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Die Herren von Winterfell

(A Song of Ice and Fire #1A)

George R.R. Martin,

Jörn Ingwersen (translator)

4.30 · Rating details · 14,244 ratings · 637 reviews

Eddard Stark, der Lord von Winterfell, lebt mit seiner Familie im kalten Norden des Königreichs Westeros, und er weiß, dass der nächste Winter Jahrzehnte dauern wird. Als der engste Vertraute des Königs und alten Freundes Robert Baraethon stirbt. Soll Eddard an dessen Stelle treten. Für die Zeit, die er am Königshof zubringen muss, überträgt Eddard die Herrschaft über ...more

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Paperback, 545 pages

Published December 14th 2010 by Blanvalet (first published August 6th 1996)

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· 14,244 ratings · 637 reviews

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Jan 24, 2018 Adriana Popescu rated it it was amazing

WOW. Simple as that.

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Aug 11, 2016 Constanze Zietz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: out-of-this-world

So after a long long time of resisting I finally caved and started the "Game of Thrones" series (books first - yes I admit I haven't watched the show either) - and if I had known what I have missed so far...this certainly was worth it! Great story with so many characters, places and twists - in the beginning it is hard to follow as there is so much Information. Once you get to know the different houses and characters and understand the connections and plots it turns into an awesome and addictive ...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Diogo M. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Freaking epic! Now I'm on board!

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Dec 30, 2013 Anni rated it really liked it

Shelves: my-shelf

i should have done homework instead but i couldnt resist to read the last 50 pages and now its over and its not like a real end for a book, so im happy to have the second part here.
i loved it, really. i love dany so much and i love arya even more now. it was not as bad as i through to remember all the names and the relationships between the people and the houses. i think it was good that i started to watch the tv show some time ago. it made it easier to understand :)
i think it can be even more ...more

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Jan 22, 2012 Turtelina rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2012, kindle

Couldnt get into it at all. :-/ Maybe more luck with the sequels?

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Apr 26, 2017 ⭐Anni⭐ (Book Princess) rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy

3,5 stars. I liked it, but I didn't love it. It's definitely an amazing world and I loved how every character had his or her own personality, which made it easy for me to picture them and pick my favourites. Still, I found it at times dragging. This is a book you have to be in the mood in for, and it was difficult for me to get into all the relationships. Also, I was disappointed with the ending. It was like the ending of a chapter, but there were so many intrigues and questions building up ...more

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Sep 23, 2018 Anja rated it it was amazing

Shit. The books are sooo good. Now I have to read all of them. My tbr is going to murder me
The only things that are quite annoying were the fact that the German publisher decided to split every book into two books and to translate the names (Theon Graufreude... I can’t). But I am way to lazy to read them in English. Buuut then on the other hand I would only need to buy 5 books instead of ten. What should I do? Those are the questions keeping me awake at night ...more

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Aug 06, 2018 Sophie rated it did not like it

I've tried, and I swear I did, over a hundred times to read this bullshit, but every single time I fail. This book comes together of a few bloodthirsty middle age people and an really sad attempt at magic, but in the end it's just that, a middle age book about people who murder each other. I'm not more interested in reading people die over literally nothing than I am in reading about the art of looking at trees.

But let's begin with something else, the writing:
I don't know why the author thought I've tried, and I swear I did, over a hundred times to read this bullshit, but every single time I fail. This book comes together of a few bloodthirsty middle age people and an really sad attempt at magic, but in the end it's just that, a middle age book about people who murder each other. I'm not more interested in reading people die over literally nothing than I am in reading about the art of looking at trees.

But let's begin with something else, the writing:
I don't know why the author thought it would do anything else than confuse anyone if he constantly changes the view. I am a huge fan of one perspective, maybe two if they are at the same time and place, but how am I to really dive into a world if I am thrown to the other end of it every chapter? How should I grow to love the characters if I don't stay with them long enough to even recall their names or the names of the ones they hold dear?
And the style of writing? Don't even get me started! This poor attempt at being as rough as the surrounding area, at sounding cold and vicious, it's just pathetic.

