Entitlement issues (2009) | Hacker News Reader

Entitlement issues (2009)

journal.neilgaiman.com

121 pointsdrx151 comments

Periodically someone will ask me if I've read any of the Song of Ice and Fire books. My answer is always no.

Then I launch into a rant about the Wheel of Time series. I got sucked into that series on book one and chewed through it all the way to book 7. At book seven I had caught up to the author and the fact that he hadn't written the next book in the series yet gave me an opportunity to take stock. I realized that the books had been getting less satisfying and more work to read than before. I also realized that Robert Jordan didn't know how to finish the series. He hadn't met a plot line he didn't like. I was sure he would die before Wheel of Time was finished. Right then and there I decided I was done and would no longer give my money to the series or any other series that showed signs of the same problem. I totally called the Wheel of Time. Robert Jordan died and they had to bring in Brian Sanderson to finish. Brian definitely knows how to finish. But for me the magic had already gone.

It's not out of a sense of entititlement. I just don't enjoy unfinished stories. It bugs the crap out of me. George R. R. Martin strikes me as an author with different symptoms but a similar problem. I'm not sure he knows how to finish it. I won't spend my money until he proves it.

Try The Dresden Files. It will be (at completion) approximately 26 books in length (yep, 26). Jim Butcher currently released book 15 (Skin Game). And I have to say, every book has gotten better than the previous book.

Jim started out with a plan when he wrote the first book. Try it, you'll get addicted.

the way you say that makes that series seem so long, but the dresden files books are really short.

wheel of time book length: 300.000 words. (series x 13 3.900.000)

Dresden Files book length: 100.000 words. (series x 26 2.600.000)

the wheel of time has an epic feel to it and the dresden files are really fun action books.

I already am addicted.

The nice thing about a series like the Dresden files is that each book in the series feels like it could be finished in the very next book. Jim Butcher does a good job of moving things along without biting off more than he can chew.

Brandon Sanderson.

I empathize, I went through something similar. I picked up ASOIAF without realizing the series wasn't finished yet (predating the show by a year or two). When I reached the end of book 4, it had a little note about how some plot lines had been moved out of #4 and would show up in #5, which would come out shortly. Then I looked at the publication date, and thought "not again".

They're still enjoyable to read, and I think Neil's got the right attitude.

Personally, I think the show will catch, and pass, the novels, and it will become canon. And I'm okay with that too.

"...Journey before destination"

There is far too much pessimism her about the experience of reading novel series. I've massively enjoyed the experience of reading ASOFIA, the world building, character development, politics and intrigue.

The worlds in series like this are massive and the end of a series is the last chapter the author deigns to write. Sure they might be building towards something, but you can enjoy the series all the same without the "end".

I read 1-5 ASOFAI in 6 months, having started just before the series aired. Do I look forward to the next in the series, of course, but in the mean time I have read > 60 other books some of them 2 or 3 times.

Don't get stuck on one series, one author, or one genre, there is so much good fiction out every year that you will never be able to read it all.

It's not pessimism. Some people enjoy the journey whether there is a destination or not. Some people only enjoy a journey when there is a destination.

To each his own.

I had the opposite reaction to Wheel of Time: I got partway through the first book, and immediately thought "wow, this author does way too much gratuitous worldbuilding and way too little story", and dropped it then. Worldbuilding is great, but frontloading way too much of it is a very bad sign, and I've pretty universally found that I don't enjoy books and series that do so.

By contrast, I enjoy stories with a ton of worldbuilding woven into the narrative, discovered naturally as the characters go through it, with no massive infodumps.

> I enjoy stories with a ton of worldbuilding woven into the narrative

Brandon Sanderson

It seems the problem is that the best way to make money as a science fiction author is to have a long running series that might get picked up as a movie/tv series. There's no incentive to ever finish the things until they've been milked dry.

That was certainly not the problem with WoT. It may or may not be the problem with ASOIAF or not I don't know.

The real problem I think is when a writer doesn't know how to get where he wants to go and the story controls him rather than the other way around.

I used to have a similar stance, and I agree on most points. Long series tend to become less and less interesting, and weirder as they go along (Dune, Gormenghast, Hyperion, ...) Maybe it is the novelty that wears off, the author has used his most powerful ideas first, or the last book is written because of children's college tuition. Moreover, even if I enjoy reading, I think that if the author hasn't managed to enclose a proper story in 500-1000 pages, there is probably something that is off.

However, I have recanted my previous position because if every series tend to go downwards, why not reading the first few books? I'd rather enjoy the journey even if the final destination is a bit underwhelming. In the worst case, if the latter books are absolutely atrocious, I can live with reading a quick summary on Wikipedia.

> I think that if the author hasn't managed to enclose a proper story in 500-1000 pages, there is probably something that is off.

I really don't agree with that:

1. a series can be way more than a single story, The Dresden Files is 15 volumes of 300~500 pages each (let's call it 6000 pages), each story is mostly free-standing but they follow chronologically, it's a very episodic format if you will. Discworld has similar thematic subsets.

2. some stories just don't fit in in 1000 pages. Malazan Book of the Fallen suffered from a lack of editing at times and could probably have been a fair bit shorter, but not 10000 pages shorter, not by a long shot, the depth and breadth of the subject just wouldn't allow it.

> a series can be way more than a single story, The Dresden Files is 15 volumes of 300~500 pages each (let's call it 6000 pages), each story is mostly free-standing but they follow chronologically, it's a very episodic format if you will.

Heck, while ASOIAF has an overarching story that is, as yet, incomplete, it has a number of complete and compelling (and, in some cases, overlapping or parallel) complete stories within it, some of which are neatly contained in particular books, some of which are not.

Its one thing I think that makes ASOIAF more satisfying (despite the delays between volumes) than WoT.

This is OBVIOUSLY my 2 cents...

Re: 1. I think this is a different thing. If you want to tell a bunch of stories that are linked, that's fine. If you want to tell one giant story then at least have a plan. There's no indication that Jordan had "a plan". (I think this is the point the great-grandparent is making)

I seem to recall when the first book came out, that it was planned as a trilogy. After the second book, it was going to be a double trilogy. I don't think Jordan's overall plan reached his final 12-book estimate until book 8 or 9, and Sanderson couldn't even fit the final material he picked up into two books, so it hit 13 by the end.

