I'll check out the Slate piece. Matt Zoller Seitz over at Salon had many of the same problems I did, although he expressed them better. His comments are full of the same fanboys.

Actually, Hayden, it was Salon. I don't know why I said Slate. D'uh. Don't mind me-- have been buried in the manuscript all day and brain not quite functioning right.

Well, it could be Slate...they write those, sometimes. Nobody they've got is as smart as MSZ, though, and I'm not saying that cause he linked to me once. He plainly loves both Simon's oeuvre and "Treme" in particular...if he didn't, he wouldn't care.

"You're making my side look stupid...stay off my side." And *fuck* all y'all trying to make Matt's gender an issue as regards crimes against women. And, you're right Hayden...I remember Yoshimura as architect of several unfavorite H:LOTS subplots. I got his name confused with the director's. And, while we're at it, Seda's kind of a weak link, too. But somebody's gotta be, right? And all he's gotta do is be fast-talking, oily, and ingratiating right? Meh.

aGoT ep2! i feel like i need a watch n post for this show, but of course i'm behind due to lack of cable. Whoa, Cersei's speech to Catelyn about her firstborn son of Robert...that...totally goes against her story in the book. Shocked am i! And sweet, earnest, Jon saying farewell to Bran - i'm reminded of how bitchy i thought Cat was early in the first book because of her hatred of the bastard child. He never did anything to hurt her except exist, poor kid.

As a side note: i'm 1/2 way through the third book and good heavens how Dany develops! Absolutely amazing.

This Jaime shows the bitter deadness inside so well. It bodes well for future character development if they follow the books, I've got to say.

One telling detail from later on that I don't think is spoilery -- it turns out he never names his horses and tries not to learn them if they come already named. Because they die so quickly and horribly in battle.

I totally think that Cersei was lying to Catelyn to fool her (Catelyn) into thinking she had normal human emotions.

erika, just saw this on Publisher's Marketplace and thought you might find it interesting:

Fiction: General/Other Creators of the viral internet article in the same vein, Joy DeLyria and Sean Robinson's DOWN IN THE HOLE: THE UNWIRED WORLD OF H.B. OGDEN, a false history of the critically lauded HBO television series The Wire reimagined as a Victorian serial novel, containing excerpts and illustrations, to Craig Cohen at powerHouseBooks, by Alia Hanna Habib at McCormick & Williams Literary Agency (NA).

Hey Barb, sorry I didn't drop back in last night. Matt's a FB friend. I saw his article right after I posted my own and felt pretty good that we were mostly on the same page. Erika, I hear you on Seda. So far, that character is more crudely drawn than I like. Hopefully they'll get around to fixing him before he becomes another fucking Sonny.