Your opinions regarding illustrations in A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

I have every book in the series so far. I plan to own all of the future planned releases as well. I was wondering if anybody else felt that the illustrations were underwhelming at times. I feel like some of the bodily proportions are wrong at times. Other times the illustration doesn't match the text. For example when Tywin's body was on the dais his sword is described as being in a jeweled scabbard. But the illustration shows no scabbard at all. I don't know, maybe I'm nit picking. But what do you think? I think my biggest complaint is that at times the characters don't seem realistically drawn.

I didn't commit to the series so I can't follow-up on the nitpicks... but in general I really like Jonathan Burton's style and believe is a nice fit for Fantasy and Sci-Fi genres. The ones I've seen seem quite impressive.

I have all of them so far as well and really like the illustrations. I have however not read them yet, so cannot comment on the fit to the text

I find quite a few of the illustrations less than impressive and often more suitable to a children's book. There are better illustrators for this kind of text out there. That being said, some illustrations are really good and I like the covers a lot.

Initial reaction when GoT was revealed was enormous disappointment. The art looked amateurish, downright ugly in some pieces, IMO.

You may want to search for the Subterranean Press editions, the illustrations are sublime!
Here is an illustration from the SP Game of Thrones (first book)



Please note that these books are not easily found and when do tend to be very pricey.

>7 astropi:

I'd certainly prefer those if they hadn't been limited editions with excessively high prices on the secondary market. I really don't know why FS made the choice of illustrator they did.

>5 strangenews:

Exactly. I bought the editions illustrated by Magali Villeneuve instead, which someone in Librarything fortunately mentioned when Farseer was published by FS. They aren't anywhere near the quality of the FS binding and paper, but the illustrations are just excellent and add to the story. Those by FS were pretty awful for my taste, there were also rather few of them.

>8 strangenews: My general impression is that Folio isn't always trying to appeal to their target demographic with their artwork and 80% the time they choose more experimental and less-traditional/safe art which reflects more on the modern aesthetic I think their trying to push as a brand identity of the last decade or two (or if going with a classic titles will also opt to go to the far end of the art spectrum with engravings or use of historical paintings). Of course they bring out the occasional book like The Wanderer that has that old-school fantasy look but seeing something like the art used by Subterranean, and which I can also imagine publishers like Easton going for, in a Folio would to me seem a bit out of place.

I bought the first one and then hated the illustrations so much that I ended up getting rid of it. Haven't bought any more of them since then. I loved the two tone cloth and the cover art, but the illustrations on the inside are very underwhelming indeed. Like you I find the proportions to be quite off. I think that Burton does great job with caricatures, like in the Hitchhiker's Guide series. But wish that they had chosen someone better for this series. I was neither a fan of interpretations of certain pivotal scenes from the books nor did I appreciate his proportions. Another thing that he does is combining of people with weirdly grotesque expressions alongside almost realistic faces.

In general, I am opposed to illustrators whose style is so generic that it is not easily recognisable and can be used for any kinda book whatsoever. Burton seems to belong to this category. From Jane Austen to 1984 to GoT to Hitchhiker's. It's just way too generic as opposed to some of my favourite illustrators who have a distinct style.

It's a real shame that one of my favourite fantasy series had to have illustrations which I don't like...but I just associate GoT with disappointment now, so it's okay.

>12 sekhmet0108: "I just associate GoT with disappointment now, so it's okay"

Ouch. I take it is less to do with the FS illustrations and more to do with the weak final season of the show and Martin's long delay in publishing the sixth book of the series.

>13 ultrarightist: Yes, you are quite right. Martin's inability to just get to it is a huge bummer. If there could have been a semi satisfying resolution with the series, I might have been less bitter. But, as we well know...things didn't go down that way. At this point I have sort of given up on the entire thing.

Must be tricky to be sat with essentially a trial run of your ideas for an ending and it being almost universally hated. Would make me massively nervous and prone to rewrites to 'fix' the books or change the ending entirely.
Seems like he's posting about one friend or another dying on his blog every month too. Mortality, having 'fuck you money', and a seemingly impossible task to finish. I'm not sure if I'd feel the motivation to write at all. Then again, it's also his baby and legacy as a writer.
Re: illustrations, I think the Folio ones are decent. The books themselves are gorgeous with the metallic covers. Looking at the Magali Villeneuve illustrations they're technically more proficient but have a plasticky glossiness that seems out of a romance novel cover. And the SP example seems extremely traditional fantasy fare that could fit into many other books. All IMHO of course, it's hard to please everybody at the same time.
My main reason for not buying into the ASOAIF series is a calculation of the total cost plus the good chance of the series being forever unfinished.

>15 A.Godhelm:

I actually think it's highly likely that if Martin dies before he's finished the series, some other author will be paid to finish it. And maybe continue it, too. It has happened before, and in this case I find the idea somewhat comforting. I know that the quality isn't always up to par, but then his own seems to have declined and in the case of Brandon Sanderson I've read that he did a good job with Wheel of Time. (I haven't read that yet, so can't confirm or deny.) I guess we can only wait and see.

