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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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After all... Winter is coming
So, anyway, beware: you'll be left hanging, much like a rotting corpse on a gibbet.
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It's a great series, because of its depth and interesting characters. The books are quite long, and get fairly complicated, but that just pleases the fan who only wants more. I'm really glad that the author took a B5-like approach of defining a definite beginning, middle, and end to the story rather than letting it roll out forever (like the inevitably compared Wheel of Time Books.
Anyhow, yes, it's good. Go and read them.
Just to get this out there for discussion:
If you think game of thrones was interesting, you're in for a few long nights when you get to storm of swords.
By far, "A song of Ice and Fire" is the best fantasy I've read, with the exception of Tolkien. And that's including such auspicious titles as "the dark tower" series and the first 4 dunes.
Simply the most enjoyable books I've read in the past 15 years.
~Wx
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Martin is an excellent writer, and the Song of FIre and Ice series in particular is highly reccommended.
One aspect of his writing I particularly like is the moral ambiguity of his characters. There are no clear-cut "good guys" and "bad guys". What bad guys there are are sympathetic characters, and have understandable motives, and the good guys aren't your typical fantasy heroes. They're human, they have a dark side, and they don't always do the right thing.
All in all, if you're a fan of the genre, you won't be disappointed, and even if you're not he's well worth checking out.
Jurisprudence Fetishist Gets Off On A Technicality --theonion.com
I love a song of ice and fire. Its the best series I have ever read, and I've read all three books over 5 times now. Its frustrating to see the release date of A Feast for Crows (book 4) keep being pushed back however.. now I think it is slated to be released in April 2004.. which is about the 10th time the release date has been pushed back.. Sigh. oh well, I love martin and am willing to wait for books of this quality.
Is it worthy of reading while on the throne?
Don't think DeVito and Michael Douglas, think Richard III vs Henery VII. This book is essentially that tale be playing out in a fantasy setting
I did enjoy them. As you can imagine the political strategies in the book are numerous. It's also a nice read because good guys don't generally come out on top. They don't come back from the dead. An all powerfull wizard doesn't make it all right. And a lone wolf doesn't come in from the cold and fix everything use talents he didn't know he had. This book is harsh, but a good read.
-malakai
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
has become one of my favorite authors. I have read all 3 books in the Song of Ice and Fire, and am anxiously awaiting book 4. In fact, I am re-reading the first 3!
If you liked the first 3 books, I recommend going to you local library and picking up a copy of Legends. It is a collection of short stories by various authors. It includes a story by George R. R. Martin called the Hedge Knight, which is a must read for any fan of A Song of Ice and Fire.
IANAL... But I play one on
I found this series to be, as the reviewer said, one of the best I'd read in a decade.
I was impressed with the author's courage to lead the reader into the life of a main character, cause the reader to empathise with and respect the character, and then unmercilessly have the character killed, unfairly and unjustly.
This is much more believable and realistic than the happy-happy tripe spoon fed by most authors: "The Rambo Syndrome" where a formulaic plot consists of
1. no bad guys can hit anything they shoot at
2. no good guys die
3. the bad guy is 100% evil
4. the good guy is about 98.44% pure
5. truth and love win EVERYTHING at the end
For these types of stories, you don't even have to read the whole book, or watch the whole movie. You know that if you flip to the last few chapters, the bad guy will be vanquished and the good guys will give each other hugs and high-fives.
I think that Martin's series is closer to some of the good old stuff like For Whom the Bell Tolls or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
I don't want to be here.
One thing people need to be aware of with this series is that it is extremely explicit, with graphic descriptions of violence, including torture, maiming, rape, murder of children, and just about every other repulsive act you can think of.
While the quality of writing is excellent, I would not recommend this series to anyone but the most jaded fantasy reader who is bored with the reams of cookie cutter fantasy in bookstores and is ready for something different, although in my opinion, it's different in a bad way. While J.R.R. Tolkien might hint at the horrors of evil, George R.R. Martin describes it in loving detail. I had enough after the second book.
Although Martin writes very decently, and I love the history of his world, A Song of Ice and Fire does have a few major flaws.