Now, there's nothing wrong with that in general. Sometimes you write an outline, and in the process of penning down a quarter of the story and fleshing out the characters and setting you come up with more and more ideas. There's two ways out of that: either you let the story get control of the writing, resulting in a historical-feeling narrative with no clear overall plot, or you take the time to edit and revise what you have into smaller, self-contained stories.

I vastly prefer the latter, especially if there _are_ hints to an overarching plot. 13-book meanderings like Wheel of Time don't do it for me these days, but Dresden Files (15 books and ~20 short stories) or the Honor Harrington series (13 books, plus 18 spinoff short stories or novels)? I will chain-read those like crack, and still feel satisfied almost regardless of where they stop.

> I think that if the author hasn't managed to enclose a proper story in 500-1000 pages, there is probably something that is off.

I think there are 2 different complaints here depending on how you interpret "proper":

A) It takes too long to get to a conclusion of a series long plot.

B) The series long plot is bad because the author did not plan ahead and just cobbled it together after the fact.

masklinn gave a good response to A.

> Long series tend to become less and less interesting, and weirder as they go along

Malazan Book of the Fallen. ~3.325.000 words (200-400k per book) and the best series I've read in my life. Not the easiest to read with pretty complex story lines, somewhat weird timelines (see the Chronological order [1]) and certainly not the easiest book for a non-native speaker (never did I have to look up that many words) but rewarding and gripping until the very end.

[1] http://i.imgur.com/sXBYA.jpg

Dune, sure, I get it (especially when his son took over). Hyperion though? If you count both parts as one series it's 4 books. Even at pretty respectable page contents, they don't compare to a series with 11 (? or more) books, many of which came pretty close to 1000 pages!

It did get a little weird there at the end, but still pretty good books. And nowhere near as bad as WOT, or hell, not even as bad as the Sword of Truth series.

Hyperion is mostly OK, and should maybe not be in the list, but the third book, Endymion, is basically a giant chase, and I found it weaker than the first two.

For my defense, I have not read WoT or Sword of Truth because of their terrible reputation. But I have read the Belgariad, I can't really say it is getting worse, because it was not really good in the first place.

Totally agree with your impressions of the Belgariad. I had a friend that just loved it and it was kinda... meh. I'm also with you on Endymion, the second part of the series was seriously lacking the same quality of the first two books.

Also, for whatever it's worth, I've never read ASOIAF, though I've tried a couple times. Never could get into it. I kept getting the whole WOT vibe from it too (too many characters, too many subplots).

In the case of ASOIAF, it seems like in spite of the mortality of the characters, GRRM has simply built up too many plot lines, too many characters to follow. The many narratives made the first few books compelling and full of perspective on a complex event- but the scope of the event continues to grow...

wheel of time book 7 was actually so bad it got me to abandon the series altogether, despite enjoying the first six books. now george martin's book 5 has me in a similar place - had book 6 been available i might have just kept reading, but given the enforced break i noticed that i actually didn't enjoy book 5 very much (it wasn't as horrible as jordan's book 7, but it simply wasn't enjoyable), and am feeling disinclined to follow the series any longer.

Robert Jordan told Sanderson how he wanted it to end, so he at least had an end in the works.

I agree that the last few books before Sanderson started writing them were lower quality though, pretty much everyone does.

> Robert Jordan told Sanderson how he wanted it to end, so he at least had an end in the works.

Technically, that never happened. Sanderson was picked by Jordan's widow, but Jordan had left extensive notes about where he wanted the series to go/end.

Of the 3 books Sanderson is credited as having written, he wrote more of the first two than the final volume. A Memory of Light had significant scenes written by RJ himself. Sanderson had to contribute heavily to the first 2 he wrote to get story lines wrapped up to RJ's specs, and to get everything to converge to match RJ's existing passages for AMoL.

It's disappointing to me that this needs to be said. I read the first Song of Ice and Fire book in the middle of 2013, and I finished the fifth book this past March. That's several thousand pages of fiction in less than a year. Clearly, I like the books.

But I can wait for the sixth book. I did fine in 2012 without ASOIAF, and I'll do fine in 2015 and 2016 and even 2017 if it comes to that.

Last year I discovered I prefer novels and assorted nonfiction to reading random articles on the Internet. I prefer to chew on one idea for a long time than a thousand little ideas at once.

So what I'd really like is a way to find other books to read that I enjoy as much a Martin's work. I've signed up for GoodReads, but nothing has come of it just yet.

Does anyone have any suggestions other than browsing Amazon or strolling through a Barnes and Noble?

Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen is a monstrous 10 book (finished) series with a huge, ancient, complex universe, a great mythos and some epic plotting. Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber is pretty dark and very well written. That's all I've got for darkdark fantasy. I can recommend everything Gaiman has written though you'd be better off starting with the Sandman, his best work.

Personally, like your suggestion for Gaiman, I highly recommend anything written by Roger Zelazny.

If you enjoy the Chronicles of Amber, you might also enjoy Jose Farmer's World of Tiers series. Along a similar vein but dissimilar enough that it's worth the read.

If I recall my Sandman, I think Gaiman would also recommend anything (or at least some things) written by Roger Zelazny.

+1 for Amber. Much of the rest of Zelazny is good, too. I actually like Lord Of Light better, though it's a bit less approachable (in the specific sense that I picked it up and put it down a few times before getting into it).

Lord of Light is brilliant. It is also very strong stuff - dense, metaphorical, and poetic. It should probably not be the first Zelazny of anyone who's just branching out from GRRM.

To be honest, I had read so much hype about the book before reading it, that, paradoxically, I ended up not liking Lord of Light that much (it does have a very interesting premise).

On the other hand, I basically stumbled on the Chronicles of Amber - I bought the huge omnibus book because it was good words-per-dollar value, back when e-books didn't exist and I needed my books to last me my whole holidays!!

I didn't like LoL much the first time I read it. Admittedly I was also a teenager at the time. When I came back to it much later, I was more willing to engage with Zelazny's desire to play with language. I suspect I'd also had various life experiences the book speaks to; in some respects it was very much one of those 'you'll understand this when you're older' things for me.

I enjoyed the hell out of the Amber books the first time around, though!

Oh wait crap actually I am thinking about Zelazny's Creatures of Light and Darkness. Those two titles occupy the same hash bucket in my brain.

