Stop by bookshelfbattle.com and discuss tonight’s episode right after the S5 premiere! (Don’t forget to plug your blog while you’re at it while you’re commenting! It’s ok, we’re pretty shameless about self-promotion here at Bookshelf Battle Headquarters).
Sigil of House Bookshelf
I have to disagree.
I agree that sometimes everything in a book won’t transfer well to television.
On the other hand, while GRRM didn’t invent the fantasy genre, he is a pioneer of a sub-genre, namely – “Fantasy for Adults.” His career is one of the many reasons why we have books set in fantasy worlds where the hero doesn’t always save the day, unicorns don’t talk, and all sorts of chicanery ensues, thus keeping the attention of the adult reader.
So while it’s understood the show creators might feel necessary to deviate from the source material, let’s not cast GRRM aside as if he’s some kind of bumbling old-timer.
“Plans” and “life” are two concepts that do not get along. In life, you might get up everyday and work toward a plan. You and your friends cheer yourself along. Then one day – boom – an accident, a catastrophic illness, or some other unforeseen event happens and that’s it. Goodbye plan. Adios progress that was being celebrated and cheered on.
We cheered on Robb Stark as the inexperienced underdog won victory after victory against the veteran and fully bankrolled Tywin Lannister. We hoped this progress would eventually lead to a final battle in which Robb emerges victorious and the North becomes a separate state.
That was the plan…and then…bam! Throat cut at a wedding…just moments after the host went out of his way to make the Starks feel welcomed and assured them that there were no hard feelings about his daughters being dissed.
Like the gambler who hides an ace up his sleeve, that trick should only work once. OK GRRM. We’re onto you now. You won’t lull us in to a false sense of security again. We know you’re up to something and…oh hey look. The Viper just beat the Mountain….good for him…OH MY GOD!!!
M. Night Shyamalan knocked our socks off with the twist at the end of The Sixth Sense. I remember watching it, thinking it was an ok but average, mediocre movie until…OH MY GOD! BRUCE WILLIS’ CHARACTER WAS DEAD THE WHOLE TIME! (Shut up, you’ve had so long to watch that movie, spoilers, schmoilers).
Shyamalan then went on to attempt to recreate that twist in a series of movies that fizzled.
The Village – the monsters in the old timey village are just people who dress up to scare the people from wandering off and realizing that the village exists as an enclave in the modern world. BOOO! DUMB!
The Happening – the plague killing off the world was created by plants, their revenge for the way they are treated by humans. BOO! STUPID TWIST! STOP MAKING MOVIES! BOO!
Shyamalan just could not recreate that first brilliant twist. GRRM keeps doing it again and again. That is why he’s brilliant.
I’m not saying the show will be terrible as it starts to move away from GRRM’s books….but the show runners do have some enormous shoes to fill.
A brief rehash of where the series stood as of the last episode of Season 4:
I should just peel that Target sticker off. It is annoying.
That’s all I remember. If you think of something I missed, feel free to share.
As a reminder, I’m going to be discussing Game of Thrones all season long. GOT fans are welcome to join in the discussion.
And while you’re at it, feel free to include a plug for your book, blog, whatever the heck you’re working on.
Valor Morghulis. Season 5 starts tonight.
ALIEN JONES: I really don’t want to do this.
BQB: Will you just shut up and put on your suit of armor and helmet?
ALIEN JONES: No. I hail from the most intelligent species in the universe. We cured cancer, heart disease, and excessive gastrointestinal distress. I’m not going to walk around like I’m in a damn Renaissance Faire.
BQB: Please? It’ll spike my readership from 3.5 to 10.12.
ALIEN JONES: Sigh. Fine.
Sigil of House Jones
Verily, forsooth and so forth. It is I, Lord Alien of House Jones.
ALIEN JONES: Lord Alien of House Jones? Seriously?
BQB: Will you? Please? OK? Seriously.
Sigh. Fine. Lord Alien of House Jones here, taking your questions in my ongoing effort to raise your planet out of its exceptionally stupid status.
