‘When you play the game of thrones, you either win or you die.’
It so happened that every time in the recent past, I’d go to the guy I usually buy my books from he’d try to hand me some book from George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. And every time I’d say ‘that’s great but do you have the book I’m looking for?‘ But then when a friend recently asked me to do Game of Thrones, I knew there was just no getting away from it. And so here it is, George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones; and as will happen with most books I hold off on, I’m wondering why I took so long to get to it in the first place!
The conviction with which George RR Martin writes of his world – a world where all things grow in the summer and summers go on forever, for winter, when it comes, is endless and always brings death; a world where Lords live with their Ladies and their Knights and there are people who are much like the Nordic Gods who roam the lands – rings so true you’d think you were reading an epic; untold tales of heroes long gone. There is no faltering, no stumbling, no indistinctness in the characters to give the lie of the tale. Or maybe there are, but you just don’t notice because you’re so caught up in its song. And if you ask me, that’s the way a story should be told.
Of course, since it reads like an epic its slightly unbelievable like an epic, too. The kids don’t sound like kids at all, for one. But you won’t hear me complaining! It’s a tale that sets the men apart from the boys (even at age 4 :-/) and one in which everything doesn’t always go the way it should; good people die and bad people win, you’ll find Brutus as he should have been and you’ll also find a Lady Macbeth and you still know the story is going where it should.
Trust me, if you’ve got a must-read list this one should be on it. I put it on mine just so I could scratch it off. Game of Thrones gets an unsurprising 5.
easyondeyes 
I haven’t read the book yet, but have watched the tv series twice! And i liked it a lot! 🙂
Must get the book 🙂
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You absolutely must!! I have this books-n-visual medium policy that I like to stick to … I believe it’s hard to translate the writer’s vision into the visual medium accurately.
But I’m sure you’ll enjoy the book 🙂
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I know what you mean. Most books, when translated into film, usually loose something along the way, and basically turn to crap!! But this is one of the few exceptions! The TV show is pretty amazing. Partly because the author himself is involved with it. Of course, they’ve had to make a few changes here and there since a story of this magnitude is not easy to capture in just ten shows, but still a pretty amazing job!
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I agree with you, this is an astoundingly fresh vision of fantasy. It took me a while to get to it too, but I was thoroughly impressed when I did.
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🙂 I’ve moved on to the second book now but after reading the first few chapters I think it might be a good idea for me to take a break … the series, unbroken, makes for pretty heavy reading, somehow.
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George RR Martin is exceptionally good, for an American fantasy fiction writer.
I like his cliffhangers, he keeps you hooked.
Unfortunately, the sixth book in the series is slotted for release next year 😦
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My friend is a die hard fan of the Game of Thrones series. I’m not sure whether to start reading it. Anyway, nice book blog! Thanks for following and visiting my site 🙂 I hope you return!
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I’m sure you won’t regret it Sarah! 🙂
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