HBO's adaptation of Game of Thrones - Thread 2. There are a lot of nerds.

some of it is fantastic

other books are dumb

Other books in the series are dumb? Or Black Company are the only non-dumb books to be published?

I've read the first two -- they're good and they have their own unique tone in the field of fantasy. I was kind of wrong footed by it at first but came to really appreciate it.

The Steven Erickson books, though, which are apparently hugely influenced by the black company, are complete shit (or at least the first one is-- sorry but if you start that poorly I'm not investing further time in you)

The Malazan ones? Yeah, I tried to get through the first one and had to give up. Made nearly no sense to me, but I liked the ambition of it.

I couldn't get through the first one either. The crazy number of subplots right out of the gate was ridiculous. Maybe start with a contained idea and build up from that.

currently on book 9 of 2nd read thru!

OK what are the last half a doz posts about? Some other author? I'm confused. Whats Eliza Dushku got to do with anything?

She's playing the Night King

She's a dark sorceress in a tv series adaptation of Glen Cook's Black Company. As linked many posts above.

Cosign on giving up Malazan in the first volume, it was like reading an RPG sourcebook on amphetamines.

iirc malazan did in fact start off as an RPG and he converted to novel form. and yes it's bad.

Yeah he seemed to have literally no grasp of pacing.

cosign -- https://www.theringer.com/game-of-thrones/2017/9/5/16256210/binge-mode-fantasy-game-of-thrones

hah that conception speech almost made his cohost cry iirc.. I think she actually did cry a little bit later talking about something else

some of these got podcasts are fucking intense

Great piece, and an intense podcast! TBF, Mal would cry every time she talked about one of the dire wolves, so she's a softie...

p cool sentiment though, i def agree

yeah they were losing it at the end. love concepcion's speech

Kind of blows my mind that as much as "Game of Thrones" is positioned as a phenomenon - and maybe it is? - its record breaking season finale was still more or less on par in terms of viewers with the 14th season finale of "NCIS."

NCIS = free network TV, Got = HBO? i wonder too if nielsen and whoever can accurately capture all the purloined / pirate viewings

Well, then you'd have to factor in all the millions upon millions of old people torrenting NCIS, too, and it'd be no contest.

It is interesting stuff, these numbers and what they mean. I just looked it up, and the series finale of "Breaking Bad" got around 10 million viewers on basic cable (right?), which is a few million under GoT's most recent season finale (on pay cable), not including downloading. Does GoT seem any more a pop culture phenomenon than BB? They seem about on par to me.

i'd bet there are a lot more GoT viewing parties than there are for BB. it's more of a social event, like a football game, compared to like golf or tennis? ime at least there are way more people on average gathered together chilling and drinking etc for a GoT episode than BB, which is way more solitary

Culture writers talk about how much traffic even the worst GoT writeup gets. The torrenting numbers are insane. Yeah, it's a pop culture phenomenon, and on a premium cable network. More people are definitely watching NCIS, but they're older, and don't spend much time and money on it, so there's really not any incentive to try and do something with it.

I thought the worldwide audience for this would be many times bigger than NCIS

Oh, it's got to be, right?

Though maybe not!

http://www.tvguide.com/news/most-watched-show-in-world-ncis/

This may be a bit of a surprise to those of us couch-locked for Game of Thrones rewatches, Better Call Saul marathons and Pretty Little Liars binges, but there's a whole rest of the world out there, and it has the TV bug too.

So what's the most-watched television series in the whole world? The Monte-Carlo Television Festival and number crunchers Eurodata TV Worldwide think they know.

The two organizations handed out the International Television Audience Award, which recognizes the television show that has the highest viewership in the world, and for the third time in four years the honor went to CBS' NCIS. According to CBS, over 47 million viewers worldwide watched NCIS in 2016.

I bet it's just people leaving the tv on after they've fallen asleep.

Game of Thrones is much bigger than Breaking Bad isn't it?

I mean, by the end, BB was pretty well known but GoT seems to be on another level. My Mum has heard of it for one thing and it's watched by people in work who usually only watch the likes of Celebrity Big Brother and Love Island.

yeah it is easily the biggest of all these serials as far as i can tell.

Breaking Bad started very small and by the end finally became a thing, albeit on a small scale. GoT started pretty big and has been getting bigger each year, too:

http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/596b7dbf552be5c2088b4bdd-1200/game-of-thrones-charts-live-same-day.png

But a big difference is that GoT isn't terribly ... cool? That's the only reason I can explain (anecdotally) seeing Breaking Bad related t-shirts and merch and stuff around but nothing GoT related (yet).

it should be noted that appearing on t-shirts and merch and stuff is what makes something officially uncool

Eat my shorts, man.

since everything sucks, i would imagine that soon after GoT ends we'll hear about the upcoming star wars/marvel/disney style expansion of the series with many many spinoffs, movies, tv shows, cartoons, and pornos. basically just pick a random spot on this map that you nothing about and set it 600 years before the events of GoT and you have a television series that will be profitable

http://www.sermountaingoat.co.uk/map/index.php

i don't know where in the world you'd be seeing BB shirts and merch and not GoT, the latter is everywhere.

i can see a "superhero" film, maybe one of those "Thor" movies, in which you'll see an "easter egg" for GoT fans. a white walker or a dragon hanging out in the background of a scene.

that continent at the bottom right with all the trees? that's in northern canada. in 2026 there will be a short-lived FX cop procedural set it Toronto involving some of the descendents of iron islands

I still see lots of Los Pollos Hermanos and Heisenberg shirts and stickers and stuff like that. I'll keep an eye out for GoT stuff.

Only people I see wearing GoT stuff are basic tourists in times square. Only people I see where BB stuff are basic teenagers and 20-somethings everywhere, and cars with heisenberg bumper stickers. Def more BB merch where I find myself.

What's not to love

https://heavyeditorial.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/sorry-ladies-im-in-the-nights-watch-t-shirt.jpg?quality=65&strip=all&strip=all

The map is so unimaginative. He wrote a story about people that are north and south of each other, so it's just this pillar that caters to that exact relationship. Then when he thinks about Dany's journey from across the see and way out east... let's see here's some water separating the two (check) and here's a big long log shaped landmass that extends to the east (check). Perfect!

sea* wtf autocorrect?

i don't know where in the world you'd be seeing BB shirts and merch and not GoT, the latter is everywhere.

― nomar, Wednesday, September 6, 2017 2:27 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

come on down to albuquerque, bud, there's BB stuff everywhere

Well, yeah. But isn't that also where GRRM has his inter-dimensional amusement park? Or is that Santa Fe?

I see way more GoT throne t-shirts than Breaking Bad t-shirts. It's not even close.

Where do you live?

Well, yeah. But isn't that also where GRRM has his inter-dimensional amusement park? Or is that Santa Fe?

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, September 6, 2017 3:03 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if you're talking about Meow Wolf, and the House of Eternal Return, yeah, that's Santa Fe. he's also got his own movie theater up there (which is really good!)

The map is so unimaginative. He wrote a story about people that are north and south of each other, so it's just this pillar that caters to that exact relationship.

It's way worse than that. Westeros is basically just a mirrored version of Britain.

what...what formation of landmasses and sea would be sufficiently imaginative?

I live in montreal xxxp

Maybe Breaking Bad just didn't have the same impact here as it did in the states, I dunno. Game of Thrones is about as popular as I've ever seen any television show get.