OK..ive been reading a Game of Thrones...

[theDespiser]

the first book...


and i must say, i dont care for Martin's writing style/structure too much...seems like a good story so far, so its not like i dont like the book..im getting into it pretty good....but...all the chapters are too short for my taste, and just when something starts to happen, you start another chapter and you dont go back for like 3 or 4 chapters sometimes...and damn..pretty soon hes gonna run outta characters to kill...



but other than those complaints, its a pretty good book...

[Usivius]

ha ha... I just picked up the book at the insistance of a friend. I am 58 pages in and have somewhat the same opinion. Martin's writing style is pretty average. And so far the characters pretty average. Even the 'extraordinary' ones are 'been-there-done-that' kinda thing. But with most books I read like this, I usually find what keeps readers (myself included) giong is the good plot/story. So, let's see where this takes me...
(I'm still confused trying to sort out all the characters thrown at me in the first 58 pages though... sheesh!)

[Warmark]

Carry on, it really is a great series!

[Roland of Gilead]

Martin hooked me with the finding of the direwolf pups, and I never looked back!!

And I think Martin's characterization is indeed extraordinary!!

[onewyteduck]

I just picked up the first 2 books, mainly because of what I have read here. Haven't started them yet.

[theDespiser]

welp, i finished a Game of Thrones....and my opinion of his writing style still stands...feels like the chapters are incomplete, and the progression of the story seems inconsistent most of the time...but I did think it was a good book...i just picked up the second one today...along with YUP Knife of dreams...

now...i have 3 series im trying to finish...

3rd Chronicles of Thomas Covenant..I got the first book last year for xmas...but i vowed not to read it until i reread the first two chrons...now i have them back, i havent reread them yet...thats gonna be 7 books...

Wheel of Time...after the 10th book i was chomping at the bit for the 11th one to come out...im still deeply engrossed in the series, and cant wait till the end...but...i have since re-read Mordant's need, read the New Harry Potter, read A Game of Thrones, and re-read The Gap Cycle...so everythings not as fresh...

AND i just started the second Song of Ice and Fire book...SO...i have some decisions to make...but...i wont be wanting for much to read for a while...

[jelerak]

I started A Clash of Kings today, after just finishing A Game of Thrones on Friday.

I am thourougly immersed into the characters and stories surrounding them so far. Admittedly, I have not read any new fantasy in about 10 years or so, I kinda got away from fantasy for a while. But I am pretty impressed with everything so far.

I find each chapter's ending like a cliffhanger, and it makes it hard to put the book(s) down because I want to read through the ensuing chapters to get back to each charater's individual story. I seem to remember Donaldson using that same style in the Gap series, but it has been a while since I have read The Gap Into Conflict.

I found it real diffucult initially to identify each character, so many were introduced so quicky, but once I got beyond that and figured out who everyone was, and there allegiances, the story moved along quite well.

[Sunbaneglasses]

I for one just can not get into it,so many people believe they are such great books.It lacks that 'deeper meaning'to me.

[duchess of malfi]

I for one just can not get into it,so many people believe they are such great books.It lacks that 'deeper meaning'to me.

Funny. I find them to be one of the most interesting explorations of the questions of honor and personal responsibility I have ever read...

I find great meaning in contrasting and comparing the way the characters act in various situtations. How do characters such as Ned, Robb, and Jon approach the issue of personal honor? What does this do to their lives? The lives of the people around them? How do the various queens and kings show their responsibility towards the safety and security of their nation and their peoples? If you were a peasant or poor farmer living in that world who would you want as your monarch? What traits or experiences form someone into being a good leader?

Martin spent many years in Hollywood writing for television (he was heavily involved in some old show I have never seen called Beauty and the Beast or something like that) and I think that contributed to the "cliffhanger" chapter endings. The chapters are like scenes...

[Variol Farseer]

After three volumes (I refuse to buy them in hardcover), I've grown thoroughly exasperated with the sprawl of Martin's plot and the unrelenting griminess, seldom far from obscenity, of the whole work. I, too, find the prose pedestrian and occasionally awkward. I could forgive these weaknesses, because he is a really brilliant inventor of characters and plot; the trouble is that he invents far too much of both.

It feels to me as if he is telling what ought to be three Big Fat Fantasy series, not one, and they have somehow got jumbled together in the same web of dynastic politics. The extreme tension of the cliffhangers is, I suppose, his reaction as a craftsman to the extreme laxity of the overall structure. One way to make readers care about a character is to put him in jeopardy. But it takes a hell of a lot of jeopardy to keep people caring (or even remembering) when you have 20 other viewpoint characters to deal with, and it may be 300 pages before that cliffhanger is resolved.

