Goodreads | A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book One)

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Shannon rated it:

05/25/08

bookshelves: 2008, fantasy, not-worth-it

Read in May, 2008

I really feel the necessity of a bit of personal backstory here, before I start the review. Back in 1996 when this book first came out, and I was 16/17 years old, I saw the hardcover on a sale table for about $5 and couldn't resist a bargain (still can't, though I'm more cautious these days). So I started reading this book with the vague idea that it was a flop, and that may not have helped, but I got through 100 pages of it before feeling so crapped off with it that I shoved it in my cupboard a...more

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Jesse rated it:

(review of isbn 0553588486)

06/15/07

bookshelves: fantasy

Read in March, 2008

recommends it for: anyone who likes anything epic

I know no one reading this knows me much (well some of you may) but I DON'T reread books. I usually read a book once and its quite well locked into my brain. As much as I've enjoyed many books I've read, they just don't require a second read for me. I read them, now its time to move on. "A Game of Thrones" is different. I loved this book and its characters so much, and crave the world and narrative so much that I couldn't wait for Martin to get the newest installment out. So I st...more I know no one reading this knows me much (well some of you may) but I DON'T reread books. I usually read a book once and its quite well locked into my brain. As much as I've enjoyed many books I've read, they just don't require a second read for me. I read them, now its time to move on. "A Game of Thrones" is different. I loved this book and its characters so much, and crave the world and narrative so much that I couldn't wait for Martin to get the newest installment out. So I started rereading the first book I've ever reread.

Let me just say that I didn't find ANY of the characters boring. Even the characters that I would find an anoying personality type, is deeply engrosing in this tale. And those types of characters number just 1 for me in this book. There are so many characters, with such a broad range of personalities that there is someone to match everyones likes. Yet even the characters I initially found myself repulsed by, grow and change and are just as fascinating as those that I admire and empathize with.

Normally I dislike when an author has too many characters and jumps from character to character from one chapter to the next, not so in this book. Martin's ability to tell a story and hook you on it, is so great that I started to look forward to these jumps to different characters. With this many characters you really are provided with a great narrow and broad picture of the currents of this world and narrative. Its like watching individual storms all over the globe, all adding up to the global weather system.

Which leads me to my next point, his pacing. My share of epic fantasy series. Particular Martin's two major contemporaries/rivals for the top stop of the epic fantasy genre: Terry Goodkind and Robert Jordan. Both these authors have good parts, and bad parts to their books. There are momments in their books where I stop and think, "That was the <bleeping> coolest thing (event) I've ever read". Yet there are way more parts in both author's works where I was thinking "when are we going to get to the next awsome and exciting event? Why are we still walking/riding/working/...etc(you get my drift)". I came to expect this in any book, particularly epic fantasy. I just thought that when a book/series gets a long as these tomes, you end up having to spead some boaring filler in there cause one imagination can only do so much exciting work. Martin broke that mold for me. I kept waiting for a momment where part of my mind would start, metaphorically, tapping its foot in bordom thinking, "are we there yet?". It never happened. Each chapter would grab me, and by the time the chapter ended I was groaning at having to leave behind this story thread because I was wrapped up in its narrative path. Then I'm instantly swept up by the events of the next chapters story thread.

Finally there is the commitment by the author to this narrative. Many stories have jeopardy but you kind of know that in the end, the main character can't die, there are more books to come. Don't ever count on that in "A Game of Thrones". Everyone of the characters is fair game, and people/characters will die in horrible and tragic ways. In this book and in subsequent ones in the series, I literally threw down the book and got up in shock. Sometimes even shouting out to no one at all, "Oh my GODS!, he killed <blank>!". It gives me confidence in Martin and his own level of commitment to telling me the best and most real story possible, complete with unfair and tragic events happening to good AND bad people (though in the case of the bad people I suppose it would be "fair and happy" when negative things happen to them..lol). Ok, thats it, I can't believe how much I wrote here. Hope this gets some folks to read this book. Cause once you read the first, you'll be hooked....less

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Allen rated it:

(review of isbn 0553588486)

12/08/07

Read in April, 2007

recommends it for: Everyone

A friend and I were talking about Tolkien one night after a sesh of Call of Cthulhu and he came at me with the insane standpoint that George RR Martin's breed of fantasy is superior, though indebted to, Prof. Tolkien. I immediately informed my friend that he was once again proving the ineptitude of his intellect. Tolkien is the father of modern fantasy and the ultimate writer within the genre. This is not opinion but fact.
That said I was intrigued and promised said friend to look into this in...more A friend and I were talking about Tolkien one night after a sesh of Call of Cthulhu and he came at me with the insane standpoint that George RR Martin's breed of fantasy is superior, though indebted to, Prof. Tolkien. I immediately informed my friend that he was once again proving the ineptitude of his intellect. Tolkien is the father of modern fantasy and the ultimate writer within the genre. This is not opinion but fact.
That said I was intrigued and promised said friend to look into this infidel that he was willing to prop up above the Professor.

