when I am situated in a few weeks. I feel bad cause WBN hooked me up on several sites and I probably got him bad karma or whatever on a few of those sites cause I never fulfilled the seed/leech quota or whatever.