Once you start it, you won't be able to switch it off!
How does it compare to audio works by the same author?
Excellent
Advantages:
Stunning Fantasy Epic . No Cliches !
Disadvantages:
Your Favorite Character Might Die on the Next Page
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
George R.R. Martin! What can you say. This man, through the 1970s, and the early 1980s, practically defined Gothic Science Fiction - less the supernaturalist than Stephen King, Mr. Martin nonetheless brought the seriously-creepy to hardscience-fiction.
His "Corpse Handlers" stories brought the intensely morbid to science fiction. Insofar as I can tell, Mr. Martin invented the concept, if not necessarily the phrase, "meat puppet" although this is presently in dispute literary circles. In his "corpse handler" stories, he depicted a future where convicted criminals were subjected to braindeath, with their cerebral cortex replaced by the implantation of a 'corpse-controller'; and their bodies became the ultimate slave - unless one was able to obtain the divice that could [see the eponymous shortstory] "Override". Top notch thinking-person's Science Fiction.
His Fever Dream is considered by many to be the ultimate vampyre novel, conveniently laying to rest all of the sad and tawdry draculas that have graced (or not) the printed page and movie-screen over the last century... and while laying those to rest, inspired more than a few sleepless nights, and many man-years of speculation.His novella, Sandkings, won the Hugo Award, science-fiction's highest, and was used as the basis for the initial episode of the new Outer Limits.
Mr. Martin disappeared from the literary scene for a few years, though occasional short stories appeared, and were collected in such compilations as Portraits of His Children, and one of his better short stories was made into a sadly-lowbudget and ill-adapted film, Nightflyers. He also wrote some whimsical yet intensely-wellthought short stories published in Analog and published collected as Tuf Voyaging, which is basically some ecological fables, starring a sadly misunderstood and lonely trader who stumbles upon a Seedship of the fable Earth Ecological Warfare Corps, and goes into business for himself. He also created and edited the popular Wild Cards (volumes I-XV), which was a shared-universe book series showcasing some of today's brightest Science Fiction talents.
He was a major driving force behind the incredibly Gothic TV series, Beauty and the Beast, which depicted a love affair between the monstrous-yet-unbelievably-romantic Vincent, living underground in a culture of sub-surface dwellers in our modern cities, and a "ordinary' woman (Linda Hamilton). As the writer-director of this series (ignored by a great many males as an unending schmaltz-fest, and must-see TV for a huge, swooning, and almost-entirely female audience) he demonstrated a fine command of the nuances of the romantic, the gothic, and indeed the surreal. He has also been a story editor for The Twilight Zone. He was also good friends with, and considered by some as the protege and heir-apparent to the late Roger Zelazny.
At long last, after being essentially gone from the literary scene for some ten years, he has blessed us with what promises to be the first of a trilogy which may command as much respect as does the classic Lord of the Rings (Tolkien). This new works is undeniably influenced by the great British fantasist and Science Fiction writer Brian Aldiss, elements of whose Helliconia series are reflected, almost in passing, in this new work.
A Game of Thrones takes place on an earth where the seasons are a bit out of whack, with a lesser year of normal seasons, all overshadowed by the great year. Perhaps twice in one's life, one see the True Winter or the True Summer. The true Summer is a time of plenty, and though a winter does come to most of the lands, only in the true Winter does one understand the meaning of cold, starvation, and want. In the North, there is a great Wall, which guards against the things that thrive in the cold, keeping them from the South, which are the lands of Men. The Night's Watch, a martial monastic order, guards this wall, to keep the southern Seven Kingdoms safe against that which will, with the encroaching True Winter, seek to expand their domains. Summer is the time of the Men, but with the approach of the True Winter, things more unseemly gather their supernatural strengths and power... and winter is coming.
South of the wall are the Seven Kingdoms, but recently united under one King, Robert Baratheon. He's not a perfect king, but he has an excellent advisor in his friend Lord Eddard Stark, whose family is the focus of this first novel. The king has also got a lovely court full of both the brave-and-loyal and a very well-depicted selection of conspirators, carpetbaggers, and villains... and all of these last have plans of their own for King Robert and his throne - as do the surviving children of the king Robert slew to gain the Iron Throne. Intrigue and conspiracy are the order of the day in the best of courts - and this is not the best of courts. Ancient Nobel Houses strive for rank and position, and old rivalries are coming to a head.
