It sold almost a third of a million copies (including audio and digital) on its first day, currently tops USA Today’s bestseller list and its publisher, Random House, is calling the rush for copies “astonishing”. We may have seen the end of the Harry Potter franchise, but George RR Martin, the author of A Dance with Dragons and four other books in the phenomenally successful A Song of Ice and Fire series, is just hitting his stride as fantasy fiction’s new kingpin.
Books: The National Reads
Book reviews, festivals and all things literary
[ Books ]
“I *LOVED* the book, am in the middle of my second reread,” one Dance with Dragons fan with the alias Chataya di Niello gushed on the fan site Westeros, just a few days after the 1,022-page book’s publication on July 12. Others agreed: “I couldn’t put the book down, and I can’t stop thinking about it now,” one commenter posted. “Devoured the book in two days and loved it,” said another.
The book’s critical reception has also been rapturous. A review in The New York Times said it was closer to the work of Balzac or Dickens than Tolkien, and that it “meets the high standards set by its four siblings”. Time magazine’s Lev Grossman wrote that Martin’s “skill as a crafter of narrative exceeds that of almost any literary novelist writing today” and calls A Song of Ice and Fire “the great fantasy epic of our era”.
Expectations were high. It has been almost six years since the release of the previous book in the series, A Feast for Crows, and Martin’s fans are as numerous (15 million books sold before the release of A Dance with Dragons) as they are dedicated. The fact that the writer Neil Gaiman wrote a blog post a couple of years ago telling Martin’s fans to calm down and stop clamouring for the release of book five gives an idea of their emotional investment.
The other reason for all the pre-release hype is television. HBO’s spectacular adaptation of the first Ice and Fire book, A Game of Thrones, won Martin new legions of fans when it premiered in April on HBO in the US (where viewer numbers reached three million per episode) and OSN over here. Starring Sean Bean and with an estimated budget of US$50 million (Dh183.6m), it turned a cult favourite into a mainstream hit.
One measure of its popularity: when cast members of the Game of Thrones television series appeared at the Comic-Con International convention in San Diego last weekend, they were met with packed-out crowds and roars of approval.
When the series ended on one of Martin’s signature cliffhangers, many of the millions of viewers impatient for the next chapter eagerly snapped up the books to see what happened next. On Amazon.com’s bestseller list, a four-book Game of Thrones box set (after the TV series, the book franchise is often referred to by the name of its first book) currently sits at second place.
More about A Song of Ice and Fire
Game of Thrones: the story so far and what is still to come. Read article
For UAE fans, finding book version of A Game of Thrones is an epic quest. Read article
The bad news for fans of the TV series, however, comes from the executive producer David Benihoff, who at Comic-Con said that adapting a third season (the second series is now in production), in keeping with the timing of “one season per book”, could prove tricky.
“Storm of Swords is just too big,” he admitted.
All this explains why Martin’s fifth book in the series, A Dance with Dragons, has become the fastest-selling book in fantasy history. Adam Whitehead – who runs the fantasy blog The Wertzone, runs an exhaustive Game of Thrones wiki, and was thanked as a super-fan in A Dance with Dragons’ dedication page – bought the book the second it came out and has already devoured it.
It was back in 1999 that he started reading the Song of Ice and Fire series, and he was instantly hooked. Already a fantasy fan, he liked the way that in Martin’s books “the plot and events were driven by the decisions of the characters, rather than the characters being just pushed around by the plot”. He also appreciated the character depth: “They’re conflicted individuals, with even otherwise laudable people making bad mistakes and outright villains showing flashes of humour or mercy.”
While fantasy fiction can often be about overblown struggles between pure good and pure evil, A Game of Thrones, Whitehead said, is “a story about people and power, with a strong undercurrent of tragedy and a willingness to kill off major characters in a way that propelled events forward”.
Another long-time fan, Lindsay Duff, was one of those who pre-ordered the book the moment a release date was announced. He said that the first time he picked up A Game of Thrones was “a revelation – here was a fantasy series with a consistent internal logic, with a vaguely realistic political set-up that eschewed any sort of insultingly simplistic ‘the good guys triumph because of their virtue’ narrative.”
