When a new book comes out in a series I love, I typically reread each book in preparation for the next release. This is the first time I haven't had the luxury to do so. A Song of Ice and Fire is the worst series to be fuzzy on the details, the hundreds of major characters running around Westeros tend to get a little confusing when they aren't fresh in your mind.
I actually feel guilty for reading the Wikipedia summary to refresh my memory. Oh real world, what are you doing to me? I also contemplated waiting until I went to the George R. R. Martin book signing on Thursday to buy the book so that it wouldn't distract me from my last week at NYU. Clearly I gave that notion up rather quickly.
Obviously I plan on beginning A Dance with Dragons in an hour. I'm already experiencing that lovely conflicted feeling that crops up around book releases. When I simultaneously want to tear through the novel to find out what happens and savor every word before it's over too soon. I know I'll fly through the 1000 pages and the years of waiting will begin again, but at least I have the next David Anthony Durham book to look forward to in the fall.
"The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real ... for a moment at least ... that long magic moment before we wake.
Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?
We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.
They can keep their heaven. When I die, I'd sooner go to middle Earth."
— George R.R. Martin