Apologies that my column has been out of commission for a couple of weeks. Luckily, my memory receptors have not forgotten who asked what.
Kim Magennis of the blog Whimsy had two questions:
1) Was Nikola Tesla one of yours?
No. He was just a random Serbian guy who was hijacked by rogue aliens. He managed to escape and passed off the knowledge he saw on their ship as his own.
Many human inventors have done the same. That guy that made the Sham-wow? Totally an alien invention. You really think a human made cloth can suck up an entire gallon of milk? Please.
2) Another question for Alien Jones: out of place artifacts (like that hammer in made from an alloy of iron which was found inside a “100 million” year old rock and the 100,000 Years Old Stone Embedded With A Three-Pronged Plug) are they pranks or the real thing?
Three possibilities:
1) Some of it is just human junk that got mixed into ancient rocks due to human incompetence. For example, that plug was just left there by an archaeologist trying to find a place to charge his Kindle Fire.
2) Some of it is alien junk. Many aliens are slobs and just chuck their trash wherever they please.
3) Some of the items were left as pranks. Young aliens especially have been known to go out on a Friday night, flying around the Cosmos with a bottle of space hooch and a bag of screws, dropping them all over primitive planets, only to laugh about it thousands of years later when scientists print longwinded papers about them.
BQB: Lord Alien of House Jones! Behold! A raven brings a tweet from the land of Twitter!
ALIEN JONES: Are we really going to do this crap for all of Game of Thrones Season 5?
BQB: Tara Ellis, Author of Bloodline: Forgotten Origins Trilogy, now available on Amazon, tweeted:
BQB: March 27 that tweet came in and here you are responding to it on April 10.
ALIEN JONES: Need I remind you I was hit by a space bus?
BQB: Oh yeah. How are you doing?
ALIEN JONES: I’m fine. You should see the bus! :::rimshot:::
BQB: AJ, Tara’s book is about alien viruses. Can you elaborate on the subject?
ALIEN JONES: Why? Do I look like a dirty virus carrying alien or something?
BQB: No I just thought…
ALIEN: Yeah, yeah…you “thought.” Just because some aliens have viruses we must all have viruses! That’s some backward thinking man.
This book seems like a fine tale worth a download. In the opening paragraph, Ellis lets the reader know a) the narrator’s father had something bad happen to him whilst in Egypt and b) said father wasn’t the type to go down easily, thus a mystery ensues!
Thank you Kim and Tara for your interest in #AskTheAlien. Lord Alien of House Jones signing off now, taking a break from what will be apparently a long season of dealing with GOT fanboy Bookshelf Q. Battler.
Alien Jones is the Intergalactic Correspondent for the Bookshelf Battle. Do you have a question for the Esteemed Brainy One? Submit it to Bookshelf Q. Battler via a tweet to @bookshelfbattle, leave it in the comment section on this site, or drop it off on the Bookshelf Battle Google + page. If AJ likes your question, he might promote your book, blog, or other project while providing his answer.
Submit your questions by midnight Friday each week for a chance to be featured in his Sunday column. And if you don’t like his response, just let him know and he’ll file it into the recycling bin of his monolithic super computer. No muss, no fuss, no problem.
Wait another day for Game of Thrones to start???
This a man cannot do.
GOT fans and bloggers! I hope you’ll feel free to join me in the many discussions that will be held on bookshelfbattle.com as we watch Season 5!
What do you hope to see? Hope not to see? Conspiracy theories? Praise or complaints? Toss it all into the comments section and you know what? While you’re at it, feel free to add a shameless plug for your blog while you’re at it. Tell my 3.5 readers where they can see your GOT commentary and watch your stats surge (with all the surge that 3.5 readers can provide!)
There’s always a battle going on in my bookshelf, but it looks like Jon Snow and Nedd (with head firmly attached head) Stark have things under control. I’ve assigned them to guard my 20% Target copy of Game of Thrones and thus far they have not failed.