Now the characters, these jokes of storys. Every single one gets a tragic and heart wrecking background story, something I don't really dislike in other books, but it's so obvious and boring at how Martin tries to make every single one of these characters sound burdend with something. How am I supposed to connect and suffer with a character if I have to do it with all of them and remember every single story if there are so much?

Now the story itself I already said that I find his attempt at bringing magic in his stupid world pathetic, but dragons? How obvious and desperate do you have to be if you have to bring them into your world? It seems like he can't decide what he wants to portray, a world wich everybody tries to gain access to the throne by killing everyone around or a world where a girl finds dragon eggs and discovers that the dragons inside are indeed alive, or a world where there is a threat by monsters locked away in the darkest parts of the world. But if you shove it all together in one world you get chaos and confusion, something I don't like in a book. If the author himself cannot decide what he wants to portray how am I supposed to grasp it? ...more

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Nov 20, 2014 Raquel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I have known the series for a while but it took me a long time to read the book because, for some reason, I thought I wouldn't like it. What the hell?! I finally picked it up and I LOVED it!

The writing style is really engaging and some characters hooked me up since the very beginning and the ones I wasn't so sure about, I ended up empathizing with as the book progressed. There's not a boring moment, a lot of things are happening and the fact that each chapter contains the perspective of a ...more

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Jun 20, 2013 Christian rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-german

Certainly entertaining and easy to read, but the main course of events has more to do with politics than anything else. The world they live in is interesting and got my imagination running, so I especially enjoyed the parts where they were travelling (which happens a lot, thankfully). The thing I don't really like is how we only follow people from noble families. The Lennister, the Starks... What made LotR great - and the comparison really is unavoidable! - is that they were hobbits who had ...more

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Apr 12, 2013 Eyehavenofilter rated it it was amazing

Shelves: george-r-r-martin

Reading this has a slightly different sense than in English. There is more weight in the words, more foreboding. I'm not sure how to put it really. The two languages are similar yet so different. One being the root of the other. I think that is the major difference. Plus the translation of the original back into a language from which it's drawn has its own confusion.
It has its own character this way and I enjoyed it very much. It seemed more "old world" this way. More antiquated. It felt as if ...more

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Jan 02, 2015 Lisa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Finally, I had the time to finish this giant and awesome book. the review is coming soon.

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Nov 17, 2013 Mariana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: adult, romance, sweet-little-treat, fantasy, heroes-to-kill-for, definite-keepers, kickass-heroines, gave-me-the-creeps, author-george-r-r-martin, epic-fantasy

Volume 1: 4,5 stars

Volume 2: Rating and review soon.

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Jun 12, 2011 Catarina Sousa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Amazing!! Can't wait to start reading the next book.

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Jan 01, 2015 Carolina Loureiro rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I'm truly enthusiastic about the next books. As I was reading this volume I felt like I was watching the tv series.

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Oct 20, 2018 Kaye Rose rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I’d been meaning to check out this book series for several years partly out of curiosity due to all the hype, and partly due to recommendations. I’m also an author and, as fantasy is my preferred writing genre, I like to stay informed and check out successfully published and promoted material.

George R.R. Martin has a reputation of excellence in the fantasy community and he has certainly made himself shine in many areas of this book. His world building is superb, his pacing is smooth and he knows I’d been meaning to check out this book series for several years partly out of curiosity due to all the hype, and partly due to recommendations. I’m also an author and, as fantasy is my preferred writing genre, I like to stay informed and check out successfully published and promoted material.

George R.R. Martin has a reputation of excellence in the fantasy community and he has certainly made himself shine in many areas of this book. His world building is superb, his pacing is smooth and he knows how to keep his readers riveted. Martin has created a deeply layered, colorful, intriguing, and fully immersive world full of all the things fantasy lovers crave. Kings and kingdoms; might and glory; princes and princesses; magic and mayhem; bravery and deceit; politics and battle; heroes and ghosts; sadness and victory. We see the genesis of a much grander story here. We hear of the legacies of heroes of old and walk alongside new and emerging heroes in their childhood. We learn where the heroes will come from before they have ever been titled so. As such, we have yet to see the depth of characterization we might, but not because it’s simply lacking, but instead because Martin is giving us the grass roots, enough to cause us to be solidly invested, so that he can bring us along for the unfolding transformation to come.

