Stu vs Finally Finishing A Dance with Dragons

To quote George R.R Martin: The last one was a bitch, this one was three bitches and a bastard!

Now I intend to talk a little about the book and there will be a few possible spoilers so please discontinue reading if you intend to read said book.

At 957 pages, plus a 50 page appendix (yes George likes to keep us informed on how each character is related) I thought I would whizz through A Dance With Dragons purely on my love of the world and characters. I was wrong and I put this down to not reading A Storm of Swords beforehand. There were a lot of secondary characters I'd forgotten about and the parts of the book set in Mereen were confusing to the point of being laborious.

The book started with a bang and proved Jon has balls to go along with his new title and carried on in muchthe same vain. However George I am disappointed in the direction you've taken Bran. I've been invested in this characterfrom book 1 and his story seemingly came to an end with a whimper in this book. It also seemed there was conflict included just to prolong stories and in parts this was unnecessary. That being said however in the end Dance was a great book and finished on numerous cliff hangers and with the death of one of my favourite characters...

Poor Jon. (what I said there'd be spoilers!) He only tried to do the right thing and along with Dany he paid theprice of trying to help everyone else.

Now come on George and begin work on the Winds of Winter, there is an empty space on my bookshelf waiting to be filled.

P.S. for a more indepth 'review' please stay tuned as a micro review should appear shortly on my website.

Stu vs. Cake

My writing has slowed to almost a complete stop, hence the lack of blogging but I have been enjoying family time in the holidays and no one can begrudge me that.

Now cakes and sweets are usually my wife's fortay (though I do make a mean chocolate biscuit slice), she makes and sells here own cupcakes and other delectables whenever she can. If you want proof here's her website www.littlesprinkles.co.uk.

However we have recently acquired the Food Network on Freeview (yes I'm too poor for Sky) and with it the most awesome programme Ace of Cakes. So I have decided to get my wife to teach me how to bake the perfect cake so I can unleash my creative juices on this humble sponge. I'm sure there will be a few disasters and maybe the odd masterpeice. I'll be posting a few of my creations here: First up three giant children's ABC blocks - I like to jump in at the deep end.