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Sep. 20th, 2011
Finally finished A Dance with Dragons. I know it took me a while, but I think it actually worked better for me with not rushing thought. Thoughts (and spoilers) behind the cut: ( Read more... )
All in all, I was expecting this book to be even darker (not that it's without darkness, because it's Martin. There's plenty of darkness. I was just expecting yet darker still).
It took me forever to make it through A Dance with Dragons, but I made it through Dark Summit in a day. It more or less works as a sequel to Into Thin Air, even though the two books have different authors. Into Thin Air covers the Mt. Everest expedition that got 12 people killed in 1996 {as written by one of the people on the expedition -- Jon Krakauer (who aslo wrote Into the Wild. Personally, I preferred Into Thin Air. Into the Wild had too much romanticizing of its subject and too many excuses for what really seemed to be largely mental illness (seriously.), whereas Into Thin Air seemed to be being written while Krakauer was still in the throes of a hell of a lot of guilt and thus seems more brutally honest to me.)} What was always haunting about "Into Thin Air" (in the edition that I read) was the follow-up that revealed at at some point or another, virtually everyone in the book who had continued doing extreme climbs post 1996 had almost all died premature deaths.
It's why I think people who climb Everest are crazy. It's a punishing, cruel trek, that kills people every year. But if Everest doesn't kill them, it's like they keep climbing until something does.
Anyway, Dark Summit was written (by a different author) about several expeditions to Everest in 2006. That year, eleven people died. ( Read more... )
All in all, I was expecting this book to be even darker (not that it's without darkness, because it's Martin. There's plenty of darkness. I was just expecting yet darker still).
It took me forever to make it through A Dance with Dragons, but I made it through Dark Summit in a day. It more or less works as a sequel to Into Thin Air, even though the two books have different authors. Into Thin Air covers the Mt. Everest expedition that got 12 people killed in 1996 {as written by one of the people on the expedition -- Jon Krakauer (who aslo wrote Into the Wild. Personally, I preferred Into Thin Air. Into the Wild had too much romanticizing of its subject and too many excuses for what really seemed to be largely mental illness (seriously.), whereas Into Thin Air seemed to be being written while Krakauer was still in the throes of a hell of a lot of guilt and thus seems more brutally honest to me.)} What was always haunting about "Into Thin Air" (in the edition that I read) was the follow-up that revealed at at some point or another, virtually everyone in the book who had continued doing extreme climbs post 1996 had almost all died premature deaths.
It's why I think people who climb Everest are crazy. It's a punishing, cruel trek, that kills people every year. But if Everest doesn't kill them, it's like they keep climbing until something does.
Anyway, Dark Summit was written (by a different author) about several expeditions to Everest in 2006. That year, eleven people died. ( Read more... )
Finally finished A Dance with Dragons. I know it took me a while, but I think it actually worked better for me with not rushing thought. Thoughts (and spoilers) behind the cut: ( Read more... )
All in all, I was expecting this book to be even darker (not that it's without darkness, because it's Martin. There's plenty of darkness. I was just expecting yet darker still).
It took me forever to make it through A Dance with Dragons, but I made it through Dark Summit in a day. It more or less works as a sequel to Into Thin Air, even though the two books have different authors. Into Thin Air covers the Mt. Everest expedition that got 12 people killed in 1996 {as written by one of the people on the expedition -- Jon Krakauer (who aslo wrote Into the Wild. Personally, I preferred Into Thin Air. Into the Wild had too much romanticizing of its subject and too many excuses for what really seemed to be largely mental illness (seriously.), whereas Into Thin Air seemed to be being written while Krakauer was still in the throes of a hell of a lot of guilt and thus seems more brutally honest to me.)} What was always haunting about "Into Thin Air" (in the edition that I read) was the follow-up that revealed at at some point or another, virtually everyone in the book who had continued doing extreme climbs post 1996 had almost all died premature deaths.
It's why I think people who climb Everest are crazy. It's a punishing, cruel trek, that kills people every year. But if Everest doesn't kill them, it's like they keep climbing until something does.