Ah, yeah, I'm presently working on that one.

That's not too far from my own experience. I didn't get more than a quarter of the way into it my first two attempts.

Agreed.

+1 for Malazan Book of the Fallen. Totally fantastic. Audiobooks are quite good, too, if you're into that. I like it on kindle since the books are so huge.

I would suggest Glen Cook's Black company series[1] It is written from the perspective of mercenary grunts, so they are no "heroes" in the usual sense since they are not always hired by the good guys (and it is hard to real divide the world between good and bad, it is more a greyish blur). It also has the kind of gritty feeling of ASOFAI, at least in the first books. I won't spoil anything by saying that most characters are pretty expendables, the body count is rather high.

It is fantasy but without the usual dwarves, elves or dragons, but there are much more magic than in Georges R.R. Martin and it is sometimes used as deus ex machina, and is a bit over top for my taste. (However in an interesting twist the black company has only a handful of not very powerful wizards, and since they can't overpower the enemy though sheer power, their magic use is basically used as form of advanced misdirection or psyops)

I would say that the writing is a bit simpler and the characters are a bit less fleshed out than in ASOFAI, but the pace is pretty riveting as well. From my recollection, it reads more like a mystery novel, most events do not make immediately sense, and you are trying to find out who is really pulling the strings behind the scene. On the plus side, even if it is long, I think the story is more focused and go less astray than ASOFAI. (I enjoyed GRR Martin books, but sometimes it feels like he can't help adding new characters or subplots for no particular good reason)

IIRC it is/was pretty popular amongst soldiers stationed overseas.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Cook#The_Black_Company

PS : If I was a television exec, I would try to secure the rights for a TV adaptation ASAP. I am not sure it would work as well as GoT, but it could be a very palatable successor.

Great series, I highly recommend it. And if the parent poster likes a bit of humor, I recommend Cook's Garrett P.I series. A lot of humor and easy reads.

Dune - all the political intrigue and war between houses that makes ASOIAF so great, plus really interesting ecological and technology ideas (desert world where water is very expensive), minus all the horrific violence.

I had a nightmare that my wife and children were murdered after reading bits of Dune one night. I haven't picked it back up since!

There's plenty of horrific violence in dune its just more implied or done of screen.

"done of[f] screen."

Unless it's the David Lynch movie.

True the harkonens where very squicky - but some dune fans don't mention "that" film.

'some dune fans don't mention "that" film.'

A view I'm plenty sympathetic to.

Give Pratchett's Discworld a try. Earlier books are funnier, later books are meatier where it counts (to the point of sometimes being a bit sombre), but they're all very good reads.

I really like the Discworld series (I believe I've read every single book), but I believe they're a different category than the GRRM books.

The later ones start addressing some social issues, and it's great to see Pratchet tackle them (and using fictional species removes some of the ethical issues, one thing where sci-fi and fantasy help with thought experiments)

I couldn't recommend these more. The variety is great. They're funny and insightful and there's plenty of them.

Probably also worth reading Niven's Ringworld since it was part of the inspiration.

Is this constrained to Fantasy? I have a lot of Science Fiction recommendations too, but here's a small list:

Riftwar Cycle (several series) by Raymond E. Feist. - high magic, great overarching themes, enjoyable all around. Most of the characters are exceedingly interesting and many are extremely high powered.

Merchant Princes series by Charles Stross - More of the multiworld thing, but a great twist, also what would you do if you could introduce technology into a medieval world.

Deverry Cycle by Katherine Kerr - Rebirth cycles, immortal main character watches and guides several characters through multiple lifetimes.

Dark Tower series by Stephen King - Great story, ties into almost all of SK's books at some point.

Earthsea by Ursula le Guin - A classic story, epic for sure.

Scavenger Trilogy by K.J Parker - Dark and mysterious. Main character might be good, might be bad, but doesn't remember anything.

- -

A couple good series I ran across on Kindle Unlimited are:

Wayward Pines Series by Blake Crouch. - Like a post-apocolyptic Twin peaks, at least at first. A bit dark, the story bothered me near the end, but still worth the read.

Belial Series by R.D Brady - didn't know what to make of this one at first, "alternate history" (aliens and pyramids type), but it turns out pretty good. involves "Angels" though maybe not in the conventional sense.

Magic 2.0 by Scott Meyer - two books, both very good, highly recommend.

Travelers Gate series by Will Wight (surprisingly good)

Silo Saga by Hugh Howey - currently reading, but great writing, IMO.

There are even more Science Fiction books/series I'd highly recommend, but if you aren't into it, I won't bother you with em.

I've read about 2/3 of the Silo Saga and I can't second this recommendation enough. It was originally just a novelette, but it was so popular on Amazon that he was compelled to write more and so far, it's all excellent.

Pick up Cryptonomicon. If you like big books with lots of ideas in them then you'll almost certainly enjoy it.

Joe Abercrombie's books (the First Law trilogy and three semi-sequels) hit some of the same notes. If anything, even grimmer in outlook, and with a substantial dose of dark "British humour". Richard Morgan's The Steel Remains is alright, dude tries a little too hard though.

In general - you didn't do too bad just by asking on here... Find places where relevant people (in this case, let's be honest, nerds) congregate and pipe up. People love to talk about their favourite books, bands, etc. You can normally skim some pages on Amazon to see if the prose style's going to be gratingly irritating to you or something.

+1 for the First Law books.

The Sandman Slim series by Richard Kadrey are great.

Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake

The first 6 books in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan are very enjoyable.

EDIT:

The Bas-Lag books by China Miéville are wonderful.

I'll do the obligatory chime in to say that final books of WoT make the series worth it. Not the most perfectly executed series, but a good read, nonetheless. Mostly, its quite a bit of fun. books 7-10 are tough, but if you are a fast reader, it'll go by quick enough. Note: Don't do 7-10/11 on audio, thats a sure way to get tired of it.

Sandman Slim was surprisingly good. His attitude did start to get on my nerves near the end, but not enough to ruin the series.

It's also free on Kindle Unlimited. The whole series IIRC.

Here are some mostly SF suggestions:

Use of Weapons, Iain M. Banks. One of many books he's written in the galaxy-spanning setting of "The Culture", an anarchist techno-utopia. Everyone who likes the Culture has an opinion about the best one to start reading with; this is mine. He's also written many SF books outside that setting, and many non-SF books as 'Iain Banks'. Sadly he died recently so there will never be any more.