Having said all of this, I must add at least one element that Martin included that I find personally distasteful and unnecessary. I understand that Martin wanted us to see many of his key players from the beginning and build on that foundation in later volumes. For the most part, I think he did masterfully. However, taking a 13 year old maiden and unwillingly marrying her to a man then subsequently detailing their sexual activities and practices... ugh. Disturbingly unnecessary to me. Granted, I have strong feelings about gratuitous sex and token lascivious content in general as it often feels to me as distracting and distasteful to an otherwise good story and a bit of a sell-out to popular marketing techniques. I’m not against sexuality and romance, but I do believe it has a proper place, and in most cases, it is not necessary to the story’s larger aim. Sadly, I think in this instance of 13 year old sexuality in Daenary’s character, Martin fell prey to a moral and distasteful mistake. He later describes what the 13 year old maiden experienced with her barbarian leader as ‘love’. What 13 year old maiden has the capacity to feel the kind of love that exists in a loving, marital relationship? The most understanding that I could bring this situation was that, given the girls abusive history, she was emotionally seeking the love and comfort of an older man to replace what she’d lacked in her own life previous to these events. At the very least, Martin could have made the girl an older maiden of eighteen or a suitably mature age for such activities.

I also found it disturbing that the newly hatched dragons birthed in the flames of a funeral pyre were described to suckle the 13/14 year olds breasts. I think Martin did an excellent job of detailing how the death of her husband and unborn child symbolically birthed the dragons and imparted their strength to the hatchlings. There was no need for that image between human (little girl still at this point) and mythical beast.

Similar to this last point regarding the 13 year old maiden, I wish Martin had been more tasteful in describing the incest that the 8 year old Brand witnessed. Despite the fact of what he saw, it didn’t need quite so much detail as to the sights and sounds. I just feel that children are innocent and precious and that for the sake of decency Martin could have withheld some details of this situation and certainly of the 13 year old dragon maidens sexual experiences.

There were a few other occasions of sexual content that weren’t strictly necessary, but these did not bother me as much because, at least, it involved adults. I still maintain that it could have been said simply, they went to bed together and the woman did not seem to mind his (I’m thinking of Tyrion here) physical deformity. Tyrion is actually my favorite character thus far, though I’m loathe to admit it because my claiming a favorite character has a tendency to see them killed at some point in the story.

My only other negative to mention is that I felt Edward Stark’s death felt too abrupt, truncated as it were. He was, reference my previous comments on my selecting favorites and their subsequent deaths, a favorite of mine. Martin had often included Edwards thoughts and emotions in the text , yet during his death scene, we were strangely bereft of any of his thoughts or emotions leading up to the beheading. A bit strange and disappointing to me.

Despite my negative notes, I bow to Martin’s story mastery and fantasy world building and comfortably admit the ingenuity of this first book in his series. I am only 200 pages into the second volume and planning to finish the series with the hope that (vain though it may be) Martin approaches the details surrounding his child characters with a bit more sensitivity than he has here. ...more

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Apr 22, 2015 Massimo Carro rated it really liked it · review of another edition

It's a good book but I think too fast in some situation....

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Feb 11, 2019 Thomas LorD rated it it was amazing

I was pretty bored by the first season of Game of Thrones, but this book really got me - even if the German version is only half a book... I think it helped quite a lot to have most of the faces in my head from the TV show, because there are so many characters with the most unusual names in this. It was super exiting, full of interesting and likeable characters, exiting plot and wonderful world building - I was never so disappointed to not have a sequel ready to be read.

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Aug 23, 2018 Marina R Albuquerque rated it really liked it · review of another edition

What a great book! Compared to the TV serie, the story here has some differences. To be honest I prefer the book although I truly love the TV serie. What I found more amazing about this book is that this story has so much characters, so many details, etc and it is so easy to follow the story with zero difficulties. It's an addictive book. Looking forward to buy and read the next books. It's definitely a solid 4 from me.

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Sep 11, 2017 Christina Rothfusz rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I've read the series a few times and the first 3 novels remain my favorite.

This time I tried the Audio Books and was pleasantly surprised at how many twists stood out while listing as opposed to reading.

Roy Dotrice does an amazing job narrating the story.