The Lord of the Rings would not have been improved by giving us an extra 200 chapters on the war at the Lonely Mountain, the Mirkwood campaign, the political in-fights of Dunland, the family tensions of Prince Imrahil, the abrupt assassination of three pretenders to the throne of Umbar, the infighting of the Nazgûl, the marital squabbles of Celeborn and Galadriel, the machine-building of Lotho Sackville-Baggins, and the sex lives of the high priests of Sauron in Harad and Khand. Tolkien had the sense and the artistic vision (not having dollar signs obscuring his field of view) to keep peripheral events on the periphery, and leave much undescribed (or cut it in editing). Some of the most important parts of LOTR, such as the tale of Aragorn and Arwen, were banished almost completely to the Appendices. Martin has no such self-restraint; and after all, why should he? As long as he can keep his audience going, he is getting paid for his books virtually by the pound.

I begrudge no man a well-earned success; more power to him! But after about a million words of this, I found myself too numb to care anymore. Mr. Martin's repertoire of plays upon the reader's emotions had become predictable to me, even if the events weren't, and I dislike the feeling of being manipulated. And hardly any of the characters I cared about were still alive, and almost none of the villains were dead, and although people spent endless reams of print talking at one another, nobody ever listened to what anybody else was saying; and there seems to be almost no cooperation between characters anywhere in the book, only betrayal piled upon betrayal. A couple of years after reading the third volume, my principal memory is of a truly impressive moral stench.

[Warmark]

I actually found the scenes of the small-council and political moments quite interesting.

[Roland of Gilead]

I think Variol Farseer makes some quite interesting points, and articulates his position very well.

I guess, for me, I stick around and endure the flaws because I got hooked on several of the original major characters, such as Jon, Tyrion and Daenerys, and I simply enjoy reading their trials and tribulations, despite the long wait and the plot without end.

I think Martin is a master of characterization, and in fact, his ability to take a previously unlikeable character and make him into a likeable one is almost unprecedented, at least in my reading experience.

Since the early seventies, I've always wanted to see some author with the talent (and let's face it, the stones) to write a plausible medieval epic fantasy. By that, I mean, with all the negatives and gritty realism that most epic fantasy authors (including Tolkien, although in his defense, the culture of his time probably wouldn't have let him be more realistic and graphic than he was) avoid and skip around.

So I'll keep reading them. And I'll no doubt keep complaining about the time gaps between the publishing of each book, too. That's my prerogative as a paying reader and fan.

[Encryptic]

I'd say I'm in the same camp as Roland.

Variol Farseer: I can totally understand not liking the series. It's not for everyone and I respect your opinion more for being well-expressed and thoughtful. You've made some valid points.

However, I'm of the opinion that the series wouldn't be as readable if Martin didn't depict his world in such a manner. I don't mean to say that we should celebrate the grime and gore and the betrayal and bloodshed, but it makes it seem more "realistic", rather than an idealized depiction of good versus evil, with no shades of gray. I find Martin's approach to be interesting because no one comes out as being totally good or totally bad, but rather scrambling for a piece of the pie. In a lot of ways, Song of Ice and Fire reminds me more of a massive historical fiction epic than epic fantasy. The good people don't always win and oftimes "right" and "wrong" are inextricably confused.

Granted, the cast of characters has gotten enormous by this time and the plot is massive, but I feel that Martin has done a superb job of juggling them and not letting it grow out of control thus far. He also, I feel, doesn't let each viewpoint character's plotline drag on pointlessly but moves each of them forward at a good pace. Something I can't say of Wheel of Time, unfortunately. (Though I keep hearing how Knife of Dreams has made a turn for the better in this regard).

I will say that his prose isn't memorable (certainly competent, but not memorable). However, I wouldn't say these books should be read for that, but rather the plotting and characterizations, to say nothing of the world-building.

Like or dislike Song of Ice and Fire, I feel that it's a kick in the ass to the epic fantasy genre. It certainly isn't "perfect", but it's very close, IMHO.

[Variol Farseer]

I agree, George R.R. Martin is brilliant at what he does. (He never set out to be a great prose stylist, so I leave that aside.) But for me, it's just too much. After a million words of shock tactics, I just can't be shocked anymore. As I said, it leaves me numb.

And the inept writers who escalate violence and loving detail of autopsies tell us how they serve the commonweal . . . by bringing us to an awareness of the dark side of human nature. They obfuscate with that sad, sorry song about how they need to shock us into awareness.

In medicine, they only use shock treatment when the patient is insane, cataleptic, or dead.

Now, I'm not calling Mr. Martin an inept writer by any means. But I'm in full agreement with Harlan Ellison on the value of shock treatment. Look, I don't need to be reminded of the dark side of human nature. I deal with the consequences of it every day of my life.

In ancient Rome, they only put on theatrical shows as part of the public games. They had enormous amphitheatres for low comedy, smaller indoor theatres for witty, comedy-of-manners kinds of drama, and very, very small theatres for tragedy. Except for the actors, virtually everyone in the tragic theatre was extremely rich. Ordinary Romans didn't need vicarious tragedy, because they got their tragedy live and direct. It was real. If they wanted to escape into another world for a while, they wanted to go someplace that made them laugh.



