So I jumped on the George R.R. Martin bandwagon...

[themostepotente]

I bought 'A Game of Thrones' yesterday. Long ass book with small ass print. I swore I'd never read another book this long after Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell.

I hope I like this.

On a side note, I won't be around much this weekend. Book. Last bits of Smutmas. GOF.

Hope everyone's doing good and enjoying the movie :-)

--P

Comments

[wickedelf.livejournal.com]

Just a warning, I found the first book hard to get through... mostly just because it's very dense with a lot of characters and background.

But by the end of the first book/beginning of the 2nd, I was totally hooked. :-) So if you find it difficult at first, stick with it. He takes some surprising turns.

How was Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell? I've had it for a year now and read a chunk but got sidelined and haven't been able to get back into it. Is it worth it?

[themostepotente.livejournal.com]

JSaMN was excellent, but dude, the footnotes got on my nerves.

Clark is VERY thorough.

[bogfrog.livejournal.com]

I just read the first three of the Martin series recently and I LOVED them. :D

[themostepotente.livejournal.com]

Yaye! That seems to be the general consensus.

[sasha-davidovna.livejournal.com]

I finished the second last week and love them so far. :)

The sheer volume of characters can be a bit confusing at first (with his death rate he needs to have a lot) but it's well worth it. :)

[themostepotente.livejournal.com]

I've been told that. And neither warning bothers me. *G*

[eponin10.livejournal.com]

Okay, so I have to ask. Did you like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell? It's been on my "To Read/To Buy" list for a year and I still haven't gotten around to it.

[themostepotente.livejournal.com]

Read it.

[eponin10.livejournal.com]

Heh.

*adds to Christmas list*

[starrysummer.livejournal.com]

You'll like it. Though the first bit may be a bit slower, just because it tends to focus on the more good guy type characters, and the intrigue seeps in a bit slowly. But this is the good stuff.

[themostepotente.livejournal.com]

When do the bad guys make their appearances?

[starrysummer.livejournal.com]

Oh, very early on. First couple dozen pages. And there are POVs of people on the "bad side" from the first book onwards, though not as many as later on.

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a very good book! Very well done characters and an amazingly complex but comprehendable world. :D I haven't read the rest of the series, sadly.

[themostepotente.livejournal.com]

What's stopping you? No time?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Game of Thrones is excellent. Politically complex, harsh, and clearly written by a military man.

You'll love it.

Icarus

[themostepotente.livejournal.com]

What do you say to the Tolkien comparison?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Wow. Somehow I didn't get this comment or I missed it.

Comparing Tolkien and Martin? Tolkien is closer to Beowulf than Martin is to Tolkien. Okay, that came out sounding like an SAT question.

What Martin and Tolkien have in common is that they were both soldiers so they do not idealize war and battle. However, Tolkien has something to his story that seems to go beyond the war of the ring, an almost-spiritual theme of death and ending that's really powerful.

Martin sets you down in the horror of war and makes you live it. Just when you think that it's as bad as it can get... things get worse.

Tolkien is the spiritualist, dealing with vast scopes of time and writing an epic.

Martin, for all the length of his story, is more like a Vietnam reporter. He's not delving into the whys of war and humanity, instead he's reporting on the war itself, giving glimpses into the epic-sized battles through intimate experiences of the people caught in the storm.

It's more like Terry Goodkind, only considerably better, more gritty and less idealistic. Martin hasn't fallen apart in the writing so far as I've seen. He does have Goodkind's primary flaw: there are too many disconnected enemies so the series lacks the cohesion of the Lord of the Rings.

Icarus

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

In my old life as manager of a gaming/comics shop I heard a lot of great things about those books. And the CCG of course.

[themostepotente.livejournal.com]

Never felt compelled to read them?

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

Oooooh, you'll like it. It's *great*!

[themostepotente.livejournal.com]

Yaye! Thanks, Nancy :-)