Would you believe that if you type the phrase "a dwarf is not an imp"--just like that, with quotation marks around it (to look for the exact phrase), that Google gives you no results?  For that phrase? "A dwarf is not an imp"?  I find this a bit astonishing, because I seem to mumble this every time a character refers to or addresses Tyrion as "imp."  So I am hoping to change that fact by writing this entry.  Have I mentioned that a dwarf is not an imp?

Anyway, I finished my re-listen a couple of days ago.  Who knows how much longer it will be before George R. R. Martin releases The Winds of Winter?  So I want to jot down various threads I am thinking of while they are still fresh in my mind.  Spoilers follow (so will hide accordingly).

Having finally watched Season Five of Game of Thrones on DVD (I don't have cable), I found myself with the irresistible urge to listen to A Dance With Dragons on audio and refresh my memory.  My brain had been cataloging the various things the show had changed from the book, and I wanted to confirm that I was remembering correctly.  Also, in case Winds of Winter comes out anytime soon, I want to remember what-all happened in DwD.

Memo to Tyrion:  When your father said "Wherever whores go," it wasn't a riddle.  He was being a dismissive jerk.  Ironic that Tyrion gets grumpy with a young "bed warmer" whom he sees as a fool who thinks he is trafficking in riddles.  Because he's the fool who thought that Tywin Lannister was trafficking in riddles.

If you ever want to see grown women defend the sexualization of preteen girls, all you must do is bring up how Mr. Martin handles the relationship between Daenerys and Drogo. All walks of life will come to Martin's defense with the utterly asinine argument that "Back in the day, little girls were sold into marriage all the time!" Ah, but this isn't back in the day, is it? This is Westoros, a mythical land. It's not Earth circa Black Plague. It's not medieval England. It's not Persia or Egypt or Jared Fogle's basement computer. It's all fiction. But I guess that's what makes it okay, right? I mean, if I chose to paint pictures of naked children involved in sexual congress with adults, it would be cool so long as I didn't use child models, right? My point is this: Martin choseto write descriptive sex scenes involving a thirteen-year-old girl, and these scenes are written in such a way as to be tantalizing. He uses the same verbiage as erotica. If you're cool with that, that's on you. That, above all else, is why I gave this otherwise terrific book two stars.

Some of you (you know who you are), gave this book five stars while writing one-star reviews of Lolita that read something to the tune of "This is disgusting. What kind of person would write something like this?" My, my, aren't we wishy-washy on the subject of fictional child sex.

In summation: Book One in the Icy Hot series is pretty all right if you can get past the simulated kiddie porn. I enjoyed the HBO series enough to purchase all of the audiobooks all at once. This is me working my way through them. I do hate that, by the time Martin writes the rest of these books, the narrator Roy Dotrice will likely be in an advanced state of decay. That's gonna suck, because I enjoy the way he reads these books. But he's even older than Martin, and Martin is two Snickers bars short of a diabetic coma and a Red Bull away from heart failure.

Final Judgment: Acceptable child pornography.

I was once a huge fan of the HBO show. After a certain someone died, the show grew stale and boring for me. Anyway, back when I was a raging fanboy of the show's and I didn't realize that Daenerys was supposed to be a preteen, I bought all the audiobooks. Because I paid for them, I can't just NOT listen to them. I'm too OCD for that shit. So I'm going through on x3 speed while playing the new RTS game I bought for my tablet. I call this Cruise Control. It's yet another reason I'm able to read as much as I do and still have time for family and writing. 

Concerning the book: All of Daenerys's chapters so far have been disturbing. I can't image writing sex scenes involving a 13 year old, but Martin does it as if he means for it to be tantalizing. I can't get her age out of my head. I'll be glad when

What a fantastic, epic read. I was pretty much enthralled from the beginning. I enjoyed all the story lines and I liked seeing how these characters have grown and changed. Arya is still my favorite, Tyrion breaks my heart, Jamie is growing on me, I love Jon Snow, Davos has become a very interesting character and poor Sansa. They were some things that made me so happy

and things that made me so sad

. This author has spun a tale that has me 100% invested and I can't wait to see where it goes.