You're quite right: in ASOIAF, the good people don't always win and 'right' and 'wrong' are inextricably confused. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the only 'good people' I've found in the books were the children; the others don't seem to care a lick whether their actions are right or wrong. With the possible exceptions of Jon Snow, Samwell Tarly, and the obviously foredoomed Eddard Stark, every adult character I can think of from the series is acting from motives that are either purely selfish or vicariously selfish. (Hodor is a good guy, too, but annoying as get out. I wish he would shut up or expand his vocabulary.) Basically, everyone seems to be acting for one of the following reasons:

1. I want to be King.
2. I want a member of my family to be King.
3. I want to stand in the next King's good books.

It's like a Democratic primary staged by the Borgias.

And you know that if any one of these jokers should win the nomination, the Targaryen, er, Republican candidate is going to wipe the floor with him on Election Day. It becomes hard to see what is the point.

SRD is a master of moral chiaroscuro: you can always tell good from evil actions in his work, and frequently you can tell good from evil motives. Few characters are entirely good or entirely evil, because people learn and change roles, which, as SRD himself points out, is what distinguishes drama from melodrama. Thomas Covenant is a rapist and a coward, but also a Giantfriend and the destroyer of the Illearth Stone. You can see his moral valence change. Linden Avery, Warden Dios, even Angus Thermopyle—all SRD's most characteristic characters have this quality in abundance. Even the blackest moments are redeemed here and there by shafts of unshadowed light, and both extremes take their power and poignancy from the contrast. In Mr. Martin's universe, everything is in shadow, and after a while, to me at least, everything looks the same.

[duchess of malfi]

Martin was heavily inspired by the real world history and politics and personalities of England's War of the Roses and the court intrigues of the early Tudors (particularly Henry 8 & his second Queen and his court). All of that ugliness and jockeying for power is inspired by just as much ugliness and jockeying for power in our very real world.

I can see how it could really bother some people.

But for those who enjoy the court intrigue portions of the books, I recommend the historical novels of Phillipa Gregory, set in the courts of the Tudors - The Other Bolen Girl, The Queen's Fool, and The Virgin's Lover.

[Encryptic]

Martin was heavily inspired by the real world history and politics and personalities of England's War of the Roses and the court intrigues of the early Tudors (particularly Henry 8 & his second Queen and his court). All of that ugliness and jockeying for power is inspired by just as much ugliness and jockeying for power in our very real world.

That was the point I was driving at with the comments about "realism", but you said it better than I did.

[theDespiser]

I find each chapter's ending like a cliffhanger, and it makes it hard to put the book(s) down because I want to read through the ensuing chapters to get back to each charater's individual story. I seem to remember Donaldson using that same style in the Gap series, but it has been a while since I have read The Gap Into Conflict.

yeah, but when HE did it, he actually followed up a chapter about one character, with ANOTHER chapter about the same character, which allowed to keep the story going, instead of hitting a brick wall after every chapter...and then waiting sometimes 100 pages before you learned what happened...sometimes by the time i get back to a chapter about a certain character, i forgot what was happening in the first place, and i have to start all over as far as that part of the story goes...

[Usivius]

OK, I'm nearly through the first book, and I must say I'm not overly impressed. It's too dark and annoying for my taste. SRD is dark, but he knew how to intermix elements of releif among the depression of the characters --- small little victories that could give the reader respite. Game of Thrones has none of this.
Not to sound like a smarty-pants, but by nearly half way through, I could tell where everything was going. The 'bad guys' seem to get everything they want, and the 'good guys' are left out to dry. I find no suspence in the writing style, and find myself predicting things (and I hate doing that! I prefer to be so absorbed in a story, that I just get carried along... but that's me)

I'll leave my final thoughts until I have finished the book, but at this point I am not sure I will buy any more...
Can anyone who has read all of them (so far) tell me if this style of writing/stroy-telling changes? Do the bastards rise up and challenge the Houses?....

I don't mind a little spoiler at this point...

[Roland of Gilead]

Usivius, I can't imagine how you can think the book is predictable. Some of the stunning stuff in Game of Thrones is what impressed me about Martin and made me want to continue.

I would have to say both Martin and SRD are quite dark in their interpretation of events and characters' motivations. I don't see a lot of distinction between the two of them in that particular category.

I find Martin's writing superior to most other epic fantasy authors.

As to your question, there are challenges galore, and many Houses rise and many Houses fall.

[jelerak]

I have to agree with Roland.

Just to name a couple of surprises that really took me for a ride :

Spoiler

Who could predict how Eddard's fate would be sealed?

Spoiler

Who knew how Khal Drogo's life was going to come to an end, how cruel his fate would be? And the fate of Dany's child?

I am about halfway through book two, and still totally wrapped up in the many diverse characters, political intrigue, multiple plots and storylines.