Rambling ’bout Thrones: Are the Song of Ice and Fire books too long?

So last week, the internet went out. Left adrift in a strange world untethered to the electronic superhighway, myself and Cheryl Wassenaar, who runs pop culture site Culturess, started talking about fantasy fiction, because apparently that’s just what happens when we’re left to our devices. Specifically, we were discussing the hugeness of fantasy fiction — from The Lord of the Rings to The Wheel of Time to A Song of Ice and Fire to The Kingkiller Chronicles, high fantasy authors tend to rack up high word counts. After all, the extensive histories of their made-up worlds aren’t going to record themselves.

The size can turn some potential fans off — even with the enormous success of Game of Thrones, some people have been hesitant to commit themselves to the Song of Ice and Fire novels on account of their size. Is the size of high fantasy tomes a selling point or a drawback? Why do fantasy authors tend to write so much anyway? Are there times when the extreme amount of detail hurts the narrative, or is it all justified by the scope of the story?

These are all question we kind of half-examine in the video above. We invite you to join us, comment, debate, and hopefully not excoriate us for gaps in our reasoning. Cheers.

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