Although between you and me, Jon is a bit of a dummy. Whenever I ask the guy a question, it’s like he knows nothing. :::rimshot:::
You know nothing, Jon Snow. Now guard my 20% off Target book!
Valor Morghulis, friends! Join in the fun, share what’s going on in your blogs, and have fun this season!
Previously on Game of Yetis:
Lord Bookshelf Q. Battler, consumate bamboozler that he is, has managed to set up a pretty sweet deal for himself. While Westeros burns in the war for the Iron Throne, Lord BQB remains holed up in his palace in Shelftopia, an island a few miles away from Casterly Rock.
To cover all his bases, BQB has sent ravens bearing messages to literally every player, informing each party that he is with them, along with apologies for not being able to fight himself for a variety of contrived reasons (carpal tunnel syndrome, crusty eye disease, etc).
BQB’s plan was to ride out the war, playing X-Box, drinking Dew of the Mountain, and consuming snacks from his snack reserve and ultimately, pledge his allegiance to whoever arises as the victor.
But alas, a crimp in his plans – his snack stockpile has been raided by a band of filthy yetis, the banner men of Lord Yeti of House Yeti.
Seven Hells, that was a longwinded recap. You should just go read the bloody thing.
Far from Shelftopia….past Winterfell…and even farther north of The Wall, there exists an enclave of wretched ice encrusted land known as Yetifell.
Why Yetifell? As the legend goes, in long ago days, long even before the First Men, a group of smelly Yetis wondered north, got tired, fell down, and decided the place they landed on was as good as any to remain.
Inhospitably cold, it appeared as a frozen wasteland to humans, but was friggin’ Disney World for Yetis.
Lord Yeti sat in his chamber, drinking a glass of ordinary water.
“Blech,” Lord Yeti said. “Bland and boring. Soon my Yetis will return to me with all of Lord BQB’s barrels of Dew of the Mountain! And then I shall drink and burp till my heart’s content!”
Yetis — they were enormous, each one stood over eight feet tall. All but one — Lord Yeti’s youngest son, Yetyrion, who stood at a paltry 6’5.”
That may have been tall for a human, but in Yeti circles, he was considered a “Dwarf Yeti.”
“Father,” Yetyrion said. “May I partake of some of the Dew of the Mountain when it arrives?”
“Bahh!” Lord Yeti scoffed at the mere idea. “Dew of the Mountain is for man Yetis! You are no man! You are a shameful Dwarf Yeti!”
“I didn’t ask to be born a Dwarf Yeti, father.”
“Yes! Yes you did!”
“Did not!”
“Did so!”
And that went on for hours, until Yetyrion conceded that he had asked to be born a Dwarf Yeti, not out of a desire to agree to such a nonsensical premise, but because he grew tired of the absurd back and forth.
“It does not matter anyway,” Lord Yeti said. “My banner yetis will not be back anytime soon. They will be providing my arch nemesis, the insolent Lord BQB, with a most fiendish form of torture!”
“The rack?” Yetyrion asked.
“No.”
“Water torture?”
“Worse!”
“Whip?”
“Worse!” Lord Yeti said. “They will do what Yetis do best! They will become terrible houseguests and will take over Castle Bookshelf, mess it up, eat all of BQB’s snacks, and refuse to lift a furry finger to help!”
“Wow,” Yetyrion said. “That does sound like torture!”
THE YETI: Umm..BQB…you know that’s not a Yeti right?
BQB: What? The GOT Make Your Own Sigil Site didn’t have a Yeti icon!
THE YETI: So you just put a damn bear on a flag?
BQB: Yeah. So. What? Bears. Yetis. They’re both big dumb hairy animals that eat all your food.
THE YETI: I’m highly offended.
Jimmy does what he does best…
And ye, as the war for the Iron Throne of Westeros raged on, another battle gripped the Island of
Sigil of House Bookshelf
Shelftopia, a lush island a few miles off the coast of Casterly Rock.
Shelftopia was under the control of House Bookshelf, the leader of which was the devastatingly handsome and exceptionally charming Lord Bookshelf Q. Battler. (No, he did not write this himself).
