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

George R.R. Martin

Start date: January 23, 2012

Finish date: February 16, 2012

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Discussion leader: Shellbelle

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What Members Thought

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

Shelves: yearly-challenge, 100-books-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

100 likes · Like · see review

Apr 26, 2011 Lisa Kay rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: genre-fantasy, epic, reviewed-by-me, character-child-children-featured, authors-m, length-chunkster, amazing-secondary-characters, buddy-read, hbo-series, bom-nbrc

Warning: Don’t expect Donna Reed to show up in this one.

★★★★★ I loved it, I hated it, I couldn’t put it down, I vowed never to pick it up and read another chapter. Yeah. I went on an emotional roller-coaster ride with this fantasy Machiavellian soap-opera. It grabbed a hold of me and wouldn’t let go, even when I pleaded for mercy. I can’t image what those poor people, who don’t read, are doing while they wait for the next installment of this series to come out on HBO.

Then again, I may co ...more

84 likes · Like · see review

Jun 06, 2012 Barbara ★ rated it it was amazing

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

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

Sep 03, 2011 Thenia rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, series, reviewed, 2012

A heavy but captivating fantasy book, set in an elaborate and complex world with multiple layers and colorful characters.

We follow a number of different characters throughout the book and the multiple points of view were a bit frustrating at times, since naturally not all of them are equally likable.

A lot of key points of the story were known to me (damn spoilers...) but even so, the story was very enjoyable. I am looking forward to reading the next book, for which I'm happy to say I haven't re ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Jan 23, 2010 Charlotte (Buried in Books) rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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

Jul 09, 2011 Marie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: wnbc, t-fantasy, faves, own-read, bc-sff-read

An amazing beginning to an amazing series. Martin starts with one character and slowly introduces us to his family, his king, and his enemies. The cast of characters is large, but I never felt lost or overwhelmed. He keeps the language straightforward, so there was very little of that fantasy language frippery that tends to get in the way of the story.

I also loved that he gave the characters deep, compelling, and realistic motivations. This isn't your grandma's fantasy novel, where they must fi ...more

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Mar 15, 2010 Kate rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fill-in-the-gaps-project

This was a really good book and I look forward to see how the rest of the series goes. I am glad that I watched the first season of the show first because it helped me keep characters and events in order. There are so many characters that having watched the first season was really helpful. However, I do not plan on watching more until I have read more of the series.

The characters felt so real. And so sad. It always amazes me when author's are able to create such a complete world with a full hist ...more

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