A Game of Thrones

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

Well, that was quite something. Although interesting, this is not a book you can read in an evening. It took me eight days and since it was something of a page-turner, quite a bit got read each session. I haven't watched the television series since I think it might be a bit of a disappointment so I didn't know quite what to expect when I started. Based on what I'd heard of the series, I expected quite a bit more gore and violence, but at least in the first volume there's more character introductions and political maneuvering than outright fighting. There are also a goodly number of surprises along the way.

Some of the earlier sections read more like a history book than a novel but at no time was I bored. The pacing was good and the author kept things moving along. If you like fantasy with a twist of sword-and-sorcery medieval political maneuvering you'll enjoy this book.

I glanced at the Wikipedia article on the subject and learned the book is 694 pages long and 292,727 words. That's a lot for any book. I felt a bit sorry for the poor publishers who had to take a chance on the first book of the series without knowing in advance what its reception would be. Normally publishers prefer works closer to 80K words. According to Wikipedia the third and fifth volumes are in the neighborhood of 414K words. I expect to read them, just not right away.

The ending is a bit abrupt but given there are quite a few more books in the series and the author has stated he views the whole thing as one long story I guess that's understandable.

I think many or most people will enjoy this book but I particularly encourage authors to read it. George R.R. Martin had an interesting problem and it's interesting to see how he solved it. There are nine houses comprising 199 characters. True, some of them are dead but there are plenty still alive. Keeping track of that many characters is pretty much impossible. Just keeping track of the houses must be a challenge. I have heard that in a later volume he has a sixty page appendix just listing characters within houses, or some sort of groupings. The details don't matter. How he juggles that degree of complexity without losing readers along the way is impressive and makes the book worth reading whether or not you care for fantasy. For the most part he follows a few specific individuals identified in the chapter titles. Still, behind the scenes he needs to keep track of the various backstories and political intrigues going on. Book five was released in 2011. It's now 2023 and no release date has been set for the next. I can sympathize with him. As characters and groups of characters increase, complexity appears to increase exponentially. I wish him well as this is a massive undertaking. He has, however, provided a number of good ideas for managing the problem and for this I thank him.

If you enjoy world-building on a massive scale, political intrigues and some pretty good rough and tumble battles I encourage you to jump in and start reading. Just know at the outset it's going to take a while.



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