A Game of Thrones

[altogetherisi]

Here are my thoughts about A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin. No spoilers but with some oblique references to broad plot directions.

I read A Game of Thrones, and it was pretty awesome! I definitely want to read the next one. I appreciated the simple language used, which made a lot of characters doing a lot of things easy enough to keep up with - my copy of the book looked like a small brick but was surprisingly light, and I was grateful you didn't have to work at reading it. That sounds like a bit of a weird thing to say I guess, but maybe certain books that shall remain nameless had biased me slightly into thinking it would be something to fight my way through. And it totally wasn't.

 

A lot happened. It started slowly but gathered pace and that made sense narrativey - it wouldn't have been as good if it started at a gallop straight away, you might never have caught up! I did get a little worried at one point that characters might randomly or suddenly all die, but I couldn't stop myself becoming attached. As the plot developed it neither seemed too complicated nor too simple, so you could be interested in what happened, what people did, ather than be distracted trying to figure out a mystery or plot twist or something. There was no plot twist. I quite liked that. Plot twists can get tiring, and this book, for all the fantasy, followed lives unfolding, and lives don't have many plot twists really, just consequences galore. And, for such rich fantasy, it was wonderfully modest - quietly confident but no "look at my fantasy adventure saga, look at how ~special~ it is!" posing. Essentially its a good story, or a good first act of a story I suppose, with great characters and a surfeit of detail that makes it rich and vivid without ever becoming slow, heavy or boring.

 

As a massive cheerleader for books told from following the perspective and events of more than one character, I was was delighted to find the book written like that. Plus, I am a big fan of non regular names in fantasy, and of books with maps at the beginning. So basically, I was overly happy with these aspects of the book :3 Also GRRM wrote battle scenes that didn't get boring, neither too long nor too detailed and didn't become repetitive. I really appreciated that. What a miracle.

 

It starts with the mixing of households, moves through the investigation of a muder and various political machinations to various armies moving and strategising against one another and a family spread from each other, and it does all this smoothly, inexorably, bound up with children maturing, their coming of age tales, husbands and wives and adult brothers and sons - what a family is and what it means. And as the Seven Kingdoms move from irritation through tension to (civil?) war between various factions, there are greater threats growing and moving both across the sea to the South and across the Wall to the North. The series is clearly gearing up for something much bigger, but doesn't make the same things seem irrelevant like some books do - instead, they feel even more vital, that they are minute moments building to a bigger picture. So yeah, I liked the writing, and once it got going I didn't want to put it down. Literally. I read 500 pages in one day at the beach.

 

I was scared characters would be randmly killed or the hell of it, so I kept trying not to get attached, but while a lot of people did get injured and killed the whole book was more reasonable and less gratuitous - in all respects - than I had braced myself for.

 

I was surpised at how much I hated the Lannisters - I usually like villains, and they are blondes, but my general attitude toward them was pretty much "build a bonfire!"-esque. Except Tyrion, who confused me slightly because I like him lots and got into the mindset that he was one of the good guys, but then maybe he wasn't, but then he kinda is, but he is still a Lannister, but like, not in a bad way? The exception that makes the rule perhaps.

 

My favourite characters, rather predictably I fear, were Arya, because come on she is all awesome; Jon, because he is both awesome and insecure; and Dany, because she is strong and yet also so loving. You don't see that enough. I also loved: all the othe Starks; lovely Bran and adorable Rickon, Robb doing his absolute best to be a good man and a brave leader but still polite and respectful to his mother, and poor Sansa who I thought sympathetic and now has little to protect her from a very hash reality she finds herself in. I really hope Sansa gets to develop and mature now, and more than that I hope she gets to kill Joffrey at some stage. Preferably, she should stab him in his bed or something. Cut his throat and watch him die slowly. Something like that. She admired Cersai so much, I hope she learns from her example. And I do hope she finds her prince. Poor Sansa.

 

I really liked Tyrion, for his awesome, sneaky, eloquent, morally grey, overlooked and underestimated and sneaky grudge holding and understanding the nature of those people he deals with and his vey interesting opinion of is own family... ways; and Catelyn grew on me massively - I took a little while to warm to her because I love Jon so much, and she, ah, didn't - but yeah, awesome proactive properly developed women FTW. I liked poor Ser Jorah Mormount, doing his best and really caring and with an interesting conflict of interest developing. I liked Samwell Tarly, fat and scared and nice and not at all useless. There were no characters I hated what they were, how they had been created, but I hated the Lannisters and Lisa Arryn and her horrifying son - written very well, they repulsed me. also, there were points when I vaguely wondered who I hated more, Viserys or Joffrey, and a point when I vaguely hoped they might get to kill each other, but well, that's rater unlikely now... Most of the book I hated Viserys more, while Joffrey was essentially a little shit, but by the end o fthe book Joffrey's worst points seemed to me even worse than Viserys'. Which is really saying something. Does Joffrey have fangirls? I'm certainly not one of them. Lord Frey! I liked him. And Catelyn's uncle, the Black Fish. And the Knight of Flowers! Lovely.

 

Female characters - were good, and treated well by the author if not always by the male characters. They get to be diverse, and talented, and flawed, and strong, and good and evil and scared and brave and foolish just as much as the male characters, and while there are more male characers around the place there are several women, no shortage, doing different things and being treated as important or in passing as the men, so basically, I think that's good.

 

Only quibble - where are the gays? I mentioned this on twitter, and some people pointed to some of the characters coded gay, and there were a couple of insinuations, but no one was clearly out (yet? I hope) and I felt that in a book that has a range of ethnic and cultual backgrounds, different religions, it had characters dealing with prejudice and disabilities, it has incidences of rape, sex with young teenagers, incest. It has brothels and it has groups of men sworn to never marry or have children. So seriously. There should be some gay people floating around. 

 

But, that's my only (small) quibble. 

Overall, very happy, lots of enjoyment, hope I get the next one soon :D

Comments

[azurelunatic]

Oh *man*, you're going to *love* the bits from *Lannister* perspective. :D :D :D :D

[arkeiryn.livejournal.com]

but maybe certain books that shall remain nameless had biased me slightly into thinking it would be something to fight my way through. And it totally wasn't.

I think the same certain nameless books have put me off reading A Game of Thrones too :P I am more tempted now though.

[altogetherisi.livejournal.com]

Honestly, my enduring emotion at A Game of Thrones was pleasant surprise and satisfaction; I was so braced for it to be a boys club, a gratuitous bloodbath, for the battle scenes to bore me, for it to be up itself, for it to be full of cliches, and it was none of that, it was lovely and interesting and intricate, quietly confident storytelling with wonderful characters and sensible sensical plot. It's great! You should totally read it, and then we can talk about it more :) I don't want to be spoiled so I'm not really going near the fandom, but yeah, it's really cool, so come join me.

[pigrescuer.livejournal.com]

Can you name the nameless book? Idon 't know what you mean

Please read more and find out what happens to everyone, especially Sansa and #Arya and Tyrion and Sam and Jon and Joffrey. I want to talk ab ou it.

[altogetherisi.livejournal.com]

In particular I meant The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings, which I managed to read only a few pages of before being bored/not interested in putting the effort in, but I did also just mean sometimes "epic" books need a bit of a down payment to get into, so I was pleasantly surprised that this took no effort :) Maybe that's an incorrect stereotype impression that I've just picked up somewhere along the way, that "serious" fantasy comes with thick language, but yeah.

I'm definitely going to, and look forward to it! It's my birthday in a couple of weeks so I expect I'll get at least the second one by the end of the month :)