The main one of these is that Martin writes purely for effect. When the shock-effect of something happened is largest, that is when you know beyond a doubt that it will happen. No matter how stupid his characters will have to act because of it. For people who haven't read all that much fantasy (yes, generalizing, I know there are exceptions), a lot of this comes as complete surprises, and he seems to do a lot of things that are completely innovative; but people who've read fantasy beyond Tolkien/Eddings/Jordan/Goodkind(*shudders*)/Weis, etc and have instead explored fantasy from the late 70s and early 80s will recognize a lot of what's happening - and see that it's not all that special.
Second is the gritty-ness of his world. It's overdone. There is exactly one family in the entire world with people capable of having selfless thoughts; every single other character in the series (no matter how unimportant) will be mean, vicious, cruel bastards - often literally. If you want a darker, gritter world than most modern fantasy offers, instead of Martin I recommend Steven Erikson's Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen.
Third is the fact that ASoIaF didn't start as a fantasy. This is not a secret, Martin often explains it, but many people don't realize it when they start reading the books. The series started as historical fiction. Only when the first book was almost finished did Martin begin to use more and more fantastical elements, and turn it into a fantasy.
How about just "Gosh, Golly, Wow..."
I picked the first volume up on a recommendation and found myself trapped by it. I ended up buying the second volume before I finished the first so I could continue without a break. I thought it might (as second volumes often do) disappoint a bit - but before I finished the second volume I was buying the third. Now I get to wait for the fourth.
Worse yet, by the time I was approaching the end of the third volume I was rationing myself to one chapter a day. If you knew how I tend to read, you'd know how rare that is.
The story is wonderful, with twists and turns and complications in abundance - but knowing how things are going to do does not ruin your enjoyment. This is not just a simple, one dimensional tale, instead it reads like real history (I was reminded of "Les Rois Maudits" a multi volume fictionalized history of a series of French kings).
The characters, too, are fascinating - all are mixes of good and bad - and all have the ability to act in ways that make you shake your head a bit - sometimes in surprise, sometimes in recognition. And I found myself caring about the characters (at least some of them) more than I would have guessed possible.
The writing is not fancy or overly self conscious nor is it sloppy or careless. Its just right - doing its job and staying out of the way.
There is magic here - and while it is powerful , it does not take over the book as magic does in many fantasy novels. And very often, that magic is double edged - with the ability to hurt its weilder as much as to help.
Finally, the world itself is varied and vividly described. Most of the action takes place on Westeros, either a very large island, or a small continent. At the north there are icy mountains, mountains that shield a major threat - behind a wall of ice 700 feet high. There are warmer lands too, great rivers (very important, those rivers), and the sea. Off Westeros there are strange lands that one of the characters is wandering through on the way back to Westeros - she visits strange cities with strong magic.
If you like fantasy, or history - these are very much worth reading.
No, let me restate that. If you like reading good stories, with good character this is very much worth reading.
One of the best books (taken as a whole) I've read in a very long time. Not just "best fantasy books" or "best genre books" - but best books.
To any of the characters. Somehow, Martin allows the story to flow though the "focus" characters are constantly changing. In fact, several seemingly important or main characters are simply killed off.
I surprised the hell out of me at first, as most authors get attached to their characters. I have to quickly get through the next few chapters trying to figure out if the characters somehow survived (they didn't, they're good and dead).
Quite impressive, that the author can not only have the guts to kill off characters, but still keep the story in a good "flow" between books with various prior characters dead.
I guess I'm one of the few that didn't like this one. Here's the review I wrote for epinions.com:
The frustrating thing about this book is that it contains the seeds of a great novel. Unfortunately, that storyline is hitched to too many other storylines that simply don't measure up. As a result, I found myself deeply regretting ever having started. I wanted to find out what happened to the two or three characters I actually cared about, but that meant wading through hundreds of pages of other subplots, most of which I frankly didn't want to read.
The best part of the book by far is the story of Jon Snow, bastard of King Eddard Stark, who is sent to "take the black" and join the garrison manning the titanic Wall that protects the north of the kingdom from attack from Beyond. There he learns about responsibility and sets to work improving the neglected defenses. And beyond the wall, some force is stirring...
It's a great story, and I wanted more of it. But by the end of the 800 pages of this book, that story is still just getting started, because most of the book is spent elsewhere. Which is where we get into trouble.
Basically, there are a lot of other plots going on, and most of them just did't measure up for me. Some of the characters, like Sansa the cookie-cutter princess, are simply shallow and insipid. The others are either objectionably passive (Eddard and Daenerys), mindlessly reactionary (Catelyn), or inherently unsympathetic (Tyrion Lannister). Bran and Arya might turn out to be likeable, but their stories haven't even gotten started by the end of the book. And yet, each of these characters is given their own series of chapters. The end result is too many chapters, and a book that is bogged down in the tedious lives of characters I didn't care about.
