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A Game of Thrones
But Martin does it by focusing not on one main character, but on a whole slew of them, each chapter a view from their perspective as events rage around them. Mainly around the Stark family, who's patriarch, Eddard Stark, is the Lord of Winterfell, a country to the far north who's job it is to keep up the Wall - think "Great Wall of China", only make it out of ice and stone. The Starks put a lot of stock in honor and duty, concept that must serve them well to survive a world where summers can last for years - and the winters even longer. Eddard has known war and battle once in his lifetime, when he and his best friend Robert lead an army to overthrow the Mad King almost a generation ago. Now, with his 5 children and 1 bastard child, he looks forward to a life ruling his castle in peace and training the next generation to be Starks.
Or he would, but when Robert comes calling asking Eddard to become the "Hand of the King", Eddard and his family are put into a living chess match, where loyalties shift like chameleon color, and sometimes, the pieces are lost forever. And with all the court intrigues, something dark, magical, and deadly hovers in the background, like an avalanche about to fall without warning.
What makes Martin's writing so compelling is his ability to tie us into a fictional world as fully realized as our own. It's a gritty and disturbing world, where royal families can marry brother to sister to keep bloodlines pure, Mongolian horde empires have their own brand of laws and morals, and a joust is as celebrated as a professional wrestling match - and far more dangerous. He does have a tendency to go overboard in describing the littlest detail of what armor one person is wearing and how it gleams in the sun with cloaks as soft or supple as sin (I think he used that phrase around 3 times in the book, and it was old the 2nd time), but its also those little attention to details that makes the world breath.
But more than his descriptions of the places and events are his writings about people. As I mentioned, each chapter is written from the point of view of a different character, so you get the perspective of Arya, the tomboy princess on moment, the next the view of Tyrion the Imp, dwarf (physically, not Ghimli) who's royal family opposes the Starks and reaches for the crown. Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses, things you love them for and things you hate them for. And as they interact with each other, you can see all the chess pieces on the board moving, wheels within wheels spinning as Martin brings you closer into the story, making you feel a connection with each of them - even the ones you are certain are less than moral or good. He also has no compunction about killing off main characters, which means you can't trust that the "Good Guys" will make off all right in the end.
It's a book about the love of family, how it can be twisted into something terrible and ugly, or used as a tie that binds together. It's a story about the price of honor, duty and loyalty, and what those words actually mean. It's a great book, and I'm eagerly looking forward to trying out the rest of the books in this series to see if they keep up the excellent quality of this one.
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Speaking of SOBs, what kind of dick spoils the end of a book under review.
Hardly! While it's true that the Starks are obsessed with honor, it's as much a weakness for them as it is a strength. And a number of the characters who initially come across as "evil" (if only by association to characters who clearly are evil) actually turn out to be complex and even sympathetic characters (more so in the later books).
One of the best features of his stories is the fact that the line between the good guys and the bad guys is never very clear, and gets murkier and more complex as the story unfolds.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
I agree - these are amazing books, and they are part of a single story, not just a reworking of a product that was already successful. In otherwords, not a bunch of sequels with ever-decreasing juice (like, for me, Dune). They get stronger as they go because we know the characters better and care about the outcomes more.
...they're urcs!" Mr. Martin is not of their ilk. No questing, no rehash. Very original.
They are such rich books! Massive, but not an ounce of padding. The conflict is almost fractal - there's an overall arc that gets advanced in bits and peices, hints and prologues, while the lower level stuff sorts itself out. Below the conflict between Fire and Ice, there's civil war in the realm - as many as 7-8 contenders for the throne. Within each faction is conflict. Within each family anchoring a faction, there is conflict. Within each family member there is conflict!
Which leads to...his incredbily strong characterization. He has nuanced bad guys. Even his good guys (Ned Stark) are so well rendered that I believed them, and knew them, even though they epitomized Good and Honor. His characters have delusions, and act on them, traits that are pro-survival and not so much. And he is ruthless with them.
As well as he knows the characters, he knows his world. It's a 360 degree view at whatever narrative location he puts us in. I get the sense that he could turn the narrative in a different direction, illuminate different stuff, and it would be as complete as what he did write about. It's not like Disneyland where you just have to peak behind a crowd control rope to see where the paint on the cement stops and the illusion ends. Wherever he puts our eye is enough detail for us to implicitly know that the world continues beyond our view.
I have to rave about his storytelling fu: he turns things over, so that we (and usually the characters) are surprised at how things turn out. But even when that's not the case, it is still strong stuff! I just finished rereading the 3, and even when I knew what was going to happen, I was compelled. I dreaded getting to certain parts.
The first time I read them, I went out of order (on the recommendation of some slashdot dweeb). I figured after reading the 3rd, that the 1st would cover the tremendously interesting backstory (a successful rebellion 10 years previous). Nope. It just went back about a year. He has such invention that he can "squander" a magnificent tale as mere backstory!
The series has elements of fantasy, but the rest of it is so strong that it would still work without it. It has the great politics of the first Dune, but the series is not in any way derivitave.
There's a whole class of tolkien wannabes I just can't read. "THis is different! They must destroy the *bracelet* of power!" "They aren't orcs