And well, I am fucking hooked. I recently started book four in the series and then after about 100 pages put it down because I new that after I voraciously devoured yet another volume in the series (to my surprise I read the first three volumes in about three months. with each volume being in the neighborhood of 800 pages this was quite a feat for little ole slow readin me.) I would have nothing to follow it up with. That prospect is unbearable. So I will continue reading book four when Ii find out that book five is near published. I hope that Martin doesn't journey off to the great beyond previous to finishing the series. Odin forbid that another door is left open for Kevin J. Anderson to step in and finish a series for someone. Seriously, does that guy not have original ideas?

Anywho, I think the best description I gave of this book to a friend was "equal parts LOTR and DUNE with a heavy dose of Penthouse letters. Seriously. Lines about glistening wet
members and quivering quim. Well maybe not the quim. But isn't quim an amazing word?

Because Martin wrote for television (new Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast among others) the books have this nice episodic feel. Each chapter is driven by a different character. Really great plot twists. He loves killing off the characters that you love and forcing you to love the characters that you hate.

If you have any even cursory interest in the fantasy genre read these books. He may not be Tolkien, but the hobbit looking mother fucker is damn close.

Quim....less

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John rated it:

04/22/08

Read in April, 2008

recommended to John by: Nick Sabin, Cassie Nichols
recommends it for: Fantasy readers, folklore readers, political fiction readers

This may be the best Fantasy I've read since J.R.R. Tolkien. I highly recommend it to any fans of the Lord of the Rings series who have been disappointed by the other supposed epics that have shown up since. Martin has created a sprawling world, full of intrigue and potential, and sowed it with characters who can carry out interesting conflicts within it. His prose is far more readable than the average Fantasy writer, capable of beautiful phrases and sweeping passages, but also excellent at carr...more

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Siria rated it:

06/04/07

bookshelves: 20th-century, american-fiction, fantasy

I've not read any high fantasy in a long, long time, but I decided to pick this up purely because so many people on my flist were raving about the series. I can definitely see why it's a best-seller. It's long, with solid prose and a plot which is complex, but not overly so; the pacing is good, and the action is mostly organic, not engineered. Martin's characterisation is probably his best point. He has a vast array of characters, and switches POV between seven or eight different characters thro...more I've not read any high fantasy in a long, long time, but I decided to pick this up purely because so many people on my flist were raving about the series. I can definitely see why it's a best-seller. It's long, with solid prose and a plot which is complex, but not overly so; the pacing is good, and the action is mostly organic, not engineered. Martin's characterisation is probably his best point. He has a vast array of characters, and switches POV between seven or eight different characters throughout the course of the book. All of them have convincing motivations, to greater or lesser degrees, and are well-sketched, even if none of them ever really came alive for me.

And yet, there is a but coming. This is very good high fantasy, but it's still high fantasy, and falls victim to a lot of the weaknesses of the genre. It's book one of a cycle, which inevitably means dumps of information and portentous events which foreshadow events which won't happen for hundreds, if not thousands of pages. It's full of people who go around referring to themselves as being "of the blood of the dragon" amongst other such melodramatic epithets; I rolled my eyes at them when I was ten, and I wince at them now.

The setting is also absolutely stock, faux medieval Europe. The seven kingdoms clearly make up England and Wales below Hadrian's Wall, with the Starks who were formerly Kings in the North a clear parallel to the history of England before its eventual unification under one king. The society he creates doesn't hold up to close scrutiny; this is a top-heavy world of kings and lords and ladies. And just as I winced at Tolkien's Haradrim, what we saw of the Dothraki, but most especially the glimpses of one particular lord from the Summer Isles, made me uneasy. Did Martin find it absolutely necessary every time Jalabhar Xho was mentioned to remind us that he was "black-skinned" or "dark-skinned" or "dark as night"? My god, a character who is not a lily-white European! Shocking! Clearly that is his only important character attribute.

