The Book Club continues with its coverage of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” chapters covered by HBO’s “Game of Thrones”. Having covered all of the relevant chapters in “A Storm of Swords” and “A Feast for Crows” (Full spoiler-free reading guide here), we enter George R.R. Martin’s “A Dance with Dragons”, covering Bran I (Page 60) and Reek I (Page 161). Ivan and Red discuss warg sex, reading documentaries, Big Walder and Little Walder, The Bastard’s Boys, Fake Arya, the Kim and Kanye of Westeros, the Great Elks, the effect of weather on Hodor, and the importance of verifying the aliveness of your party guide. This episode is brought to you by Chronicle Books release of Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones: Season 3 & 4.
We may be on a short hiatus, but that doesn’t mean we’re not scheming up new and ever more grandiose ways to bring content to our loyal Bannermen. This week we feature Ivan Hernandez’s “Give Me Fiction”: a selection of original short stories performed before a live audience. You can follow GMF on Twitter, check out the podcast on iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud, and Stitcher, and buy tickets for the live show which takes place the first Sunday of every month at Lost Weekend Video.
This week we jump back into A Feast for Crows, finishing our last non-spoilery chapter, Sansa I (Hardback page 145/Paperback 226). Ivan and Red discuss the Marvel universe, free will, the SF Giants vs Kansas City Royals Game 7, the bastard Rivers Cuomo, the bastard Strom Thurmond, Sansa learning to lie, Ser Tinder, Marillionaire, and the return of the Game of King Chairs.
This week Ivan and Red called an audible and discussed the Epilogue of “A Storm of Swords”. If you *only* watch the tv show and haven’t read the books, we discuss an event that has not happened in the TV show. Up front they answer some listener emails and then get to the main event. Let us know your thoughts on twitter at @boarsgoreswords!
After completely whiffing on the last chapter in A Storm of Swords, Ivan and Red finish up the Brienne chapter they began last episode before looping back around to the last chapter in A Storm of Swords, Sansa VII. They discuss The Patriarchy, raw eggs, Rivers Cuomo, Fish Wife vs Salt Wife, Ivan’s preferred food preparation technique, and Petyr Baelish’s favorite cat.
With no more unspoiled territory in A Storm of Swords, we jump into A Feast for Crows to cover one and a half of the three chapters we’re reading in A Feast for Crows, specifically we touch upon Brienne I (Hardback page 56/Paperback page 80) and Brienne II (Hardback page 130/Paperback page 184). Ivan and Red discuss Westeros’s most famous male model, matching carpet and japes, the incredible crassness of peasants, the sincerity of Jaime Lannister, the Guild of Cookery’s “Game of Thrones” themed dinners in San Francisco, the new crypto-currency Quailcoin, and the most fearsome of fantasy creatures, the Dire Quail.
Following the reading guide provided by Michelle Victory, this is the first episode where we skip chapters so as to remain unspoiled. We start with Arya XIII (Hardback page 843/Paperback page 1027) and then skill Samwell and Jon to get to Tyrion XI (Hardback page 871/Paperback page 1062). Sansa VII will be the last chapter we read in ASoS before hopping into the few chapters from A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons that have been covered in the TV Show. This week Ivan and Red yell about chickens, the importance of not leaving your tip on the floor, thirstiness, Arya and process over results, the reunion of a girl and her weapon, the correct pronunciation of croissant, famous last words in morse code, Tysha, gold diggers, and a big lead up to a terrible pun.
Tommen gets his stamp on and Jon Snow discovers the true nature of Wargs in Jaime IX and Jon X (Hardback page 818/ Paperback Page 996) of “A Storm of Swords”. Ivan and Red discuss Star Wars Machete order and Ivan’s trip to the Folsom Street Fair before moving on to Tommen being adorably atrocious, only good things happening to Ramsay Bolton, when one sword become two, Long live Jeyne, a totally legit and completely real Arya, Tommen and his ladies, Outlander being bullshit, Mammoth bread, Anomalisa, Jaffar, and tent play.
This week we’re completely lacking in Boars, but are up to our mangled necks in Gore and Swords. Ivan and Red take a break from the realms of Westeros and Essos and head for 19th century London to re-cap Showtime and Sky’s Penny Dreadful, created and written by John Logan. In this “What You Should Be Watching” episode, they discuss ravens from the Bannermen, Penny Dreadful’s horrific introduction, The Doctor’s big reveal, a victorian SRO, the best place to be located if you discover you’re in a horror film, Ava vs Eva, Feminism and the Third Reich, CGI Spiders, the scourge of pocket watches discouraging human interaction, Timothy Dalton’s Taken, lady Sherlock, guts budget, the Emmy for best face tattoo, and the logical fallacy of world murder.