“Bringeth me mine fool for mine entertainment!” commanded Lord BQB, who spent most of his days
playing X-Box and consuming mass quantities of Doritos and Dew of the Mountain, for chicks diggeth a man who can hold his Dew of the Mountain..
Maester Monty, a decrepit hunchback who served as Lord BQB’s personal lackey and manservant, popped on a jingly bell hat and danced a robust jig, albeit with little enthusiasm.
“Why so glum, Maester Monty?” Lord BQB inquired. “While Westeros burns, Shelftopia prospers! We have managed to stay out of the fray altogether, holed up here in my glorious palace, with nothing to do but play video games! The best part? When the dust settles, we shall be perfectly poised to declare our affections and loyalty to whoever happens to be the last man or woman standing!”
“Speaking of, my lord, you may wish to rescind your congratulatory letter to Robb Stark.”
“Why?” Lord BQB asked. “Did he quit the war to write fan fiction? Only losers write fan fiction. Beat me vigorously with my own entrails if you should ever find me writing fan fiction, Maester Monty!”
“Indeed, my lord,” Maester Monty replied. “And no. I’m afraid the Young Wolf and Lady Catelyn are very much…well…dead. Died at a wedding.”
“Come again?” a stunned Lord BQB asked. “A wedding you say?”
“Lulled into a false sense of friendship and security by Walder Frey, then hacked to pieces.”
“Get out!”
“I shall get in, sir.”
“Wow,” said Lord BQB. “Almost makes you wonder if we all just live inside the mind of an elderly sadist who lives to torture us in unexpected ways.”
“Indeed sir.”
“Very well then,” Lord BQB said as he sucked from his chalice of Dew of the Mountain. Take a letter, Maester:
Dearest Lord Tywin,
Greetings from Shelftopia and a thousand apologies for being unable to pledge myself and my bannermen to your righteous cause. We were very much looking forward to being hacked to pieces on the field of battle but alas we all came down with a horrendous case of the crabs and well, you can’t bloody well swing a sword when you’re as itchy as all get out, can you?
Many congratulations on your treachery vis a vis having the Starks gutted like pigs at the wedding feast. Talk about thinking outside the box! Save me a seat at the victory party because I was totally behind you the entire time.
Yours Truly, Lord BQB of House Bookshelf, Lord of Shelftopia, etcetera etcetera and so on…
“About that sir,” the Maester said. “Lord Tywin died as well.”
“Ah,” Lord BQB said as he munched on a fistful of Doritos. “Stabbed in the gut in battle I suppose?”
“The toilet.”
“Excuse me?”
“Shot with an arrow whilst on the commode by his son, Tyrion.”
“An arrow in the gut whilst relieving his bowels on the toilet?” Lord BQB asked, a stunned expression on his face. “Deaths at weddings!! Deaths on the can! Does anyone die in battle anymore???”
“Apparently not, my Lord,” Maester Monty said. “Speaking of, your bannermen accused you of being a reprehensible coward for not choosing a side in the war.”
“Me? A coward?” Lord BQB asked as he slapped his forehead in disgust. “I’m the only sensible one in the whole bloody realm!”
“How so?”
“Monty,” Lord BQB continued. “Here’s something you need to know about politics. One man says he’ll be a great King. Another man says he will be even better. Truth be told? They’re all morally bankrupt charlatans and all we can do is go with the one who will cause the least amount of turmoil.”
“Rather pessimistic approach to the problem, sir…”
“Like I told Ned Stark,” Lord BQB said as he paced up and down the floor of his chamber. “‘Ned, so what if that little shit Joffrey is the product of unspeakably horrid brother on sister action? What’s the alternative? Stannis swoops in and has anyone who looks at the Red Lady cross-eyed drawn and quartered? Just let the little twerp have the throne because it isn’t like there’s anyone who’s any better and at least this way you’ll keep your head.”
“Makes sense now that you put it that way,” Monty said.
“Seven Hells, if only more than 3.5 subjects would listen to my brilliance!”