The Quantum Thief, Hannu Rajaniemi. An ultra-dense draught of future shock; a thief pulls off a complicated caper in a Solar System transformed into something alien and strange by Moore's Law.

The Laundry Files, Charlie Stross. A series about a computer programmer who works for a secret arm of England's intelligence agency dedicated to fighting off magical menaces. Each book stands alone but the end of the world is looming on the horizon. Stross has written a LOT more stuff, pretty much all worth reading IMHO.

The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch. A very witty romp about a thief in a fantasy land. There's three books about Locke now; while there's continuity between them, they mostly stand alone - right now I'm reading the latest, where he has to rig an election for a council of wizards, while an old flame does the same for the other side.

Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart. The first of three gorgeous fantasy detective novels set in magical medieval China. Find them, read them, possibly love them.

The Iron Dragon's Daughter, Michael Swanwick. A changeling's journey through a mad steampunk version of UK fairy myth. Utterly gorgeous and beautiful, also profoundly alien and nihilistic. Not my absolute favorite of his works - that honor goes to Stations of the Tide - but this one's a very close runner-up.

Also seconding the recommendation elsewhere in this thread for Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series. Huge and dense and slow and beautiful and absolutely in love with language. I couldn't get into the two subsequent Books of the Long/Short Suns, but the New Sun is amazing.

Oh and of course George R. R. Martin has been writing for years; have you tried any of his other work?

> The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch.

Recently read the first volume — wasn't sure about the series so only got the one, it was a great read and the next volumes are on the list for my next book ordering.

One suggestion:

Most artists like to promote other artists. For example: http://www.georgerrmartin.com/about-george/what-im-reading/

I like looking at John Scalzi's "Big Idea" section where he lets other authors talk about their books on his blog. Find it here: http://whatever.scalzi.com/category/big-idea/

I'd recommend Hyperion Cantos. I recently discovered this gem and I'm blown away by how good it is. Has all of the elements of a good sci-fi world: AI, interconnected worlds via a farcaster network, and a mythical creature called the Shrike.

I second it, if you enjoyed it, I warmly recommend Illium/Olympos from the same author which is a bit in the same vein. And generally I really like Dan Simmons. What I found fascinating is that he does not write always the same book (as a lot of author), and he can write in different genre and stay very credible. Carrion Comfort, Children of the Night, The Terror in the horror genre are really great. (Try to read the last one in the heart of a very cold winter)

> I read the first Song of Ice and Fire book in the middle of 2013, and I finished the fifth book this past March.

I started reading ASoIaF after episode 2 aired, finished book 4 (the latest at that point) around episode 4. I didn't get much sleep^^

> Does anyone have any suggestions

goodreads.com and Reddit's /r/Fantasy as well as /r/sciencefiction are my primary sources of new books. goodreads has an okay suggestion algorithm and the reviews are very helpful if you can read between the lines.

The subreddits are both well moderated (especially r/fantasy) and have many authors doing AMA's and popping in to answer random questions. Probably one of the best sources to discover new authors.

For specific novels, I second Malazan (said a bit about it here [1]), anything Gaiman and for a newer slightly dark (and finished) series Mark Lawrence's debut, Broken Empire (Prince/King/Emperor of Thorns)

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8138420

>But I can wait for the sixth book. I did fine in 2012 without ASOIAF, and I'll do fine in 2015 and 2016 and even 2017 if it comes to that.

I felt similarly after I devoured Robert Jordan's first eleven books in his Wheel of Time series. Quite sadly, Robert Jordan passed away before finishing the series. By the time Brandon Sanderson finished writing the series (another three books), my poor memory lost enough context that I had to go back and re-read the entire series before I could continue where I had left off.

That was a substantial time investment for me [0]. I think from now on I will wait to begin any massive fiction series only after said series has been finished.

[0] 300-some hours to read the first eleven, plus another 400-some hours to "re-read" on audiobook (now the most convenient way for me to consume fiction).

Either you enjoyed (re)reading them, so it was worth the time investment, or you didn't enjoy it and you shouldn't read it through at all?

Neal Stephenson books that had lots to chew on are his Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World) and Anathem.

Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. It's sci-fi, not fantasy, but what sci-fi it is! A hard sci-fi account of the colonization and terraforming of Mars with tremendous verisimilitude and a boatload of Big Ideas.

Robinson explores space travel, the problem of living on low-atmosphere worlds, architecture on other planets, eco-economics, post-capitalist economies, tele-robotics, self-assembling factories, world governments, underground resistance in an always-on surveillance state, corporations with the power of nation states, and the development of a new religion.

It's a powerful stuff and a lot of fun, to boot.

I'll throw in a few more recommendations -

Kindle Unlimited books:

The Origin Mystery by A.G Riddle (alternate history, aliens, seeded origins, etc)

Brilliance Saga by Marcus Sakey - Kind of a superhero thing, 1% of humans since the 80s have been born with superhuman abilities. Not bad, probably a 3/5, but entertaining.

Almost anything by Douglas E. Richards - his Mind's Eye book was a great action/mystery, Same with his Wired and Amped books (series). I'm looking into his Prometheus Project series, and might read it next.

Awakened Series by Jason Tesar - Multiple worlds type of deal. Prophecy, fighting evil beings, high powered hero and enemies, and more. Probably not the "greatest" writing or editing going on (I spotted a few spelling errors), but it's a great plot and his character development is pretty good.

Not Kindle Unlimited:

The Long Earth series by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter - Multiple worlds, epic storyline, and getting better with each new book. Can't wait for the next one (The Long Mars).

The Taken Trilogy by Allen Dean Foster - Human abducted by aliens, escapes, has great adventures with his talking dog. Humorous and engaging. Highly recommend.

The Tide Lords by Jeniffer Fallon - Powerful, immortal, nearly gods when the "tide" is up, merely un-killable when it's not. Great read (Fantasy).

Personally, I'm not a "strolling through a Barnes and Noble" reader, but a "been hearing about it for years" reader. Think about the books you've heard people talk about, mention, or quote and then read those. They're usually talked about so much for a reason. You've heard of Hitchhikers Guide, you've heard of Sherlock Holmes, you've heard of Lord of the Rings. Have you read all of them?

