A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1) in Building a SciFi/Fantasy Library

Jan 27, 2008 Tom rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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 ...more

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Feb 05, 2008 Dave Johnson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

UPDATE 06/11: I first read this book a couple of years ago, and at that time i really didnt like what i read. after hearing that there would be an HBO show about the first book, though i didnt love the book, i knew that the TV series would be good, since i liked the story of the book and didnt like the writing. and i did like the series. it's awesome. a couple of friends have read the whole series and they say that the series is incredible. so while i watched the episodes on TV, i started to rea UPDATE 06/11: I first read this book a couple of years ago, and at that time i really didnt like what i read. after hearing that there would be an HBO show about the first book, though i didnt love the book, i knew that the TV series would be good, since i liked the story of the book and didnt like the writing. and i did like the series. it's awesome. a couple of friends have read the whole series and they say that the series is incredible. so while i watched the episodes on TV, i started to reassess my opinions of the book, and started listening to the audiobook. and i found that i liked it more than i once did. its funny how opinions change. i'd forgotten how awesome the ending was. now i'm looking forward to reading the other books. but i still have a lot of negatives to say about this book. i STILL dont like Martin's writing style. to me, his style comes across as a little too fanfic, in my opinion. it sounds like a person writing their first novel. and much of this book should have been cut and edited better, i think. it's too long. i dont mind long books, but when a whole chapter revolves around a pointless conversation, then you know you need to cut some things. i found that i hated certain arcs and found them useless. maybe they arent useless in the scope of the whole series, but there are so many chapters and characters that could have been condensed. plus, i hate how needlessly verbose Martin can be sometimes--which adds to the length of the book. it's one thing to say "he snapped his fingers," and it's another thing to say "he pressed his middle finger and thumb together quickly, and hard, making a cracking sound, slicing through the air like the sound of an axe on a dragon's skull." now he never said that, but i can hear him saying that because Martin writes like that. some may say that it's descriptive and beautiful, but...he just wrote a whole dissertation about a dude snapping his fingers. only four words were necessary. i really want to give this a 3.5, but i did enjoy the book, despite the fact that it was too long and boring and many parts of the book. the movie, and indeed this book, made me excited for the series. now, onto book two. :) i hope he edits some. haha.

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okay, here's my thing. when an author writes a book, i read the book to believe that their ideas are real. whether it comes from great dialogue, intriguing plot twists, an emotional story, gritty characters, or gripping intrigue, i want to believe that what is written is real. sadly, there were so many holes in Martin's game that i just didn't believe him.

i read this because, a) i hadn't read a good genre fantasy book in a while, and b) a good friend highly recommended it. actually, he told me that he envied me, being able to read the series for the first time. so i started reading immediately.

first off, a wtf prologue. maybe it makes sense later in the series--who knows? second, it's slow. really slow. really, really slow. really, really, really slow. i forgave Martin the slow start, because i've read books in a series before, and i know how large stories have to be set up for a longer time in order to feel the effect of the story. but after 300 pages, it was still slow. in fact, it seemed that the story went through bits of pretty good parts (when you think the story is about to speed up) to really boring parts (and lots of 'em!).

third, i hate the dialogue. there was so much of it, too. boring and unneeded. did he really have to say "steel" every time he mentioned a sword?

fourth, the action seemed contrived to me. it seemed almost like he knew there were too many slow and boring parts of the book and he felt he needed to spice it up with action. and it seemed pretty cheesy. not to mention the deus ex machina. wow.

i will say that the last 150 pages were the best in the book. at that point, he finally was able to sling a few interesting threads back-to-back and it didnt seem as slow. i did like a few of the characters. i did like a few of his settings and ideas.

overall, it seemed almost YA to me. the dialogue was corny as crap, and the characters were mostly thin and two-dimensional. and i could really go on a rant about the "melted gold crown" scene. tell me again what the melting point of gold is? it surely couldn't be melted in a stew pot. and if he mentioned the title "game of thrones" any more, i swear i would've torched the book.

i was generous with three stars. from what i gather, the series gets better. but why couldn't it have been good to start with? this was okay. i can see why people like this series--especially after you read other fantasy. this is a different style. but still not great. ...more

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Feb 10, 2008 Kimmay rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club, fantasy, martin-george-r-r, favorites

I had heard such great things about this book, and i would have to say it truly is a very good book. At first, the style of changing of POV each chapter I thought might not flow well, because I have read other books that tries this and just didn't do well with it, BUT George Martin really did a great job with it. I lost a LOT of sleep this past week staying up way to late to read "just one more chapter" only to find i couldn't put the book down after 5 or 6 more chapters. I had the intention of ...more

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Nov 28, 2010 Andy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

It took me an awful long time to read this book. I started it the week before Halloween, 2010 and finished it at the end of January 2011. This wasn't because it was hard to slog through - but I was rather distracted (mostly reading comic books). I read about the first 250 pages during that week in October, while on a trip in Mexico. Then I read about another 150 pages over the next month and a half and then in past week I read the other 500 pages.

I feel bad for people who give this book less tha ...more

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Jul 16, 2011 Daniel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi-fantasy

There's something that can be wonderfully challenging about reading a book that has a cast of thousands. In some cases, it can be a pain when it's not handled well or when the characters start to resemble one another, but when done well, the reader can be brought in to the story. Kim Stanley Robinson does it well, and so, too, does George R.R. Martin.

It did take me just a little to get in to this, and sort out the characters, but once I made sense of who was whom and what family they served, the ...more

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Jun 19, 2008 William rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, series, read-in-2013

This was a long book! I enjoyed reading this. It is colorful and fully descriptive. The story is enhanced by love, violence, action, deceit, mystery, war, magic and all kinds of other good things! I am usually not all that fond of monster size books but that seems to be synonymous with the fantasy genre. I did start on the second tome as well.

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