Lord BQB popped open a bag of funions and offered some to the Maester, who delighted in taking a handful.
“Well I suppose with Tywin out of the picture and Joffrey dead from another wedding gone wrong, it’ll be Cersei running the show working her boy Tommen like a puppet. Take a letter!”
Dearest Queen-Regent Cersei:
Congratulations on finally finding yourself at the top of the game, now that your esteemed father hath croaked on the crapper at the hands of your treacherous imp brother, leaving you free to warp King Tommen’s mind to your will.
Please know that I was with you all along and I apologize profusely for being unable to join your forces on the field of battle but alas, I was required to stay in my palace in order to receive the painting repairman. A painting of my noble self has been broken for weeks and of course, those bloody wretches at the painting repair company give you an open window of 9-5 fortnights for their arrival, and then at the end they usually just send a raven to tell you that they’ll have to reschedule.
The nerve! The whole time I sat in my palace, completely enraged that I was missing out on the opportunity to be hacked to pieces in the name of the Queen.
Save me a seat at the victory party, for I was totally behind you the entire time.
Sincerely,
Lord BQB, Head Honcho of Bookshelf Manor and so on and so forth
P.S. – By the by, I never bought that malarkey that you and your brother were engaged in salacious activities. Joffrey totally looks like the late King Baratheon if you ask me. I mean, if he were the product of an illicit union between you and Ser Jamie, the kid would have like 5 eyes and 3 heads wouldn’t he? That’s just science.
“I would not assume that Cersei has this locked up, my lord,” Maester Monty said. “There is another player.”
“Who?”
“Daenerys Targaryen.”
“The Khaleesi?” Lord BQB asked.
“The same.”
“Get out!” Lord BQB said. “Very well. Hold the raven on that letter to Cersei. Take another letter.”
Dearest Khaleesi…
Oookie tookie ba dookie dookie…
“She speaks the common tongue, my lord,” Monty noted.
“Ah!” Lord BQB said. “Take it again from the top!”
Dearest Daenerys Stormborn, Rightful Queen of Westeros, Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, yadda yadda yadda, holy shit this woman has a lot of titles, don’t write that Monty:
Greetings from the Lord of Shelftopia! Congratulations in your war against slavery and for having all the masters put on pikes and so on. My apologies for not joining you in battle but alas, I stubbed my toe in a training exercise, the point of which was to prepare to be hacked to pieces whilst fighting for your honor, my Khaleesi!
Please know that I was with you the entire time. If you hear rumors that I was behind Robb Stark, Tywin, or Cersei, well, that’s a load of crap. I have been Khaleesi or bust the whole time. Dragons, baby! Bring on the dragons!
Good luck on your journey across the narrow sea and smash a few usurpers for me! Save me a seat at your victory party!
Sincerely,
Lord BQB, titles titles and so on.
“Then it again it could be Jon Snow,” the Maester said.
“Oh for the love of,” Lord BQB said. “Fine! Send a letter to every jerk face in the 7 Kingdoms who thinks he or she has a claim to the Iron Throne and tell them I’m with them! There! Done!”
“Right away.”
“Thank goodness my snack stores are plentiful,” Lord BQB said. “It sounds like this war will be going on forever. Luckily I have enough Doritos, Funions, Ring Dings, Ho Hos, Slim Jims and other assorted high cholesterol crap to get me through the long winter.”
Suddenly, there was a loud crash from the opposite side of the palace.
Lord BQB made haste, running to his snack storage room to find a band of yetis absconding with his snacks!
“Who are you foul furry beasts?” Lord BQB asked. “Explain yourselves!”
“We are the bannermen of Lord Yeti of House Yeti!” said one of the yetis. “We plunder your snack reserves in the name of our noble lord!”
Join us next time, for another exciting installment of…Game of Yetis!
Winter is coming…and so are yetis. House Bookshelf. House Yeti. House Jones. As Westeros burns in a glorious war over the Iron Throne, another battle emerges…a side war over the fate of…Lord BQB’s snacks!!!
Bookshelf Battle 