A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1) in A Song of Ice & Fire Fans

Apr 20, 2009 Meghan rated it it was amazing

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A militaristic fantasy novel. Unlike one that I had ever really read before. The writing is very impassive, slightly impersonal, sometimes (or all the time...) uncaring, but the story and plot move the book along at a good clip. Confusing as heck in the beginning, with all the lineages, you DO get a feel for it as it goes along. I liked the book being from different points of view, and thought it was handled well.

I don't much like how women are portrayed, with few few exceptions, in the book. B ...more

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Feb 17, 2009 Mark added it · review of another edition

A Game of Thrones is the first of seven projected novels in the Song of Fire and Ice series. After 14 years, only four volumes are published, but number five should be imminent. In the land where the series is set, seasons last years, and summer has lasted a decade, but winter is coming, and long summers mean long winters. The Seven Kingdoms of Westeros may not be so different from medieval England. There are castles and kings, horses and knights, but there are no wizards or magic...only ice zom A Game of Thrones is the first of seven projected novels in the Song of Fire and Ice series. After 14 years, only four volumes are published, but number five should be imminent. In the land where the series is set, seasons last years, and summer has lasted a decade, but winter is coming, and long summers mean long winters. The Seven Kingdoms of Westeros may not be so different from medieval England. There are castles and kings, horses and knights, but there are no wizards or magic...only ice zombies (my description, not the author's).

The novel starts with a vignette north of The Wall in the Haunted Forest. The only people who live north of the wall are Wildlings and The Others (or ice zombies, believed to be old fairy tales). It then stays away from anything supernatural for the next 500 pages. The reader is introduced to Eddard "Ned" Stark, Lord of Winterfell, and his family. Stark is offered the position of "Hand of the King" after the previous Hand (his wife's brother-in-law) dies, but he is reluctant to accept and move south, away from his ancestral lands. Reluctant, that is, until his wife receives a secret note from her sister claiming that the Hand was killed by the Queen's family, the Lannisters.

It's not long after this that something happens to Stark's second-oldest true-born son (he has a bastard son and a son with his wife who are about the same age). From this point onwards in the novel, things go pretty much downhill for the Stark family. I'd hate to give too much away, but this is a novel of deceit, greed, double-dealing, secrets, murder, and politics. As secrets are revealed and the politics play themselves out, the protagonists find themselves in positions from which recovery seems more and more impossible. The reader wonders how characters can possibly get out of their respective situations as things continue to escalate, not unlike watching a LOST season finale (see Season 4), or the dark cliffhanger of The Empire Strikes Back. By the time the reader realizes that the book is running out of pages to get characters out of their respective dilemmas, and assumes the author is setting up a cliffhanger situation, it unexpectedly gets even worse. Maybe we should be taking the author more seriously when one character says, "There are no heroes." What kind of ending is this pointing to six books later?

There are two interesting aspects to the storytelling that make this book different from what you might expect in epic fantasy. The first is quickly obvious to the new reader. Each chapter is devoted to a specific character and simply titled with that character's first name. Early on, most of the characters are in the same place, so the overlap of characters in the chapters of others is significant. The overall story as well as the story of each character progresses in each chapter. (Again, this structure is very similar to LOST.) Usually by the time we get back to that character again, time has passed and the action between chapters is inferred or described through dialogue. The structure works great overall, but can be a distraction as we get invested on one story only to then jump to one that is almost wholly (so far) unrelated.

The other element of the novel that stands out is that it is surprisingly personal and intimate. It's a little like watching television through binoculars (or the movie Signs: an alien invasion of the entire planet related only through the experiences of 4 people who never leave their farm). You're not going to get the whole story from what you can see, and it's clear that there's a lot going on off-stage, but you only get that information as other characters discover it second hand. Battles are heard through windows or from a safe distance away in the woods, unlike the intensely detailed descriptions of Tolkien, but the multiple cliffhangers by the time page 800 rolls around are not at all unlike Fellowship or Two Towers. ...more

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Jan 30, 2009 J.R. Tomlin rated it it was amazing

A dark, violent and gritty book and an sntidote to the rather cliche ridden fantasies of the past. However, with the death of major characters and a fair amount of sex and pretty graphically portrayed blood and guts, it's not for everyone. ...more

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Apr 15, 2010 Oscar rated it it was amazing

I found this book riveting from start to finish. It is set in an intriguing setting, with convincing characters, while being just complex enough to hold absolute focus without being overly difficult.

In my humble opinion, a must read!

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Feb 04, 2009 Ranskey rated it it was amazing

The greatest fantasy series that I have read. I have read lots of them. I consider only 3 of them truley great, and this series is the best of those 3.

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Oct 19, 2010 Lori Rumore rated it really liked it

Awesome! Very long, very involved, lots of characters with strange names, but it was really excellent. On to the second book, as I eagerly await the HBO series coming next year.

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