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December 31, 2008

A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin

A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin

Book 40 in my 52 books in 52 weeks in 2008

This is my final book for 2008 - so you know I didn't make it to the full 52. This is a shame, but I didn't know I'd lose four months of train commuting, so it wasn't to be helped. Nevertheless, this is I think ten books more than 2007, so I'm very pleased about that. I'm still cycling to work, so 2009 is looking like a 20 book year. We'll see, maybe I'll get a new contract.

How many epic fantasy series can one person read? When each book is about 1000 pages, and authors insist on upwards of ten books, it is a real struggle. You need to choose carefully. I read "Magician", the first in the Riftwar series by Raymond E Feist not that long ago. it was OK, but I didn't feel inclined to continue. Robert jordan's "Wheel of Time" books get a lot of bad press, particularly the later ones. I don't know much about any other series, but this one from George R.R. Martin gets universal acclaim, so I felt it was time to start. for anyone interested, I only just managed to finish it in 2008, at about 30 minutes to midnight, and it took me a couple of months to get through it, a chapter a night.

The first thing to say about this book is that it is really brutal. If it was a film, you'd maybe want to look away occasionally, or have a sick bag handy. Human life is cheap in this medieval society, justice is swift, and it doesn't pay well to be a woman, even a rich one.

The second thing is the almost complete lack of fantasy. There is a bit of course, and heavy hints for more to come in succeeeding volumes no doubt, but this is primarily a book about the politics of ruling a large kingdom when the people in charge all hate each other.

I did enjoy reading this. You get a total immersion feeling from the world you are inhabiting. There is a big cast of characters, and the chapters flit between them giving you views of the situations from all angles. The country itself seems to be about the size of England. In the north, it is freezing all the time and a huge wall has been built across the northern part country to keep the Others/Wildings out. What are the Others? I'm still hardly any the wiser. The climate is variable, but it seems that every ten or twenty years a mini ice age occurs. No one can predict exactly when it will happen, but in the time of the novel, it is overdue, and definitely imminent. Winter is coming.

Any epic fantasy without battles, heroic deaths, treachery and deceit and all those good things would be pointless, so we're not disappointed in those areas. But it is reallllly long, and there are so too many characters that it is easy to get lost a bit along the way. The narrative shifts from person to person and each has their own individuality that you come to recognise, but the bit players, all the knights and outlaws and so on, merge into one at times.

This book is merely a prelude to the ones to come, like a pilot episode of a long running TV series. It introduces the cast and sets the scene for all the shows to come. And it has a great climax to get you to come back for more. I'll be back.

Posted by se71 at December 31, 2008 11:30 PM

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