>16 SF-72: Fully agree this is likely. And in any case if he does not finish Winds of Winter, it would still be +80% his work since it has been mentioned several times that it is "almost" finished. For the 7th book I think it is less likely for him to finish it as I believe difficult someone reaching his 80s and doing such level of work. I do sure hope I am wrong and he'll finish them.
As you said, we can only wait and see. Folio will be there to finish the series, whoever does it, and if not I am not particularly upset with an unfinished series. They are good books on their own, regardless.

>16 SF-72: highly likely that if Martin dies before he's finished the series, some other author will be paid to finish it
Possibly but he's repeatedly said fans are "shit out of luck" if he croaks and repeatedly stated he both aims to finish it himself and that there are no full outlines for an ending. The closest he came to an affirmative seems to be once when asked he said if he knew he had a severe illness he might draw up plans.
I suppose the dismissal could also be a reaction to the rather rude implication of the question.

In the end it'd be up to the rights holders of his estate and I'm not sure who that would be since he has no children. Christopher Tolkien kept a tight leash on the rights while Brian Herbert flogged his dad's universe. There are fans of either approach. He's had a decade of writing at this point so who knows how much material there is to draw from. Personally I'm hoping he gets to finish it all his way; I doubt anyone else could pull together the myriad of plotlines at this point.

>17 capiri: ...as I believe difficult someone reaching his 80s and doing such level of work
Difficult, but not unheard of. Jacques Barzun started writing his cultural masterpiece, "Dawn to Decadence", when he was past 80. It was published when he was 93 years old.

>18 A.Godhelm: A popular series like this, 100% someone would finish it if he croaked. Also, on a person level, I can't understand how someone that creates something like this would not want it completed to their vision - and you could argue it take time to write something wonderful. Sure. A Dance with Dragons came out in 2011. It's been over 10 years and nothing apart from "I'm working... it's coming out soon!"
You could argue whether GRRM "owes" his fans anything. I would argue he does. It is the fans that supported him all these years and made him wealthy.

Actually I have to back peddle a bit here. After looking through all of the books I've realized that a lot of the illustrations are fantastic. But there are some which are underwhelming. I guess it's hard to be blown away by every illustration. Why is Jaime so grey in the final illustration of Feast for Crows ? And why is his hand grey?

>16 SF-72: I think it’s unlikely.

Robert Jordan changed his mind a year before his death and made plans for another author to finish it. He told his wife (also his editor) to arrange it after he died.

He left 100s of pages of detailed plans and notes on how the story should finish, and even wrote many of the final chapters in full, including the very last one. Even with this it was a monumental task for Brandon Sanderson to finish it.

Martin doesn’t work like this from what I understand, so I think it’s very unlikely someone else would be able to finish it. The publisher might commission an author to do it, but it wouldn’t be Martin’s story.

>24 strangenews: I don’t know, I mean, I will buy this book as soon as it comes out, but he’s been writing for years and he is only saying that he is writing and rewriting. I like that the story is taking another turn now and will end up somewhere else than the show.
But judging from the post it might take between 6 months and 5 more years until the book will be released 😅

>25 woodstock8786: Perhaps that demonstrates the weakness of the gardener school of writing.

The garden is hard to manage once you let it be overgrown with weeds. Which is to say, I think his blog has made clear one of the primary reasons he's not made much progress is all the other projects and the other tv shows he's trying to launch. Not to mention side books like Dunk & Egg (also a tv development he needs to finish), the sequel to Fire & Blood, Wild Cards. He's even been working on a tv adaptation of Roadmarks by Zelazny. And he was supposedly involved in the Dark Souls game lore. However,
No doubt, once I am done, there will be huge debate about which version of the story is better. Some people will like my book, others will prefer the television show.
I sincerely doubt that anyone will prefer the television show, if he ever finishes. That bar is placed firmly on the ground.

In a funny parallel to GRRMs troubles we're getting a new set of Cormac McCarthy novels this year, that he's been working on since the 80s. Not an ongoing series, but a very laborious conception.

>27 A.Godhelm: Yes, the show runners really did make a mashup of things with the last season of the show, sadly. Talk about running something from the heights into the ground.

>28 ultrarightist: I agree, it was a strange mashup! You could really see going through the seasons where the material got thinner and thinner (or where there was no book to base it on) and how hard it was to be a gardener in Martin’s pretty overgrown garden.

Bringing everything together at the end…even then I was asking myself what Martin thought about it, not the ending per se, but that you have two TV show runners which are now telling his story, he’s been working on for so long. Someone is finishing your story before you can. Must have been quite strange, but it never seemed to faze him. The story was told (in some way or other at least) and I got the impression that now it might be even more improbable to hear Martin’s version, because where is the motivation to tell the story again when it’s already been finished?

And I guess he explained how he initially planned the ending and they tried to write it.