One of the crowd-pleasing aspects of the newest book is that it reintroduces popular characters that were missing in the last instalment, A Feast for Crows. Originally one enormous book, Martin split the material into two when the size got unmanageable (they’re both already hard to lift with one hand as it is) – and instead of doing so chronologically, he split it by character and location.
While both books begin with the struggle for the throne wrapping up, A Feast for Crows focuses on Cersei Lannister and Arya Stark, while A Dance with Dragons reintroduces reader favourites Daenerys Targaryen and Tyrion Lannister. As Duff said: “These characters have been with the reader since the first book, so their reduction to being mostly ‘off-stage’ in A Feast for Crows was frustrating, especially as George RR Martin does love to leave his characters in cliffhanger situations.”
This constant series of cliffhangers can be an annoyance to fans desperate for some sort of resolution. Whitehead described the new book as having “some great character moments, some impressively foreshadowed plot twists and an increasingly dark and foreboding atmosphere” but added that there were “a tad too many cliffhangers and major, eagerly awaited plot culminations pushed to the sixth volume. That’s disappointed a lot of fans”.
Whitehead said this lack of payoff would be bearable if the next book, The Winds of Winter, was around the corner, but it’s expected to be another long wait. “Dragons leaves a lot of situations in utter chaos,” he said, “a lot of characters in dangerous predicaments and their fates hanging on a thread, and huge battles about to be joined. The next book, if Martin delivers on the promises he makes in this one, should be apocalyptic. Let’s just hope he doesn’t make us wait another six years for it.”
In numbers
- Number of children under five will fall from 681 million in 2017 to 401m in 2100
- Over-80s will rise from 141m in 2017 to 866m in 2100
- Nigeria will become the world’s second most populous country with 791m by 2100, behind India
- China will fall dramatically from a peak of 2.4 billion in 2024 to 732 million by 2100
- an average of 2.1 children per woman is required to sustain population growth
A QUIET PLACE
Starring: Lupita Nyong'o, Joseph Quinn, Djimon Hounsou
Director: Michael Sarnoski
Rating: 4/5
ROUTE TO TITLE
Round 1: Beat Leolia Jeanjean 6-1, 6-2
Round 2: Beat Naomi Osaka 7-6, 1-6, 7-5
Round 3: Beat Marie Bouzkova 6-4, 6-2
Round 4: Beat Anastasia Potapova 6-0, 6-0
Quarter-final: Beat Marketa Vondrousova 6-0, 6-2
Semi-final: Beat Coco Gauff 6-2, 6-4
Final: Beat Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 6-2
If you go
Flying
Despite the extreme distance, flying to Fairbanks is relatively simple, requiring just one transfer in Seattle, which can be reached directly from Dubai with Emirates for Dh6,800 return.
Touring
Gondwana Ecotours’ seven-day Polar Bear Adventure starts in Fairbanks in central Alaska before visiting Kaktovik and Utqiarvik on the North Slope. Polar bear viewing is highly likely in Kaktovik, with up to five two-hour boat tours included. Prices start from Dh11,500 per person, with all local flights, meals and accommodation included; gondwanaecotours.com
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Voices: How A Great Singer Can Change Your Life
Nick Coleman
Jonathan Cape
How the UAE gratuity payment is calculated now
Employees leaving an organisation are entitled to an end-of-service gratuity after completing at least one year of service.
The tenure is calculated on the number of days worked and does not include lengthy leave periods, such as a sabbatical. If you have worked for a company between one and five years, you are paid 21 days of pay based on your final basic salary. After five years, however, you are entitled to 30 days of pay. The total lump sum you receive is based on the duration of your employment.
1. For those who have worked between one and five years, on a basic salary of Dh10,000 (calculation based on 30 days):
a. Dh10,000 ÷ 30 = Dh333.33. Your daily wage is Dh333.33
b. Dh333.33 x 21 = Dh7,000. So 21 days salary equates to Dh7,000 in gratuity entitlement for each year of service. Multiply this figure for every year of service up to five years.
2. For those who have worked more than five years
c. 333.33 x 30 = Dh10,000. So 30 days’ salary is Dh10,000 in gratuity entitlement for each year of service.
Note: The maximum figure cannot exceed two years total salary figure.