If one hasn't read the Sherlock Holmes series you are in for a treat. That is some really good and riveting writing.

And if you like it, check out the TV adaption, House.

Well depends what you're looking for in suggestions.

If you're looking for something somewhat reminiscent of ASOIAF (huge worldbuilding, multiple complex storylines, etc…) I suggest Malazan Book of the Fallen (though it's by no means an ASOIAF copy). I enjoyed it (though I found it could have done with tighter edition and IIRC book 8 was a bit long in the tooth).

>'I've signed up for GoodReads, but nothing has come of it just yet.'

I've had good luck with requesting recommendations [1] through GoodReads.

1: https://www.goodreads.com/recommendation_requests/new

I've not read it but apparently ASOIAF is inspired by a french series, George Martin did the foreword to the new edition:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26824993

I've found a lot of books by subscribing to the following subreddits. If see a book discussed enough or hitting enough lists I'll usually pick it up.

http://www.reddit.com/r/fantasy http://www.reddit.com/r/scifi http://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/

I've done pretty well with GoodReads as a source for finding new reading - I basically don't watch TV and read instead when I'm not at the computer.

Most books I've read don't stand up to George R. R. Martin's work, but I enjoy light fantasy too :) (including young adult fantasy which is not what you're looking for, I guess).

I endorse most recommendations in this thread, but, trying to find some epic world-plotting, I'd go for:

- The Kingkiller Chronicles (Patrick Rothfuss), best new books I've read

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/186074.The_Name_of_the_W...

- Anything by Brandon Sanderson, I enjoyed the Mistborn Trilogy and am currently awaiting the next book in his Way of King Series (which promises to be a big epic)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7235533-the-way-of-kings

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68428.Mistborn

The Malazan series grew on me, I understood very little about the series' world by the time I read the first book, I think it's by design. Not as enjoyable as the other suggestions but lots of reading and a big, interesting world:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55399.Gardens_of_the_Moo...

I did NOT enjoy, but have read good reviews by renowned authors, this series:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60211.The_Shadow_of_the_...

I have this one in a big, fat tome sold by Amazon, it was an enjoyable read:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5367.The_Great_Book_of_A...

Here's my (incomplete) already-read list

https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/8478509-gustavo?shelf=...

I'm VERY lenient with my ratings, if I enjoyed it it usually gets 5 stars.

Given that this is attached to a post about fans of Game of thrones being annoyed that the last book is taking forever, it's worth noting that the Kingkiller Chronicles is aggressively unfinished at the moment; it's planned to be three books, two are written, and Rothfuss quite up front about the fact that the final volume is taking a while to make happen, and that he's working on a lot of other stuff in the interim.

They're both beautiful books and I will be happy with them even if Rothfuss never gets around to finishing the series. But if you need your fantasy to end before you're willing to read it then stay away.

The urth books (Shadow of the Torturer and following) take a lot of time to really get into. It's only by the time you get to the last book that you start to understand much of what happened in the first.

I, as you might be able to tell from my nick, am a big fan ;)

> Does anyone have any suggestions other than browsing Amazon or strolling through a Barnes and Noble?

As far as approaches: talk to people you know, understand their reading tastes, and get recommendations from them?

As far as specific reading suggestions for someone who I know nothing about other than that they like ASOIAF, maybe (though its very different) S.M. Stirling's novels of the Change (Dies the Fire and sequels.)

I liked Island in the Sea of Time, which is supposedly set on the other side of the same "Emberverse." But I got really tired of the other novels in that universe after a while (both the Nantucket and the Dies the Fire branches). Which is frankly my general take on the vast majority of science fiction and fantasy series. I get why they're appealing to both many authors and many readers but I often wonder if the genre wouldn't be better if it had more standalone novels or at least shorter series.

Here are some links for you, if you like long sequences.

http://parahumans.wordpress.com/ http://qntm.org/ra

Last, but not least (very short story): http://galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

Have you taken a look at BookVibe? [ http://www.bookvibe.com/ ]

Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive) by Brandon Sanderson

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss

Here's a web-serial that is complete; parts of it could definitely use some editing, but it's enjoyable, and at 3.7M words will take a while to get through:

http://parahumans.wordpress.com/

> Does anyone have any suggestions other than browsing Amazon or strolling through a Barnes and Noble?

Go back in time. Read classics. Re-read the stuff you glossed over in college because you didn't have the time.

Creative writing is, much like software development, one of those jobs where you need to enter a different kind of mental state to be really productive. And that state cannot be maintained indefinitely.

George R.R. Martin writes big, fat books that are highly multithreaded, as part of a series that is already complex enough that it makes real life seem simple. If it were a software project, there would already be four or five more developers working on it. But he's trying to punch it out solo.

I don't expect him to finish, really. He's probably burned out for the second or third time, at least, and is getting too much fan pressure resulting from the television adaptation bump to focus on regenerating the artistic mojo.

If you ever read bestselling authors, they're always thanking their support people in the dedication or foreword or colophon or wherever. Most of them only need a few part-time or shared employees, like their editor, agent, and publicist. Martin probably needs at least one full-time assistant just for indexing and continuity.

This is why I like books that say "third book of the Whatever Trilogy" and the other two are right there on the shelf next to it. It lets me know that the author can finish something, and I don't have to wait for it to happen.

I did read the first few books in Martin's series, but I borrowed those copies. I don't really want to get sucked in and be left hanging like those people who got into Wheel of Time. With something like this, you never really know if the bus that just pulled away was the last one on the route for the night. So if you sit on that bench, the next one may never come.

Expectation is a fascinating thing.

Gaiman is essentially describing the dichotomy in expectation between products and consultancy.

This is particularly complicated in fandom, because creators often say (and legitimately mean) that a body of work exists because of (the encouragement of) their fans. That's true, but it doesn't mean that what they're creating isn't a product first, and not bespoke work on the authority of and responsible to fans.

Apple has fans too, but took basically no heed of complaints that the Mac Pro hadn't been updated in years.

I enjoy the musings of the contract between writer and reader. If the author doesn't agree, on some level, to finish the series and it's the reader's requirement that a whole series must be read, then the reader is left with no choice but to wait until a series is finished before beginning. In various degrees of depth, we enter into obligations to others by beginning something, whether writing a book, having a child, ordering food etc. Seems the blog author's opinion is that GRRM has no obligation to his readers. I'd argue he has some form of professional obligation, but certainly no contractual ones w/ recourse.

