A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1) in Crazy Challenge Connection

Apr 11, 2012 Melissa (ladybug) rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: 100-books-challenge, yearly-challenge, top-100-fantasy-books

I had originally given this book 2 stars, but while writing this review; I realized that while the book had kept my attention somewhat, I hated it.

Goodread's description of A Game of Thrones:

"In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes of the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom's protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a fa

I had originally given this book 2 stars, but while writing this review; I realized that while the book had kept my attention somewhat, I hated it.

Goodread's description of A Game of Thrones:

"In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes of the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom's protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty."

The Song of Ice and Fire series is suppose to be great. Most all my friends gave it high ratings (and many more). I was so looking forward to reading it, but it turned out to be a disappointment for me. I love high fantasy such as The Lord of the Rings and others and I really wanted to read this series for a challenge, but I don't know now if I will or not.

The book kept my attention through out reading it, and I wanted to find out what happened with some of the characters, but others were boring or just too unbelievable. I enjoyed each chapter being about a different POV and found myself skipping ahead so that I could read about one particular character than coming back to the beginning of the book.

Although I like fiction and/or science fiction that contain the evils of society (rape, evil, betrayal, murder, or horror, etc...) such as The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, horror books such as The Tommyknockers, suspense such as Odd Thomas or Dean Koontz's Frankenstein series, or The Lord of the Rings and non-fiction books (I believe) like the Holy Bible, I just could not bring myself to like this book. There just didn't seem to be any redeeming qualities to some characters and Martin had no rhyme or reason for killing off who he did. Some scenes were even sickening to me. (view spoiler) Another problem for me, in this book, is (apparently) Martin's fetish like fascination with women's body parts, rape, sexual abuse of ALL kinds, incest and bigotry. Now, granted these may not be Martin's idea of good things, but he sure describes them in excruciatingly detail. He sure didn’t want you to miss what women’s breasts are called or other body parts.

Finally George R.R. Martin in an interview on program Q (from Canada), stated that his intention was:

"to take epic fantasy, which I love, and combine it with some of the gritty realism and ambiguous morality of, I think, the best historical fiction, with layers of complexity, and real human characters, sexuality, violence, all of that good stuff." (emphases my own)

The Q fill-in host, Brent Bambury, "suggested that Martin might indeed outstrip (J.R.R. Tolkien). Bambury repeated the claim of Time magazine, that Martin is the American Tolkien. But made it even more provocative: “Many feel it’s an accurate comparison. Others say no, it’s not accurate, because he (Martin's) better. Though Martin went on to spend a good deal of time recalling his reading of The Lord of the Rings as a young man, maintaining that "the books had a profound effect on me," he did not demur. (Quotes from http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/v...)

I really do not think I like the authors idea that this is a realistic view of society. To tell the truth, he even caused me to feel biased against him by basically saying that his book was on the par with or even better than J.R.R. Tolkien's books.

As a friend on Goodreads noted about me: my problems maybe because of the "vast difference between glorying in violence... and using it as a device".

This explains it perfectly!

One last question to consider. A commenter (Mary) of the previous mentioned article had this to say: "Do you want your fantasy to inspire you, or to drag you down into the dirt with it?... From LOTR to Narnia to Star Trek, all of these worlds provided me with a sense of hope. [me too]... [after reading 3 of the books in the series; she said that she] was left feeling disgusted with humanity (men in particular). There may be more cruel people in the world today, but that's not a reality that I'm willing to accept as unchangeable."

I personally want my fantasy to inspire me in the end ...more

101 likes · Like · see review

Sep 12, 2010 ilovebakedgoods (Teresa) rated it it was ok

Shelves: road-trip, series, women, suspense, crime, fantasy, mystery, romance, sisters, family

I liked it but didn't love it. I found myself really bored with some points-of-view story lines and more drawn to others. I've seen the first couple of seasons of the show so I pretty much knew what was going to happen. It seems that the first season is fairly close to the book and if there were differences, they must not have been too severe for me to notice. Anyway, this review is about the book. I found it to be a bit too long, sometimes too wordy, far too many characters and histories, but I ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Nov 09, 2013 Krysta rated it really liked it

Shelves: audio-books

Please read my full review at Born a Booklover.

Rating: 4/5 Stars

I found myself thoroughly enjoying the novel, but I am having a very difficult time in pinpointing exactly why.

I will start by saying that the audiobook was a little difficult to follow at times, because there are so many characters, and sometimes the timeline swerves off onto little tangents. More than once, I would have to back up and listen to a section again because I got confused. Additionally, while Roy Dotrice has a fantastic ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Jun 06, 2012 Barbara ★ rated it it was amazing

Shelves: paranormal-dragons, fantasy, medieval, read-2012

I put this book off since it wasn't really a genre that I enjoy...or so I thought. It wasn't until my brother started regaling me with snippets and handed me the first 4 books that I decided to read it. Unfortunately I made the mistake of listening to this on audio instead of actually reading it. There are tons of characters and houses and it's difficult to keep track when you cannot "see" it. The narrator did a bad job of giving each character a separate voice as well which made it doubly hard. ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Jul 12, 2011 Rebecca rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009-2015-reads, kindle-reads, fantasy, series-reads

HBO's TV series for these books is what drew me in and made me want to read them. Fantasy novels aren't usually my favorite genre. A Game of Thrones was more enjoyable because it blended a medieval setting with the fantasy. I found a lot of the plot changes, even subtle ones, that HBO made with the TV series to be quite odd. The book was definitely superior for character building. Some of the characters got on my nerves, some I couldn't wait for their chapter to pop up again. I've read complaint ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Apr 06, 2011 Suzanne rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-i-own, august-2011-rrrc-pick-if-for-me, library-overdrive-e-book, library-overdrive-audiobook, bookworm-bitches-catch-up-challenge, tower-teams-read-2014, read-in-2015, top-50-fantasy-books-on-gr-2017, scifi-and-fantasy-club-bookshelf, top-50-fantasy-books-on-gr-2018

I tried reading this book before the TV show started and I was completely lost. Once I saw the show and could keep the characters straight, I really got into this book!

1 like · Like · see review

Jan 08, 2012 Melissa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: comes-highly-recommended, read-2016, mbl-hardback, series, i-would-read-again-and-again, fav-series, kindle-books, fantasy, read-2012, movie-tie-in

Still 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Each time I read this I get more out of it! Just an all-around fantastic novel!

***Update 6/7/2016***

5 Stars! I loved this book so much more the second time around. I picked up on many little details that I missed the first time; things that are not in the HBO series. Having watched the HBO series helped with my peeve below (too many characters). I highly recommend this book if you want a richer/deeper understanding of the HBO series.

I'll say this again...not normally the type ...more

Like · see review

Dec 08, 2013 Marisa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy

This is a fabulous fantasy novel. There are kings, and queens and villains and things beyond the wall that no one wants to know about. The novel was very fast paced. I could hardly put it down. It is very long, but very worth it. I can not wait to read the second book in the series.

Like · see review