KEY DATES IN AMAZON'S HISTORY
July 5, 1994: Jeff Bezos founds Cadabra Inc, which would later be renamed to Amazon.com, because his lawyer misheard the name as 'cadaver'. In its earliest days, the bookstore operated out of a rented garage in Bellevue, Washington
July 16, 1995: Amazon formally opens as an online bookseller. Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought becomes the first item sold on Amazon
1997: Amazon goes public at $18 a share, which has grown about 1,000 per cent at present. Its highest closing price was $197.85 on June 27, 2024
1998: Amazon acquires IMDb, its first major acquisition. It also starts selling CDs and DVDs
2000: Amazon Marketplace opens, allowing people to sell items on the website
2002: Amazon forms what would become Amazon Web Services, opening the Amazon.com platform to all developers. The cloud unit would follow in 2006
2003: Amazon turns in an annual profit of $75 million, the first time it ended a year in the black
2005: Amazon Prime is introduced, its first-ever subscription service that offered US customers free two-day shipping for $79 a year
2006: Amazon Unbox is unveiled, the company's video service that would later morph into Amazon Instant Video and, ultimately, Amazon Video
2007: Amazon's first hardware product, the Kindle e-reader, is introduced; the Fire TV and Fire Phone would come in 2014. Grocery service Amazon Fresh is also started
2009: Amazon introduces Amazon Basics, its in-house label for a variety of products
2010: The foundations for Amazon Studios were laid. Its first original streaming content debuted in 2013
2011: The Amazon Appstore for Google's Android is launched. It is still unavailable on Apple's iOS
2014: The Amazon Echo is launched, a speaker that acts as a personal digital assistant powered by Alexa
2017: Amazon acquires Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, its biggest acquisition
2018: Amazon's market cap briefly crosses the $1 trillion mark, making it, at the time, only the third company to achieve that milestone
In-demand jobs and monthly salaries
- Technology expert in robotics and automation: Dh20,000 to Dh40,000
- Energy engineer: Dh25,000 to Dh30,000
- Production engineer: Dh30,000 to Dh40,000
- Data-driven supply chain management professional: Dh30,000 to Dh50,000
- HR leader: Dh40,000 to Dh60,000
- Engineering leader: Dh30,000 to Dh55,000
- Project manager: Dh55,000 to Dh65,000
- Senior reservoir engineer: Dh40,000 to Dh55,000
- Senior drilling engineer: Dh38,000 to Dh46,000
- Senior process engineer: Dh28,000 to Dh38,000
- Senior maintenance engineer: Dh22,000 to Dh34,000
- Field engineer: Dh6,500 to Dh7,500
- Field supervisor: Dh9,000 to Dh12,000
- Field operator: Dh5,000 to Dh7,000
SRI LANKA SQUAD
Upul Tharanga (captain), Dinesh Chandimal, Niroshan Dickwella
Lahiru Thirimanne, Kusal Mendis, Milinda Siriwardana
Chamara Kapugedara, Thisara Perera, Seekuge Prasanna
Nuwan Pradeep, Suranga Lakmal, Dushmantha Chameera
Vishwa Fernando, Akila Dananjaya, Jeffrey Vandersay
Company Profile
Company name: Hoopla
Date started: March 2023
Founder: Jacqueline Perrottet
Based: Dubai
Number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Investment required: $500,000
The specs
Engine: 5.0-litre supercharged V8
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Power: 575bhp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: Dh554,000
On sale: now
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo
Power: 268hp at 5,600rpm
Torque: 380Nm at 4,800rpm
Transmission: CVT auto
Fuel consumption: 9.5L/100km
On sale: now
Price: from Dh195,000
EMIRATES'S REVISED A350 DEPLOYMENT SCHEDULE
Edinburgh: November 4 (unchanged)
Bahrain: November 15 (from September 15); second daily service from January 1
Kuwait: November 15 (from September 16)
Mumbai: January 1 (from October 27)
Ahmedabad: January 1 (from October 27)
Colombo: January 2 (from January 1)
Muscat: March 1 (from December 1)
Lyon: March 1 (from December 1)
Bologna: March 1 (from December 1)
Source: Emirates
Milestones on the road to union
1970
October 26: Bahrain withdraws from a proposal to create a federation of nine with the seven Trucial States and Qatar.
December: Ahmed Al Suwaidi visits New York to discuss potential UN membership.
