What if Season 5 Was Good, Like Really Good? (Winterfell, Meereen and Dorne) — Corrected!

Part 1 dealt with storylines we thought were the best in Season 5, but for every good storyline, there’s always the bad one (the bad pussy one). Today’s podcast episode delves into the worst storylines of Season 5. From underwhelming battles to poor dialogue to convoluted motivations, we explore:

• The Boltons: the sole Northern House in Season 5
• Stannis’ tell-don’t-show march on Winterfell
• Brienne the Candlewoman
• The Coming Mask Making Industry Bubble in Meereen
• Jorah Connington’s/Varys’ travels with Tyrion
• Dorne…

But instead of criticizing the show, we offer ideas to make it better. At the end, we give a few thoughts on where we think Season 6 might go!

Agree or disagree, and let us know your thoughts on Season 5 and what you would have done to improve it in the comments below!

You can also listen to us at itunes or podbean.

Tower of the Hand: A Hymn for Spring Update

Hi everyone,

So, as many of you know (and have let me know here on Twitter and elsewhere), March 15th has come and gone and there’s no link to pre-ordering the next Tower of the Hand e-book entitled A Hymn for Spring. Why is that? Well, it’s a number of reasons, but most importantly our editor has had some very difficult events occur in his life. You can read all about it over on Tower of the Hand. But it’s not all bad news. If you click on the link, you’ll be able to read a sample essay by the inestimable Amin Javadi of A Podcast of Ice and Fire entitled “Songs and Singers of Ice and Fire: The fine line between music, history, and culture in Westerosi societies.” Believe me when I say that it’s awesome and really opened up a brand new avenue of thought on a section of the series I haven’t given a lot of thought to.

Anyways, we’re still on for an April 15, 2015 release date though! I’m not sure when pre-orders will be available, but it might be April 1, 2015 (And no, this is not an April Fool’s joke — I swear by the old gods and new).

But that’s not the only reason I wanted to write this post. There’s something really cool I want to announce: Today, I’m pleased to announce that SomethingLikeaLawyer will now have an essay published in the book entitled How to Win Thrones and Rule People – A Military and Political Analysis of Robert’s Rebellion. I’ve seen the rough draft for this essay, and I have to say that it’s crazy good.

For that matter, enough teases: I’ll announce my essay topic here too. My essay is entitled Iron Bends: Re-examining Stannis Baratheon. This essay analyzes Donal Noye’s infamous quote about Stannis as pure iron, hard and unyielding and deconstructs that along with the popular perception of Stannis among fans of A Song of Ice and Fire as well as characters in-universe.

But it’s not just Jim and I that have essays in this book, we have:

• Steven Attewell of Race for the Iron Throne with 2(!) essays
• Stefan Sasse of the Nerdstream Era
• Ashaya and Aziz from History of Westeros with a massive (and amazing) essay on… well, I don’t think I can reveal that yet!
• Johnny and Alex: The Founders of Tower of the Hand

So, once pre-orders become available, I will sound the horn and let you all know. Until then, enjoy the sample over on Tower of the Hand, and be on the lookout!