This is such an amazing series of books and I'm quite sure I'm one of the biggest fans in South Africa.

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May 22, 2018 Helen rated it it was amazing

I really liked the writing style of George R. R. Martin and also that the book is written from different perspectives. It never got boring and I am looking forward to read the next book of the series.

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Oct 09, 2019 Christina rated it liked it

Shelves: 2019, audiobook, as-book, german

It took me over two years to finish reading this book. I attempted to read it many times, but stopped every time around page 80. Then I discovered the audiobook and that made me enjoy this story more.
3,2 Stars for now, but I think that I will reread it in the future.

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May 04, 2019 Max Bauer rated it it was amazing

I know I am a bit late, but this is a absolute pleasure to read.
A gripping story, interesting characters and a wonderfully exiting world. What else could you want?
Every single character is so well explained and developed I seriously don't know who I like the most.

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May 14, 2018 Victoria rated it liked it · review of another edition

Good book. If you like watching Game of Thrones i think you would like this book series. The book it`s self is kinda heavy to read. But it is interesting because i recognise it a lot from the series. My top parts from the book is the Chapters about Daenerys <3 ...more

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May 03, 2019 Brandon Fletcher rated it liked it · review of another edition

The portuguese version splits the original book into two volumes, which made the ending of this one really flat. Besides that, the story felt pointless at times. I had really high hopes to fall in love with this world, but I was let down.

Rate: 3,5 Stars.

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Jun 25, 2018 A rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, listened-to-as-audiobooks

Excellent story obviously. Weird choice of accents in this reading though.

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May 20, 2018 Sennett rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, german-books

And on to the next one, because apparently I have no self-control.

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Sep 12, 2017 Toni rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Listened to it on Audiobook. The way the names of the main chars were pronounced was really upsetting but the rest was really good. I loved that book

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May 26, 2018 Katha rated it liked it

I liked it but i don`t get the hype. ...more

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Sep 09, 2017 Pomello rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Finally started!
It definitely pays back all the expectations so far.

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About George R.R. Martin

George R.R. Martin

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George R.R. Martin was born September 20, 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey. His father was Raymond Collins Martin, a longshoreman, and his mother was Margaret Brady Martin. He has two sisters, Darleen Martin Lapinski and Janet Martin Patten.

Martin attended Mary Jane Donohoe School and Marist High School. He began writing very young, selling monster stories to other neighborhood children for pennies, George R.R. Martin was born September 20, 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey. His father was Raymond Collins Martin, a longshoreman, and his mother was Margaret Brady Martin. He has two sisters, Darleen Martin Lapinski and Janet Martin Patten.

Martin attended Mary Jane Donohoe School and Marist High School. He began writing very young, selling monster stories to other neighborhood children for pennies, dramatic readings included. Later he became a comic book fan and collector in high school, and began to write fiction for comic fanzines (amateur fan magazines). Martin's first professional sale was made in 1970 at age 21: "The Hero," sold to Galaxy, published in February, 1971 issue. Other sales followed.

In 1970 Martin received a B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, graduating summa cum laude. He went on to complete a M.S. in Journalism in 1971, also from Northwestern.

As a conscientious objector, Martin did alternative service 1972-1974 with VISTA, attached to Cook County Legal Assistance Foundation. He also directed chess tournaments for the Continental Chess Association from 1973-1976, and was a Journalism instructor at Clarke College, Dubuque, Iowa, from 1976-1978. He wrote part-time throughout the 1970s while working as a VISTA Volunteer, chess director, and teacher.

In 1975 he married Gale Burnick. They divorced in 1979, with no children. Martin became a full-time writer in 1979. He was writer-in-residence at Clarke College from 1978-79.

Moving on to Hollywood, Martin signed on as a story editor for Twilight Zone at CBS Television in 1986. In 1987 Martin became an Executive Story Consultant for Beauty and the Beast at CBS. In 1988 he became a Producer for Beauty and the Beast, then in 1989 moved up to Co-Supervising Producer. He was Executive Producer for Doorways, a pilot which he wrote for Columbia Pictures Television, which was filmed during 1992-93.

Martin's present home is Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (he was South-Central Regional Director 1977-1979, and Vice President 1996-1998), and of Writers' Guild of America, West.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/george... ...more