1971
March 1: Alex Douglas Hume, Conservative foreign secretary confirms that Britain will leave the Gulf and “strongly supports” the creation of a Union of Arab Emirates.
July 12: Historic meeting at which Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid make a binding agreement to create what will become the UAE.
July 18: It is announced that the UAE will be formed from six emirates, with a proposed constitution signed. RAK is not yet part of the agreement.
August 6: The fifth anniversary of Sheikh Zayed becoming Ruler of Abu Dhabi, with official celebrations deferred until later in the year.
August 15: Bahrain becomes independent.
September 3: Qatar becomes independent.
November 23-25: Meeting with Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid and senior British officials to fix December 2 as date of creation of the UAE.
November 29: At 5.30pm Iranian forces seize the Greater and Lesser Tunbs by force.
November 30: Despite a power sharing agreement, Tehran takes full control of Abu Musa.
November 31: UK officials visit all six participating Emirates to formally end the Trucial States treaties
December 2: 11am, Dubai. New Supreme Council formally elects Sheikh Zayed as President. Treaty of Friendship signed with the UK. 11.30am. Flag raising ceremony at Union House and Al Manhal Palace in Abu Dhabi witnessed by Sheikh Khalifa, then Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.
December 6: Arab League formally admits the UAE. The first British Ambassador presents his credentials to Sheikh Zayed.
December 9: UAE joins the United Nations.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The stats and facts
1.9 million women are at risk of developing cervical cancer in the UAE
80% of people, females and males, will get human papillomavirus (HPV) once in their lifetime
Out of more than 100 types of HPV, 14 strains are cancer-causing
99.9% of cervical cancers are caused by the virus
A five-year survival rate of close to 96% can be achieved with regular screenings for cervical cancer detection
Women aged 25 to 29 should get a Pap smear every three years
Women aged 30 to 65 should do a Pap smear and HPV test every five years
Children aged 13 and above should get the HPV vaccine
Three tips from La Perle's performers
1 The kind of water athletes drink is important. Gwilym Hooson, a 28-year-old British performer who is currently recovering from knee surgery, found that out when the company was still in Studio City, training for 12 hours a day. “The physio team was like: ‘Why is everyone getting cramps?’ And then they realised we had to add salt and sugar to the water,” he says.
2 A little chocolate is a good thing. “It’s emergency energy,” says Craig Paul Smith, La Perle’s head coach and former Cirque du Soleil performer, gesturing to an almost-empty open box of mini chocolate bars on his desk backstage.
3 Take chances, says Young, who has worked all over the world, including most recently at Dragone’s show in China. “Every time we go out of our comfort zone, we learn a lot about ourselves,” she says.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Xpanceo
Started: 2018
Founders: Roman Axelrod, Valentyn Volkov
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Smart contact lenses, augmented/virtual reality
Funding: $40 million
Investor: Opportunity Venture (Asia)
UAE SQUAD
Jemma Eley, Maria Michailidou, Molly Fuller, Chloe Andrews (of Dubai College), Eliza Petricola, Holly Guerin, Yasmin Craig, Caitlin Gowdy (Dubai English Speaking College), Claire Janssen, Cristiana Morall (Jumeirah English Speaking School), Tessa Mies (Jebel Ali School), Mila Morgan (Cranleigh Abu Dhabi).
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Dengue fever symptoms
- High fever
- Intense pain behind your eyes
- Severe headache
- Muscle and joint pains
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Swollen glands
- Rash
If symptoms occur, they usually last for two-seven days
Kill
Director: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat
Starring: Lakshya, Tanya Maniktala, Ashish Vidyarthi, Harsh Chhaya, Raghav Juyal
Rating: 4.5/5
Mental health support in the UAE
● Estijaba helpline: 8001717
● UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention hotline: 045192519
● UAE Mental health support line: 800 4673 (Hope)
More information at hope.hw.gov.ae
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 7-speed dual-clutch auto
Fuel consumption: 10.5L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh129,999 (VX Luxury); from Dh149,999 (VX Black Gold)
'Project Power'
Stars: Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dominique Fishback
Director: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman
Rating: 3.5/5
A MAN FROM MOTIHARI
Author: Abdullah Khan
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Pages: 304
Available: Now