I don't think Gaiman is simply pointing out that there is no contractual resource, I think he's pointing out, in part at least, that there's no point in trying to hold someone in a creative endeavor to a commitment of this type, at least not if you don't want the quality to suffer as the process simply doesn't work like that.

People in technology are very keen to point out when people don't understand how our processes work and when they're asking us to work in ways which are counter productive. This feels to me like a writer doing the same, essentially saying, I understand what you want, but please understand that the way you want it to work isn't going to get you the result you want.

The author has no FORMAL contract, but there is certainly an expectation that a series will be finished at some point. It is certainly the case that when someone purchases one of a series of works, unless it is of a nature that it's expected to continue indefinitely (E.G. any given Marvel comic for example) people generally expect that at some point in the future the series will conclude. At a bare minimum they expect the current story arc to be resolved in something approaching a satisfactory way (for varying values of satisfactory).

Importantly there is no guarantee of when precisely that conclusion will be provided, or truly a guarantee it will be provided at all, but there is certainly the expectation. Further once an author has set a known "pace" to his writing people tend to expect him to continue that pace (rightly so or not), so when he massively deviates from that pace people tend to take notice. E.G. if an author were to publish 3 books in a series, one every year, and then suddenly go 4 or 5 years before publishing the next book in the series people would most likely be very angry with that author (wrongly or not, it's more a question of human nature).

So no, while the author is not in fact their "bitch" as Neil Gaiman puts it, there is a certain expectation on both sides, namely the audience expects the work to be concluded at some point in the future and for work to be released at something approaching a regular schedule, while the author should then also have the reasonable expectation that those purchasing his books will continue to do so in the future. Generally both parties end up with their expectations largely met, and things work out for everyone.

The notion that an author has an obligation to finish writing a series is as absurd as the notion that a reader must finish reading a series.

One key difference is that the reader is compensating the author for some product. Presumably, a product (series) that doesnt conclude has a different value than one that does.

It hasn't concluded until it has concluded. If you value it as something it is not then you made a mistake.

The author is compensating the reader for their money, too.

There's clearly no obligation whatsoever.

The transaction is quite simple: you spend $X, you get $BOOK. Perhaps later you spend $X2 and you get $BOOK2.

That's it, end of story.

That's the case for the legal/contractual side of things, but also for this "professional obligation" side of things.

The flip side, of course, is that readers are under no obligation to buy a book. If somebody needs to read an entire series, then they should wait until the entire series is available. To start reading a series that isn't finished yet, when you need to read the whole series, is stupid.

There's no implied obligation of the nature you discuss as when happens when you have a child. If you want there to be one, then I suggest contacting the author and offering to pay him in advance for writing the next book in exchange for a promise to complete it and some sort of hard deadline. Of course, you may find that this costs several orders of magnitude more than the ~$25 you'd pay for the initial release hardback if you just sat back and waited.

>The transaction is quite simple: you spend $X, you get $BOOK. Perhaps later you spend $X2 and you get $BOOK2.

I believe this has analogues to how Jack Welch says (paraphrasing) "At the end of the week when the you have your paycheck, you and the company are even"-- implying that there is not further obligation. I find this hard to believe on a professional level. If I am a key person on a team, I have an obligation to give no less than 2 weeks notice, and probably much more if I want to remain in good professional standing w/ the company I work for (eg, more notice for small companies) . Why? Because despite the lack of contract and resolutions, there is more at stake than just what is stated on paper, there is reputation, business continuity and implied continuations in the relationship.

I see it similarly with an author. Yes, there has been a transaction that takes place and is complete. But if GRRM wants to keep relationship and reputation intact, then there is more to the picture than money in and book out. There is the way the customer feels when they hear the series is cancelled, for example.

Welch may get it wrong for an ongoing relationship where you're dedicating 25% of your life to the company, but I think he has it exactly right for an occasional one-off that you pay a small amount of money for, and where the other guy doesn't even know who you are. I mean, you're talking about a situation with two weeks notice as somehow being relevant to a situation where the ideal involves multiple years between transactions.

You say "if GRRM wants to keep relationship and reputation intact...." I agree with that. But "keep relationship and reputation intact" is completely different from "obligation".

Yes, if GRRM wants to maintain his reputation as the author of a series worth reading, it would be helpful if he could get new installments out on some sort of regular basis. (But who are we kidding: people will buy them by the million regardless.) But if he decides that he doesn't care about people buying his books anymore, that's his choice. There's no obligation on his part to maintain his reputation.

Title should probably have [2009] added.

While I agree wholeheartedly with the article I feel there is a flip side to this: announcing what you're going to do can be a way to put some pressure on a late project. Be it a business project (signaling we're in crunch because we've half announced it), or a personal (as in a way to fight procrastination).

Now I don't know how much GRRM tells about his progress on his blog, because I don't follow it, but I'm sure some authors in the past have used this technique to feel some pressure to finish up something.

Martin is in a tough spot, and Gaiman points that out.

It's a known quirk that announcing you're going to do something decreases the likelihood that you'll actually get it done.

http://sivers.org/zipit

But if you actually publish a book that's labelled "BOOK ONE OF A SERIES" then you're implicitly saying that you will be working on a sequel. You don't need to say anything to anyone. This is why Gaiman says "Both of these things make me glad that I am not currently writing a series".

Interesting read. I wonder how universal that is. Some years ago I told a bunch of friends that my new year's resolution was quitting smoking and if they were to see me smoke they were allowed to call me an idiot. It worked pretty well for me.

Ah, but that was adding social pressure as opposed to just saying "I'm going to do X."

I think part of this is the contract that exists would be between Martin and the publisher. They're the ones that would need to get the finished product from GRRM.

But what about kickstarter projects? If I'm now the one funding or partially funding does the artist then, in Neil Gaiman's words, "become my bitch"?

What the difference in expectations when you're a consumer of a product (GRRM to me) or a funder of a product (kickstarter to me)?

I think part of the difference there is that you haven't pre-purchased GRRM's next book. Maybe you're good friends with your local bookshop, and they've agreed to put a copy aside for you when it comes out, but that deal hasn't made it up to him.

To use Gaimen's terminology, GRRM may be his publisher's "bitch", but at this level of success they're probably pretty happy to have him. His contract may in fact say "when it's done" rather than "June 3, 2014, minimum 20,000 words, and someone the readers love must die".