Enjoyable and entertaining enough, though, and I might very well pick up the next few volumes if I come across them secondhand in Chapters. I don't think I'll be buying them new, though....less

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Kelly rated it:

(review of isbn 0553588486)

06/27/08

bookshelves: fantasy, favorites, fiction, worth-rereading

Read in October, 1999

recommends it for: people who love the sadistic meanness of Joss Whedon and also well written epic fantasy

Ed Note the 2nd: Okay, so on the fifth or so re-reading, I can now laugh at George's conceits as well as get lost in his incredibly rich world and get thrills from it. I've grown out of my pure emotional attachment to the books, and I certainly see more flaws than I did, but it doesn't detract from the reading experience. Its fantasy. Go with it.

Ed Note: In the vain hope that Martin isn't lying to us and the next book really is coming out fairly soon I'm going to re-read these books over the...more Ed Note the 2nd: Okay, so on the fifth or so re-reading, I can now laugh at George's conceits as well as get lost in his incredibly rich world and get thrills from it. I've grown out of my pure emotional attachment to the books, and I certainly see more flaws than I did, but it doesn't detract from the reading experience. Its fantasy. Go with it.

Ed Note: In the vain hope that Martin isn't lying to us and the next book really is coming out fairly soon I'm going to re-read these books over the course of the summer. I'VE GOT MY EYE ON YOU, GEORGE.

Original: My copy of this book is wrinkled and half destroyed. It was passed around among my group of 10 bffs in grade school, which may begin to explain it. There's one particular page with a horrifying event on it. The death of one of the main, awesome characters. This page has coffee spilled on it, it's ripped in several places, and wrinkled to this day with tears. I wouldn't trade that page for anything. It reminds me why I love literature, besides being a reminder of a group of girls I loved very much.

George R.R. Martin is not afraid to rip your heart out. Nothing is taken for granted. What you think will happen will not happen. It's an epic genre, with all the main characters you'd expect to find- the hero, the idealist, the warrior king, the beautiful queen, the jesters.. all of them are there. But /none/ of them are /quite/ right, and they become more and more twisted as time goes on. It's absolutely fantastic. I can't recommend it highly enough, really.

The only drawbacks are these:
1. These books are extremely long. They average around eight hundred pages. Though I will say that even with that, I can finish one in two weeks. One week if I'm not working.
2. He takes forever to finish the next ones. We've been waiting two years on the next on in the series. He's a perfectionist. But the wait is always worth it. I would rather he took his time and produced what he does than go the way of Robert Jordan. *shudder*

Epic lovers, go buy this book!...less

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Tom rated it:

(review of isbn 0553588486)

03/25/08

Read in March, 2008

I want to give A game of Thrones five stars, but alas, I cannot. It is a fantastic epic tale with engaging heroes, and nasty villains that one would enjoy to slap silly. I found myself emotionally invested in the fate of the Stark family. Unfortunately, the book contains some glaring problems.

First, Martin throws sex into the book willy-nilly. It's like a horny twelve year old got his typewriter and went to town. It would be one thing if the sex were provocative and, well sexy, but unfor...more I want to give A game of Thrones five stars, but alas, I cannot. It is a fantastic epic tale with engaging heroes, and nasty villains that one would enjoy to slap silly. I found myself emotionally invested in the fate of the Stark family. Unfortunately, the book contains some glaring problems.

First, Martin throws sex into the book willy-nilly. It's like a horny twelve year old got his typewriter and went to town. It would be one thing if the sex were provocative and, well sexy, but unfortunately, the hanky panky is plain distracting-- "We break from this epic and incredibly intriguing battle with massive plot ramifications to bring you an update: A dwarf is having sex with a wench. On-site reporter George Martin will give us a play by play and then return you to what you actually care about." This kind of distraction takes place routinely from page one and never lets up.

I like epic, but the book is a little too sprawling. It has about ten plot threads. Most of the threads are masterfully woven and merit five star ratings, but some of the tributaries never connect to the main plot during the 800 pages of book 1. For example, about every five chapters, the plot moves to a different continent and compares the sexual exploits of a princess and her warlord lover to riding horses. I'm halfway through book two, and the horse-mounting Princess has yet to join the plot in any meaningful way despite the fact that several hundred pages have been devoted to her. I know she will invade the seven kingdoms one day, but for now, her thread is nothing but another distraction.

