A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1) (edition 1997)

Enjoyable enough for epic fantasy, but the continual multiperson storytelling style is far from my favourite. Martin doesn't do too bad a job of it, with clearly headed chapters, but it is still confusing and jumpy which breaks the narrative flow - and in a book as complex as this with many factioned politics going on, it would be better to keep everything as simple as possible. It is however a vast improvement over the pretender of Erikson.

The setting is a minimalist magic pseudo medieval europe - the mongol (or maybe aftrican it's not quite clear) hordes of horsemen are a distant threat, the old traditional defence of the northern ice is lacking after decades of long summer, and the main interest of the joint Severn Kingdoms is the internal politicking. We follow various characters, lords sons, queens and the like, (no peasantry at all who serve simply as cannon fodder and bed partners throughout) as they respond to a few events. The King wishes to ease the burden's of state by appointing the current Lord of the North as his personal Hand. They are old friends and fought together to usurp the previous dynasty. Meanwhile the Queen has close ties to her own family and there are rumours the Hand is investigating.There is little in the way of personal motivation, or planning or forethought from any of them. The vast number makes it difficult to remember who is related to whom in what way (or if it matters) let alone remember what their last set of actions had been. The is frequently made even more confusing by some time jumps between viewpoints, with various actions having occurred and only being reported retrospectively. Fortunately most of these are fairly small jumps of only a few weeks at a time, and generally easily comprehended. I think - although I'd be hard pushed to confirm it - that Martin stayed fairly strictly to horseborn transport distances and times as various people run up and down the country. His choice of ravens as the predominant method of information transfer seems odd. However there is little to no magic - although a few strange creatures are seen - weights and ghosts seem to be real, although much disbelieved. Some fairly heavy foreshadowing prepares for the return of elves and dragons too although they don't appear as such.

Each individual chapter is well written and engaging. There a few repetitive themes, but among 700 pages this is likely to occur. That various characters refer to the political manoeuvring as the Game of thrones grated each time. I would much rather have read a shorter book focused more intently on fewer characters, with the rest appearing in subsequent volumes, but that doesn't seem to be the book Martin wanted to write. I shall probably persevere with the series though, as there is a certain likableness to the writing and many of the characters. Martin has tried not to create anyone who is evil just for the sake of it, and the obvious bad guy, but motivations for any of the characters are all a bit weak. Far from the best fantasy I've ever read, it is equally far from the worst. ( )

I do not see the fascination... ( )

This book was a delightful read! I enjoyed the characters, their development and the constant drama riddling the pages. There is a tremendous amount of characters to keep track of, however, the author does a superb job of keeping them in line with each of the main character's storylines. Though with so many characters, he does constantly keep referring to them so they reader can commit them to memory.

I look forward to reading the rest of the series and have come to find that this book has quickly become a new favorite for me and I certainly hope to revisit this world in years to come. A must read! ( )

It has been years since I read these and I had forgotten how good they were. Now that the 5th book is finally available for pre-order and HBO has a series based on them coming out April 17th, I thought a re-read was in order. ( )

Alright so I plan on making this short, sweet and to the point.

This book was truly amazing and I loved it. The only problem I had was the fact that by the time I read the first book I had already seen the first season of the show. Because the show was damn near identical to the book when I actually read the story I already knew what was going to happen so I felt like I ruined it for myself. I will not be making that mistake with the second book A Clash of Kings. I'll definitely be reading it before the show comes back this Spring.

But as far as the book goes, George R.R. Martin is an outstanding writer and has the ability to craft a world where you feel you're a part of as you read. I love that about a story... I want to be able to feel like I'm there, like I'm really experiencing it first-hand. His world building and character building may at times become tedious, but it's really worth taking the time to savor in order to really be able to appreciate it.

Interested in more of my reviews? Visit my blog! ( )