This story is intensely plotted, and the depth and breadth of the worldbuilding in this novel instantly suck you into another realm, one that is easily understood and into which one is easily absorbed. Nearly 700 pages, including appendices describing the histories of the various noble Houses involved - and best of all, it's only the first of four, then five, now six planned.
It's much easier to usefully point out what I consider both flaws and strengths in a book than to say why exactly a book works for me on virtually every level. Is it really as good as I think or is it playing to my hot buttons? So I'll simply try to list the ways in which this book hooked me so strongly.
The first thing that caught me was Martin's prose. Martin is not a pure stylist like John Crowley or Guy Kay. You can't page through the book and find individual sentences whose beauty will surprise you even independent of the context of the story. But Martin's writing carries you along effortlessly. He has been publishing for more than thirty years and it shows. He's completely in control at every turn and his prose complements the story without becoming the story. A few people have criticized occasional bits of dialogue as being jarring in their modernity. I note this in the interest of fairness but it was not something that ever bothered me.
Another thing that Martin manages (and which Williams failed at in Shadowmarch) is keeping his story a cohesive whole. I've already pointed out the many, many characters and plots that Martin juggles. Yet A Game of Thrones never feels like a hodgepodge of ideas jammed together to make a novel. It feels like a living, breathing world. And like any world, there will be important things happening in more than one place at a time. And though Danaerys' story does not directly interact with the other tales in this volume you never get the sense that it is out of place or tacked on. You can feel the various narrative threads constantly moving in the background, picking up steam, inevitably moving towards a collision.
Things that seem extraneous generally are not. This isn't Wolfe with his puzzles within puzzles, his crafty deceptions and lies, but what seems nothing but a colorful aside early in the story may prove, if you are paying attention, to be the key to a central mystery later on. If you aren't paying attention you may not even realize a mystery exists. Martin is beyond doubt working from a fully realized world. He knows where the story is going, and he knows where the characters are coming from. He is most definitely not making it up as he goes along, unlike many other popular fantasists. I'm looking at you, Robert Jordan. If there was any justice in the world Robert Jordan would be writing media tie-ins for pennies and Martin would be topping the bestseller lists.
Speaking of characters, it is here that Martin shines. He clearly has a flair for it. I'm not going to start listing names. Suffice it to say that I care about the characters in Martin's world, even many of the supposed antagonists. Martin's minor characters are colourful and interesting. His major characters are vivid, believable, mostly conflicted, and often dead. Yes, that's right, often dead. Which brings me to perhaps the most important point; halfway through A Game of Thrones I thought I knew where this story was going. It was well-written, engaging, and excellent, but nothing was particularly surprising. I recognized most of the character types as being standard fantasy tropes. Almost cliche in some instances.
I was quite wrong.
Martin was deliberately setting up these cliches so he could knock them down. Storylines you think you recognize take radical new directions. People die. Minor characters die. Men, women, and children die. Viewpoint characters die. Sometimes they die because they were too stupid. Sometimes they die because they were too trusting. Sometimes they die because they weren't Machiavellian enough. And sometimes, just sometimes, they die because life in Martin's world isn't fair and poo happens.
Kind of like real life that way.
This is too much for some people. They don't like it when the characters they care about are killed. They don't like it when bad things happen to good people. To them I say; I have some nice books about magical telepathic ponies you may read. There are some scary bits There are some scary bits with witches and monkeys but rest assured that it all works out in the end. The beautiful princess will live happily ever after with her handsome prince, 2.5 kids, white picket fence, two golden retrievers, and a giant BMW SUV that gets about 6 miles per gallon. I also have some nice oatmeal you may eat if you dislike food with actual flavor.
If you are that type of person, this book is not for you. Luckily for us people like that are no longer reading this review but are instead in the corner pouting in my general direction while compulsively caressing their Mercedes Lackey novels. Now we can enjoy something besides the bland feel-good pablum that too often passes for fantasy these days.
Fans of genre fantasy; try this book. If you don't usually like fantasy because it is derivative crap, try this book. In any case, just run right out and buy a copy.
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