I must temper these critisicms by adding that the series does have redeeming value, and I am still forging through the second book. Sure, I roll my eyes every time Martin's pen drifts down a pornographic tangent, but the meat of the book is legitimately entertaining. It's so entertaining that I considered giving it 5 stars, yet so distracted that I considered awarding it only 3.
...less

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Jennifer Brown rated it:

(review of isbn 0553588486)

11/19/07

bookshelves: fantasy, fiction, own

Read in December, 2006

The book is the first in a series -- A Song of Ice and Fire. It is hard fantasy, and follows characters who are all members of several noble houses, as they vie for the Iron Throne. The story takes place in a fantastical world (think: dragons and zombies) after the overthrow of the Targaryen family. The two surviving children live in exile, while in the homeland they never knew, the remaining houses use intrigue, appointments, marriages, and murders to control the throne.

People who are well-ve...more

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Keely rated it:

(review of isbn 0553588486)

06/27/07

bookshelves: abandoned, fantasy

In his ill-advised attempt to create 'realistic fantasy', Martin has forgotten that Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction. While real works of history are often fascinating for the strangeness and complexity they depict, trying to create such a realistic world from whole cloth is one of the most difficult things for any writer to do. Take away the fantastical and heroic elements that other fantasy works use to pique interest, and Martin has merely created a world that, for all its cliche 'Darker And Gr...more

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Amelia rated it:

(review of isbn 0553588486)

08/12/08

bookshelves: fantasy

Read in August, 2008

Bullshit! It is amazing with the detail and complexity of plot...but don't expect a damn thing to be resolved after you slave your way through all 807 thin assed pages of miniscule print!

I'm still deciding if I care enough to read the next. If I do, it will be Arya that leads me on.

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Kristjan rated it:

(review of isbn 0553588486)

09/11/08

bookshelves: book-club-selection, low-fantasy, reviewed

Read in January, 1998

recommended to Kristjan by: GR Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Club

This book was all about trade-offs. On the one hand, Martin introduces a fair amount of complex political intrigue and (what seemed like) realism in his world building gave it just enough grit to appear different then the standard epic (low) fantasy I had grown used to. In fact, some time later I read that Martin was quite pleased with the fact that just because a character was a 'good' guy, doesn't mean he will survive the story ... the only problem was that it really was difficult to find ...more

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Roberta rated it:

(review of isbn 0553588486)

11/09/07

bookshelves: fantasy

Read in November, 2007

recommends it for: fantasy readers

Epic fantasy on an epic scale. I haven't read a book as long as this one was (800 pages) that was so gripping since I read Lord of the Rings the first time when I was in high school.

Martin deserves to stand up there with the greats.

To summarize the book, he writes chapters based on a few main characters. The book is the struggle between the great families of the Seven Kingdoms. The biggest players are the Starks, Lannisters, Baratheons, and Targaryens. The king is Robert of House B...more

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Jim rated it:

(review of isbn 0553588486)

08/28/07

Read in July, 2002

recommends it for: Anyone who likes a gripping story.

The first book in an amazing series. A Song of Ice and Fire is simply the best series of books I have ever read. The only downside to the books are that the author isn't done with the series yet.

A Game of Thrones is one of those books that leaves me feeling slightly breathless and totally unwilling to put it down once I picked it up. If you are at all a fan of the fantasy genre, you need to read this series. If you aren't a big fan of the fantasy genre, I would still recommend it as an exce...more

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Min rated it:

(review of isbn 0553588486)

08/16/07

bookshelves: favourites

Read in January, 2006

A clerk at the local Borders recommended this series to me. I bought the first book but it languished on my shelf for a while before I saw a colleague reading the second book. I talked to her about it (the series had been recommended to her by another person in our building) and she gave me such an intriguing synopsis that I started to read A Game of Thrones the next day. I haven't regretted that decision at all.
This is perhaps one of the few series (and I'm only partly through the thi...more

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Collin rated it:

08/02/07

bookshelves: fantasysci-fi

Read in January, 2001

recommends it for: the guy standing in the Fantasy section of the bookstore wondering what to get

This is the book that launched a kazillion hyperboles, but I feel in this case most of them are deserved.

Lots of people know about George already. We know he's great. What makes him great is well represented in this first installment of the Song of Ice and Fire series. Believable, multi-dimensional characters. Characters with arcs (gasp). Characters that change over time and react/adapt to their environment like..... Actual people! Nothing here is novel, but I think what George reall...more

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Random rated it:

07/27/07

Read in January, 2005

This is a great book, although for the series as a whole, I'd probably only rate as 3-stars. I feel the series loses life as it goes into subsequent books, so I have a hard time whole heartedly suggesting people start it.

Book 1 was a great start, though -- it's a story of medieval fantasy where magic has grown thin but political intrigue, backstabbing and the wars of men are still thick. This is well written with some great characters and plenty of action.

The problems I have with the s...more

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