I think I’ve mentioned that I’ve gotten some of my reading inspiration over the past year or more from the reading selections of The Sword and Laser group.  I don’t participate in their discussions very often, and I’m a pretty slow reader and am usually behind their pace, but I’ve read quite a few things I would not have looked twice at before because of the The Sword and Laser group.  One of those is A Game of Thrones, Book One of A Song of Fire and Ice by George R.R. Martin.

It’s been made into a board game, a LCG, a CCG, an RPG, and soon an HBO pilot, but somehow it all slip past me.  So is the novel worthy of all the attention?

LIKED

Epic Story.  The book has everything that an epic story should have:  love, fear, hatred, war, death, betrayal, conspiracy, innocence, intrigue.   A world that seems to have as much history in it pre-novel as it may have going forward.  A story in which so much happens, and yet you barely scratch the surface.  It’s no wonder that Martin has been called “The American Tolkien.”

Diverse Characters.  Characters coping with situations they are unsuited for.  Unlikable characters you grow to love.  The diversity of character types in this book astounds me.  The bastard son.  The crippled boy.  The drunken ruler.  The clueless snobby sister.  The dwarf.  The incestuous royalty.  The driven wife and mother.  The exiled prince.  The court liar.  The tomboy sister.  The savage’s bride.  The boys who would be kings.  The all-knowing spy.  The rescued wolf pups.  Martin weaves these characters together almost flawlessly, and nearly every one of them believable.

NOT SO MUCH

Slow Start.  It took me awhile to really get into the novel.  I listened to the unabridged audio, and it normally takes me a little time to adjust to a new narrator.  But probably no more than a half hour…  Roy Doctrice does a masterful job.  But the story itself took me 3-4 hours to get into.  About 2 hours in I almost gave up.  I think there are so many characters and plotlines that you jump back and forth between that it feels very disjointed when it’s all new.

Lack of Foreshadowing.  Maybe I’m used to a lot of Stephen King.  King will write something like “John thought it was a perfect summer morning.  Little did he know it would be his last.”  Then as you read the next 200 pages, that plays on your mind and your anticipation builds.  Martin doesn’t ever really do that, instead going for the instant shock value.

Chapter Structure.  One thing that struck me while reading was that I felt a little cheated by the chapter structure.  Every chapter is told through the third person point of view of a major character.  The problem with that is that when something happens, or is about to happen, to that character, and the chapter ends, you don’t really find out what happens until that person’s POV comes back around in a chapter, even as time passes in the world.  Now, all authors control the flow of their stories and will read the reader on with little cliffhangers and such.  What bugged me is that the chapter format sort of emphasizes that you’re being led along, because with each passing chapter that doesn’t return to the character in question, you get pulled out of the story by noticing that it didn’t.  For instance, one character has 14 of the first 49 chapters, meaning you switch to that characters point of view roughly every 3-4 chapters.  Then something happens to them, and you don’t see their POV again for 9 chapters.  It really jumped out at me and dragged me out of the story.

RECOMMEND?

Despite my misgivings about the way some of it was written, it’s the story that makes the novel.  And the story is so rich and full that once I hit that 3-4 hour mark, I was sucked in and there was no stopping.  It was probably one of the fastest 33-1/2 hour books I’ve ever read on audio.  I started the second novel (which is 3 hours longer!) the next day, because I wanted the story to continue.  There are four books published to date, out of a potential seven, and at the rate I’m going, I may just blow through all four (the release of a fifth book was pushed back several times, and may or may not come this year).

With the HBO pilot looming on the horizon, now’s your chance to start reading where it all began.  If you like epic fantasy, you owe it to yourself to start this series.