Yesterday, we posted the first part of Linda and I discussing/reviewing A Dance with Dragons (Preorder at Amazon: Hardcover US, Hardcover UK, Kindle US, Kindle UK, Audio US, Audio UK). Today, we’ve got the rest available! It’s rambling, I’m having an allergy attack at the time that leaves me sniffling and watery eyed, audio cuts out in the last seconds of the first video (I switched to avidemux to split the rest, no problems now)—we know, and our apologies for those little problems. Hopefully the content is worth it! We’ve learned some lessons from this experience as we plan to take on into future videos. We’re planning a brief series, probably covering particular POVs, maybe touching on some of the key events, and so on.
Before pressing on, however, some public service announcements.
First, the A Song of Ice and Fire forum in relation to tomorrow’s release of A Dance with Dragons. On the 12th, we will open the ADwD forum. I think we shall also open an ADWD “Still Reading” forum a day or two after, for those who want to read more deliberately, and discuss what they’re reading chapter by chapter without having information from later chapters being brought in. These will be the only places where A Dance with Dragons will be discussed through August 12th. All topics must contain [ADwD Spoiler] in the title (to make it easier for people browsing the ‘Latest Posts’ feature to distinguish them and titles must not be in themselves spoiling anything. We will probably have topic creation as a moderator-approved activity. Those who spoil it for others can be expected to sit out discussion on the forum for a length of time proportional to how deliberate the spoiling appeared to be. We cannot guarantee that there’ll be no spoilers in the forum’s other sections, but past experience suggests it will not be a significant issue.
To prevent spoilers prior to the 12th, new members of the forum have had various things restricted, but those restrictions will largely lift on the 12th, going back to our standard set up.
There is, of course, also the Wiki of Ice and Fire. Our hope is that no ADwD-updates take place earlier than a week after its release, but we allow our editors to sort these things out for themselves, so we’ll see what they do. My suggestion is to tread carefully at the wiki for the time being. Make note if the index of an entry (as in a character entry) has an ADwD notation, and then be careful as you scroll down.
Finally, word is that Amazon.com has started shipping the novels in bulk throughout the country, with many people who had 1-2 days priority shipping set to get them tomorrow. Might be that if you live in the right area, an order placed today will get to you tomorrow (especially if you opt for overnight). Besides that, there will be locations across the country (and in other countries as well) which will stay open until midnight to allow shoppers to get the back at that time. In particular, the expectation is that the kindle edition will be released at 12:01 AM on the 12th, so if you’ve a Kindle-capable device (including Kindle for the PC), that may be a way to go.
Okay, and here, at last, our three part discussion/review: