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

by George R.R. Martin

Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.

“I don’t want to marry you,” Sansa wailed. “You chopped off my father’s head!” “He was a traitor. I never promised to spare him, only that I’d be merciful, and I was. If he hadn’t been your father, I would have had him torn or flayed, but I gave him a clean death.” Sansa stared at him, seeing him for the first time. He was wearing a padded crimson doublet patterned with lions and a cloth-of-gold cape with a high collar that framed his face. She wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome. His lips were as soft and red as the worms you found after a rain, and his eyes were vain and cruel. “I hate you,” she whispered. King Joffrey’s face hardened. “My mother tells me that it isn’t fitting that a king should strike his wife. Ser Meryn.” The knight was on her before she could think, yanking back her hand as she tried to shield her face and back-handing her across the ear with a gloved fist. Sansa did not remember falling, yet the next she knew she was sprawled on one knee amongst the rushes. Her head was ringing. Ser Meryn Trant stood over her, with blood on the knuckles of his white silk glove.

Somehow this is worse than when Trant hit her in the show because he smacks her so hard she falls to the floor, so gross

A thief was brought before him and he had Ser Ilyn chop his hand off, right there in court. Two knights came to him with a dispute about some land, and he decreed that they should duel for it on the morrow. “To the death,” he added. A woman fell to her knees to plead for the head of a man executed as a traitor. She had loved him, she said, and she wanted to see him decently buried. “If you loved a traitor, you must be a traitor too,” Joffrey said. Two gold cloaks dragged her off to the dungeons.

Terrible. It would have been insane for the show to have these scenes because there was a lack of Joffrey interacting with the small folk

“Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small, leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years.”

Holy shit. Years is crazy

What sort of counsel are they giving Joffrey when he lurches from one folly to the next? Whose notion was it to make this Janos Slynt a lord? The man’s father was a butcher, and they grant him Harrenhal. Harrenhal, that was the seat of kings! Not that he will ever set foot inside it, if I have a say. I am told he took a bloody spear for his sigil. A bloody cleaver would have been my choice.” His father had not raised his voice, yet Tyrion could see the anger in the gold of his eyes. “And dismissing Selmy, where was the sense in that? Yes, the man was old, but the name of Barristan the Bold still has meaning in the realm. He lent honor to any man he served. Can anyone say the same of the Hound? You feed your dog bones under the table, you do not seat him beside you on the high bench.” He pointed a finger at Tyrion’s face. “If Cersei cannot curb the boy, you must. And if these councillors are playing us false …”

I wish we had gotten this early view in Tywin’s thoughts on how stupid dismissing Selmy was because he really is one of the more powerful and influential characters that got so unjustly dismissed

The gift of a sword, even a sword as fine as Longclaw, did not make him a Mormont. Nor was he Aemon Targaryen.

Funnyyyy

“I will not sit here meekly and wait for the snows and the ice winds. We must know what is happening. This time the Night’s Watch will ride in force, against the King-beyond-the-Wall, the Others, and anything else that may be out there. I mean to command them myself.” He pointed his dagger at Jon’s chest. “By custom, the Lord Commander’s steward is his squire as well … but I do not care to wake every dawn wondering if you’ve run off again. So I will have an answer from you, Lord Snow, and I will have it now. Are you a brother of the Night’s Watch … or only a bastard boy who wants to play at war?” Jon Snow straightened himself and took a long deep breath. Forgive me, Father. Robb, Arya, Bran … forgive me, I cannot help you. He has the truth of it. This is my place. “I am … yours, my lord. Your man. I swear it. I will not run again.” The Old Bear snorted. “Good. Now go put on your sword.”

And so Jon’s journey officially begins

“MY LORDS!” he shouted, his voice booming off the rafters. “Here is what I say to these two kings!” He spat. “Renly Baratheon is nothing to me, nor Stannis neither. Why should they rule over me and mine, from some flowery seat in Highgarden or Dorne? What do they know of the Wall or the wolfswood or the barrows of the First Men? Even their gods are wrong. The Others take the Lannisters too, I’ve had a bellyful of them.” He reached back over his shoulder and drew his immense two-handed great sword. “Why shouldn’t we rule ourselves again? It was the dragons we married, and the dragons are all dead!” He pointed at Robb with the blade. “There sits the only king I mean to bow my knee to, m’lords,” he thundered. “The King in the North!” And he knelt, and laid his sword at her son’s feet. “I’ll have peace on those terms,” Lord Karstark said. “They can keep their red castle and their iron chair as well.” He eased his longsword from its scabbard. “The King in the North!” he said, kneeling beside the Greatjon. Maege Mormont stood. “The King of Winter!” she declared, and laid her spiked mace beside the swords. And the river lords were rising too, Blackwood and Bracken and Mallister, houses who had never been ruled from Winterfell, yet Catelyn watched them rise and draw their blades, bending their knees and shouting the old words that had not been heard in the realm for more than three hundred years, since Aegon the Dragon had come to make the Seven Kingdoms one … yet now were heard a...

THE KING IN THE NORTH!!!

As Daenerys Targaryen rose to her feet, her black hissed, pale smoke venting from its mouth and nostrils. The other two pulled away from her breasts and added their voices to the call, translucent wings unfolding and stirring the air, and for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons.

George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy saga A Song of Ice and Fire begins with A GAME OF THRONES and continues in A CLASH OF KINGS

A Game of Thrones is one of the best fantasy art I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing and that’s saying something because I feel like I’ve watched, read and enjoyed a lot of fantasy. The fact that I got into ASOIAF only last year seems so wrong to me. Because after watching the first season and literally while binging the show, it feels like I should’ve been watched this. The world, the characters, the stakes and twists—all of it is so engaging and I can’t help but love it so much. The best thing I ever decided was reading the books though, because they’re so much better than the show, it’s almost unreal. The extra scenes like Tywin’s introduction are great but this first book is really amazing. Seriously. Though this is really just the start of the madness—Ned’s death, Robert’s death, Bran getting pushed out the window, Robb marching south, Tyrion getting captured—this is just the first book of the series and already it has so many iconic moments. Furthermore, most of these iconic moments don’t even come from any action sequences. There’s not many fights in this book at all, it’s mostly dialogue and political intrigue and character building. Which really works in the reader’s favor because one day, you’re loving and enjoying what’s happening in one chapter then another comes around and something bad might happen so you’re like oh shit. Now you’re doubly engaged. I think it goes without saying that the Eddard chapters were the best part of the first and middle half of the book because there would be times where he will have an amazing scene but then it gets interrupted by either Catelyn or Sansa or Dany or Jon and I’d be like well I wanna go back to King’s Landing. But then, you don’t have to wait long because another Eddard chapter is placed right after that one. Aside from him, Robb and Catelyn were really compelling near the end and I also can’t help but adore the way Tyrion and Jon are here. There’s not much difference (yet) between the show and book counterparts aside from the obvious but I love how easily this narrative pulls you in. You get so many more quiet moments to spend with characters so you actually get attached to them. It’s great. Having said all that, I believe I’ve made my opinion on this book clear and I can’t wait to read the second one and continue this series. - 10/10!