> someone the readers love must die

Other than royalty terms this is actually the entire contents of his contract with the publisher.

There's no difference; you're still entirely at the mercy of the producer of the artwork. You pay your money with that understanding upfront (or you should, at least). Sure, vet your artist a little for their track record. All you're doing is paying in advance, if you're confident they'll produce. If you're not confident, don't back them!

There is at least one lawsuit going on with relation to kickstarter. There is some kind of contract involved/assumed and you can expect "good faith" attempt to produce result. If they just take your money and run away, they are as liable as any other fraud.

Authors have been missing deadlines pretty much as long as they've been writing books. If you wish to have an expectation that author X or book Y isn't going to fit that pattern then feel free, but I'm not sure you should be terribly surprised or outraged if / when it doesn't happen.

The simple solution would seem to be that if you are someone who likes reading things in a nice predictable pattern the wait for the series to complete before starting. After all, it's not as if there are a lack of things to read in the meantime.

Ironic, the entitlement he feels about having an adapter on his AA flight before complaining about entitlement issues from his/GRRM's audience... or was that the point?

I'm sure that was the point. Gaiman is a pretty smart guy. :)

If he made it an app instead people would be up in arms the updates don't come fast enough too. But with books at least they would pay him again if he released a new one.

Site's dead. Can someone summarize better than the title?

(edited an hour later, nobody's posted a cache link and nobody's summarized the actual post... so all I got is along the lines of "somebody's expectations collided with reality" and a bunch of off topic yet interesting literary discussion. And it seems to have something to do with the multiple laptop power standards that I already know about for aircraft and their airlines)

"George R.R. Martin is not your bitch."

That felt a little hostile; maybe I wasn't reading it in the proper voice, or reading the letter writer in the proper voice, but in my head the letter writer seemed to know that GRRM didn't owe him anything, and just wanted some more meat put on those bones of an idea.

I think that even with free software authors, it's easy to act entitled to their work. (Undervaluing people's work is one of the world's great issues...)

True. I remember people getting angry at the TrueCrypt guy(?) for daring to quit.

American Airlines was not gaiman's bitch.

I can only say that I was very glad that Robert Jordan had time to plan out and pass on the whole of his story to another writer.

I know it's entitled - but I really expect GRRM to make considerations to ensure that the whole story will be told. I don't think he owes me the story now, I don't mind waiting for him to do the writing as he envisions it - but I do kind of feel that he owes me a complete tale.

Why do you feel he owes you anything at all? Unless he held a Kickstarter in which he promised to finish the series if he got enough money, or something like that, why is there any obligation of any kind whatsoever?

I feel you owe me a reply, so get to it. (Kidding, but I hope you see how absurd that is.)

There's a convention, when you sell a book, that it's a complete story. An implicit contract, if you like. If you sold a book that was half a book - just stopped mid-sentence and you had to buy a different book to finish the story - most people would consider that a dick move. Likewise a book that's advertised as part of a series can be understood to come with an implicit promise that the rest of the series will exist.

Why do I feel he owes me anything at all? Well, I did pay him for it. If I bought some software and the author refused to fix bugs, I'd feel cheated. An unfinished story is somewhat like that.

Clearly there is no such convention that books are complete stories, because then series wouldn't exist. And clearly there is no such convention that a series will be finished, because then there wouldn't be permanently unfinished series out there, and there are a lot of them.

You paid him for the book, which you received. Transaction complete. Debt paid. He no longer owes you more.

I feel this kind of reasoning is weird. If an author writes a book as a part of a series he's clearly telling you "this book is part of a bigger story which I have my most sincere intention of telling and reaching its conclussion, eventually". There's clearly a convention here, which doesn't necessarily translate into an actionable obligation (which is what you wanted to say).

You don't want to get into that implicit contract? Then don't write a series, or write it for yourself and don't publish it. I don't agree with those who whine because Martin doesn't finish the series, but I also don't agree with those who say that we should expect nothing from him.

When I started reading this series (about 15 years ago) they were supposed to be 4 books to be released at 2-year intervals. Then he added more books, took a lot of time to write them (between 5 and 6 years for the last 2) and now I can't even say "could I at least expect that you will finish the series sometime?".

Many series simply go on forever without any plan for a conclusion. Many series plan for a conclusion but it doesn't work out for a variety of reasons. What's the point of declaring an "implicit contract" for something that is so frequently unfulfilled?

There is an implicit understanding that Game of Thrones is Book One in the ongoing ASOIAF series. Not Book One in the not being worked on AOIAF series.

GRRM is not my bitch. Point taken, for sure.

However, I hope GRRM realizes that the opposite is also true. His readers aren't his bitch either. Without new quality material, interest in his books will fade. Also, HBO isn't his bitch either. If he doesn't produce new material, the TV show plot will pass the book's and he will lose some control over what people consider the real tale.

On the HBO point, that was my thought while reading Gaiman's thoughts. Us readers have no claim to his work. Buying his books doesn't form a contract that means he owes us something.

But HBO is a completely different story. They do have a claim to his work. When they bought the rights to bring his books to TV, they most certainly did sign a contract and I'm sure that, given the series was unfinished when the contract was signed, there were provisions for the possibility that he wouldn't finish in time.

The way things are looking, it's a pretty good bet that HBO's writers will be the ones that finish GoT and he'll eventually have to write the last two books to follow the plot that HBO settles on. Hopefully he'll be consulted on plot points, but HBO isn't going to put the show on hiatus while they wait for him to finish it himself.

> The way things are looking, it's a pretty good bet that HBO's writers will be the ones that finish GoT and he'll eventually have to write the last two books to follow the plot that HBO settles on. Hopefully he'll be consulted on plot points, but HBO isn't going to put the show on hiatus while they wait for him to finish it himself.

ISTR reading that GRRM has provided, and continues to provde, HBO's writers plot outlines and drafts ahead of what has been published, as well as being actively consulted on plot points in the show (which don't always follow the books precisely.)

> it's a pretty good bet that HBO's writers will be the ones that finish GoT

That idea used to frustrate me, but I think the HBO writers have ended up doing a better job with the story than GRRM. The show is just so much crisper without a loss of authenticity. (Don't get me wrong,... I love the books)

While I agree with the comments with respect to GRRM, I can't let Patrick Rothfuss off the hook.