It also bothers me that in 800-odd pages Martin wasn't able to tell a complete story, or even get some of the plots fully started. Tolkien told the entire Lord of the Rings in about 900 pages, and LotR isn't exactly thin on plot or background. It also bothered me that when we got to the big battle at the end of the book, most of it happened off screen. Martin devoted more space in his book to people talking in bars! I felt cheated.
The pluses: Martin's writing does a good job of describing what is going on and establishing a sense of medieval atmosphere, and the world he builds in the novel was genuinely interesting to me. I still think the tale of Jon Snow would have made a brilliant standalone novel. On a paragraph by paragraph level, the writing is solid.
This book frustrated me immensely. It was good enough in parts that I didn't want to throw it against the wall, but most of the time it was like eating cardboard. I wouldn't read the rest of this series if I got it for free.
However, people who only want a book to immerse them for x number of pages should be satisfied with it, especially with three more equally overstuffed volumes already out in the series. Given the number of positive reviews for the book, your mileage may definitely vary.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
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
"When the shock-effect of something happened is largest, that is when you know beyond a doubt that it will happen. "
Actually I did not find this to be true at all. I also found that he foreshadows everything that is going to happen--he is just not always obvious or heavy-handed with how he brings it to come.
The story tastes *real*: characters die, the line between good and evil is blurred, and there is an appropriate mix of what you can predict absolutely and what was simply led up to without ceremony.
He doesn't give us any information we wouldn't know from the points of view of each of the characters, nor does he give us everything that is going to happen in advance. He assumes that we are intelligent enough to be able to handle.
Yes, the depravity is rife in this world, yes, he uses elements from other stories, however, nothing that happens is out of whack with the way the world has been set up.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
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
Not to sell books, but be true to the story.
Some authors aren't the masters of their tales. (Masters of their craft, yes...) I don't think Martin enjoys the horrible acts the monsters in his books perpetrate. They are monsters! That's what gives his books life- his characters do what they will/would do, rather than conforming to a Code of Conduct. That's the world he finds himself writing. Tolkien folk don't bleed much - I don't fault him for it, that's the world he writes. I don't fault the Harry Potter series for being bloodless. That's how that world is. I hope my kids enjoy them long before they get to this series.
Martin's world appears to be inspired by the 100 years war and War of the Roses, where the actual events make his story seem fairly tame in comparison. The Brits depopulated large chunks of France when the French forces wouldn't/couldn't defend them. Battles were lost because the troops were so busy looting they forgot to finish the fight. In one instance, nominally Catholic English soldiers burned a nunnary, raping all the inhabitants and killing all but a few which were saved for further entertainment.
The 100 years war was a disaster for Britain because during the lulls the unemployed British soldiers had gotten a taste for rape and plunder, and kept it up when they got home.
One reader didn't care for the sex scenes - I don't think they are excessive, nor dwelt on in prurient detail. They are part of the characters' lives (illigitimate children play a huge role in the story). One character binds her husband to her by being both Queen and Lover. One incident reveals Theon Grayjoy's character nicely, though it doesn't advance the story much by itself.
I should sum up - it's a more realistic world than most, and if you like your fiction more squeeky clean, stay away. I have put away books that had similar violence without the honesty. There's a reason for it here - it has to be, or the story is less true.
Not to take anything away from Martin's excellent work, but anyone who is familiar with the Wars of the Roses (1455 to 1487) will recognize the storyline immediately. If it seems more realistic than your average fantasy novel, that's because it's based on reality, unlike your average fantasy novel. :)
That said, it's still an excellent tale, well told.
And if you like this sort of thing, then I strongly recommend checking out the works of Guy Gavriel Kay, who is (afaik) the real pioneer of retelling obscure bits of history reset into realms of fantasy. My personal favorite is The Lions of Al-Rasan, based on the latter days of Moorish Spain. None of these have quite the scale of the Thrones series, being mostly standalone novels, but they're still pretty hefty novels, and all quite good. (Kay is also known for his work with Christopher Tolkien, editing the unpublished works of Chris' faither, J.R.R., and for his pure-fantasy Arthuriana-soaked trilogy, The Fionavar Tapestry.)