Anyway, Dark Summit was written (by a different author) about several expeditions to Everest in 2006. That year, eleven people died. ( Read more... )
All in all, I was expecting this book to be even darker (not that it's without darkness, because it's Martin. There's plenty of darkness. I was just expecting yet darker still).
It took me forever to make it through A Dance with Dragons, but I made it through Dark Summit in a day. It more or less works as a sequel to Into Thin Air, even though the two books have different authors. Into Thin Air covers the Mt. Everest expedition that got 12 people killed in 1996 {as written by one of the people on the expedition -- Jon Krakauer (who aslo wrote Into the Wild. Personally, I preferred Into Thin Air. Into the Wild had too much romanticizing of its subject and too many excuses for what really seemed to be largely mental illness (seriously.), whereas Into Thin Air seemed to be being written while Krakauer was still in the throes of a hell of a lot of guilt and thus seems more brutally honest to me.)} What was always haunting about "Into Thin Air" (in the edition that I read) was the follow-up that revealed at at some point or another, virtually everyone in the book who had continued doing extreme climbs post 1996 had almost all died premature deaths.
It's why I think people who climb Everest are crazy. It's a punishing, cruel trek, that kills people every year. But if Everest doesn't kill them, it's like they keep climbing until something does.
Anyway, Dark Summit was written (by a different author) about several expeditions to Everest in 2006. That year, eleven people died. ( Read more... )
Finally finished A Dance with Dragons. I know it took me a while, but I think it actually worked better for me with not rushing thought. Thoughts (and spoilers) behind the cut: ( Read more... )
All in all, I was expecting this book to be even darker (not that it's without darkness, because it's Martin. There's plenty of darkness. I was just expecting yet darker still).
It took me forever to make it through A Dance with Dragons, but I made it through Dark Summit in a day. It more or less works as a sequel to Into Thin Air, even though the two books have different authors. Into Thin Air covers the Mt. Everest expedition that got 12 people killed in 1996 {as written by one of the people on the expedition -- Jon Krakauer (who aslo wrote Into the Wild. Personally, I preferred Into Thin Air. Into the Wild had too much romanticizing of its subject and too many excuses for what really seemed to be largely mental illness (seriously.), whereas Into Thin Air seemed to be being written while Krakauer was still in the throes of a hell of a lot of guilt and thus seems more brutally honest to me.)} What was always haunting about "Into Thin Air" (in the edition that I read) was the follow-up that revealed at at some point or another, virtually everyone in the book who had continued doing extreme climbs post 1996 had almost all died premature deaths.
It's why I think people who climb Everest are crazy. It's a punishing, cruel trek, that kills people every year. But if Everest doesn't kill them, it's like they keep climbing until something does.
Anyway, Dark Summit was written (by a different author) about several expeditions to Everest in 2006. That year, eleven people died. ( Read more... )
All in all, I was expecting this book to be even darker (not that it's without darkness, because it's Martin. There's plenty of darkness. I was just expecting yet darker still).
It took me forever to make it through A Dance with Dragons, but I made it through Dark Summit in a day. It more or less works as a sequel to Into Thin Air, even though the two books have different authors. Into Thin Air covers the Mt. Everest expedition that got 12 people killed in 1996 {as written by one of the people on the expedition -- Jon Krakauer (who aslo wrote Into the Wild. Personally, I preferred Into Thin Air. Into the Wild had too much romanticizing of its subject and too many excuses for what really seemed to be largely mental illness (seriously.), whereas Into Thin Air seemed to be being written while Krakauer was still in the throes of a hell of a lot of guilt and thus seems more brutally honest to me.)} What was always haunting about "Into Thin Air" (in the edition that I read) was the follow-up that revealed at at some point or another, virtually everyone in the book who had continued doing extreme climbs post 1996 had almost all died premature deaths.
It's why I think people who climb Everest are crazy. It's a punishing, cruel trek, that kills people every year. But if Everest doesn't kill them, it's like they keep climbing until something does.
Anyway, Dark Summit was written (by a different author) about several expeditions to Everest in 2006. That year, eleven people died. ( Read more... )