I started reading the Kingkiller Chronicle with the understanding that he had already finished the books, and would be releasing them each year for three years. Now that he's blown each deadline by a couple years, I'm a lil' salty.

Was I incorrect to infer some light social contract there?

It seems like the general idea for the full story was done, and "The Book" (as he called it) "existed" in a very rough draft, but with each release he's going back, re-editing and re-working them, adding bits here and there, improving the story until it's to the point that he wants it to be. It would make sense to me that, with each book, the ripple of stuff that needs fixing in the story later on needs more and more re-work.

I believe the first two books were released 4 years apart. It seems that that's the cadence for the books. And hey, Auri novella this fall! :D

Yes, you were incorrect. He had written a story but not edited it at all, and it changed a lot in the editing process to get the first book out.

See the article again: Patrick does not work for you.

I am also eagerly awaiting the third book but I want it to be as awesome as it can.

Did you enjoy reading books 1 and 2? If you need an ending, just assume that after the last book the town got rushed by those stone-spider things and Kvothe died with his tale unfinished. Life is messy that way.

----

I can't pretend to speak for Rothfuss, but what he's doing while folks wait for Kingkiller 3 looks pretty familiar to my own experience. I'm in the middle of writing and drawing the last volume of a trilogy of graphic novels. I'm constantly fighting to keep it from expanding into four books because I want to finish it around the end of the year; I have a list of things I need to make happen before the ending can make sense. And a list of things I'd love to take time to explore but a strong desire to not make the last volume twice the size of the first two together. And a very ambitious chopped-up timeline structure going on in the last volume.

And yet I've been spending the last month working on pretty much anything else besides this last book; my brain's been excited about a completely new idea for something I want to do about six years down the line (I already have long-brewing plans for my next story), I've been doing art for a convention, working on some short stories I promised. I have to fight myself tooth and nail to get any progress on this nearly finished story. Working on it involves loading a bunch of state into my head, and distilling it down into what is occasionally some very emotionally draining things to write; it is not an easy task. And every page I finish gets me one page closer to the ultra-complicated pages I'll have to draw for the climax, which in itself is pretty stressful - I'll be glad to draw them, but they'll be a ton of work, and I'm not 100% sure the idea I have will actually work, so I kinda want to just go off and do something... smaller. And simpler.

Endings are hard.

Imagine you're Patrick Rothfuss... Kingkiller just might be the most popular thing he ever writes. Not to minimize his future potential, but IMO he just somehow began his novel-writing career with an exceptional series. Anyway, he's only got one chance to finish the story and make it everything it can be. You'd want it to be perfect, wouldn't you? I know I would rather wait a bit longer for a fitting end to one of my favorite narratives of all time.

As an aside, I got restless recently and decided to reread the first two books. It really was a different experience the second time around, and I think well worth the time. This is one of those tightly interwoven tales where knowledge of the 'future' brings out details you never could have fully understood the first time around.

Yes, you were incorrect. He underestimated how much revision his books would require and how long it would take, but that doesn't mean he owes you.

GRRM could take a leaf out of Douglas Adams' book(s) and just declare ASOIAF a trilogy.

And there's a song about this: http://scifisongs.blogspot.com/2009/08/sci-fi-song-20-george....

"Sometimes it happens like that. You don't choose what will work. You simply do the best you can each time. And you try to do what you can to increase the likelihood that good art will be created."

Great advice.

Favorite bit that I constantly struggle to explain to people who are biding for my time:

“But what if he wanted to paint his house?”

Great find :)

tl;dr GRRM is not your bitch. Remember that.

This blog post has become so famous I just assumed the title was "GRRM is not your bitch."

If I promise to produce a piece of work in a time frame and then didn't produce that work in that time frame then I would expect to take some shit.

Sure, if that piece of work is completely predictable, and no rocks fall on you. But shit happens, and project management is still a dark art in many other ways.

Who did he promise?

In the Author's Notes of Book 4 in 2006, he writes that he completed the book, and it was so large (2000 pages) that he was forced to cut it in half, and that first half was Book 4, and that Book 5 would be out the following year. Then he took another 6 years to publish Book 5, which was ostensibly done back in 2006. Granted, he said he changed his mind about a lot of things and had to rewrite stuff, but the fact remains that he said it was "done" in 2006. In the meantime, his blog posts were about his football predictions and painting his house.

I have sympathy for authors who don't put deadlines out there, but there's no excuse for being 6 years late after saying it was already done. Considering that the release of the 5th book coincided with a TV series, it strikes me as nothing more than a cash grab.

One of the (many) reasons why I don't support GRRM or his work anymore. Which is a shame. The aSoIaF series was fantastically written.

Maybe you and I have different definitions of the word "promise", then.

Very bad intro for the main article, because apparently Gaiman doesn't realise that American Airlines is 'not his bitch' either, and similarly he has no right to be outraged that his laptop didn't plug into their power adaptors.

I'm actually a bit sad that Gaiman went with "is not letting you down" rather than "is letting you down, but seriously, it's not that big a deal". If you build an audience with an expectation, and you don't see it through, you've let them down. That doesn't give the audience the right to do anything nasty to you, but you have disappointed them.

If you, as a writer, have stated an intention to make a series of X length, but any of the Life things that Gaiman mentions happen and you fail to complete it, that's fair enough. Life happens. But you've failed to see through on your commitment - that's a disappointment to people that wanted to see it through. It's not the end of the world - those people don't lose their jobs or their cats or whatever - but it's still a let-down.

The final moral of the story really should have been "So what, move on, Life happens", rather than implying that the questioner is a bad person for expecting someone to see through on something that they said they'd do.

When you pay insane amounts for first class and they try to nickel and dime you on the electricity (which FTR has never happened to me in a decade of using laptops on planes) that is outrageous.

Or perhaps the AA interlude was very intentionally ironic.

I thought it might be at first, but I didn't see anything else in the body of the article that tied back to it. It wouldn't make much sense if it was intentional, because it undermines the very lengthy point he was making in the rest of the article.

I think it reinforces it rather brilliantly. As someone else mentioned - he's a very bright writer :)

There was a Mad Magazine article that said that you know you've made it as a successful movie director when critics started finding symbolism in your movies that you'd never put there in the first place. :)

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