The Future is a Trilogy; The Past is a Series

A Game of Thrones, etc. George R. R. Martin November 8, 2011

A Song of Ice and Fire series (the first five books: A Game of Thrones; A Clash of Kings; A Storm of Swords; A Feast for Crows; A Dance with Dragons) by George R. R. Martin. Also known as The Fantasy Series that Devoured My Life.

I’m not a big reader of fantasy, and I particularly avoid series. For one thing, series tend to go on and on and on. For another thing, they often lose focus and start to drift away from the things I’d enjoyed most in the first book or two. I hadn’t heard of this series until HBO broadcast their television series based on the first book. After the first couple of episodes I was hooked, so I got the first book from my local library and started reading in parallel with watching. This wasn’t the best idea, really, and I don’t recommend it. However, I still ended up hooked, and bought the first four books. When I’d read those, I bought the fifth and latest.

Overall I’ve enjoyed reading the series. The author has said he was inspired by the Wars of the Roses, and the world he has created for the books is very medieval in aspect and customs. It’s also very brutal, and not a great place to live if you happen to be a woman, or a soldier, or a knight, or a peasant. Or pretty much anyone else, actually. There hasn’t been a  lot of magic or fantasy in the story so far – those elements don’t come into play until relatively late in the series, and they are introduced very gradually.

The first book introduces us to Westeros, a continent consisting of seven kingdoms currently under one rule, and the mysterious area north of a great wall. The story follows several main characters and the third person viewpoint switches back and forth between them. It begins with Westeros in a state of fragile peace, and then things happen that make that peace fall apart. That sets in motion a long, long tale of war that encompasses not only Westeros itself but also the lands to the east across the Narrow Sea.

The “game of thrones” that the title of the first book refers to is the use of battles, manipulation, plotting, intrigue, marriages, alignments, deal-making and deal-breaking by several of the main characters to win the throne of Westeros and gain all of the power that goes with it. Much of the action (and sometimes inaction) of the books describe the moves and countermoves of the major players (some of whom we don’t know are major players until much later in the game). This happens against a backdrop of the mysterious threat from beyond the Wall that is now on the move, and the parallel and possibly related threat of the coming winter, which can be severe and can last for years.

I found the writing to be very strong, most of the characters to be well developed, and the story to be interesting. I found it hard to put the books down, even when the things that were happening were disturbing me, or boring me, or in some cases confusing me. As the series goes along there are more and more characters to keep track of, until it gets a bit overwhelming. There are large parts of the forth and fifth books that I found very slow. It’s like watching a huge game of chess (or maybe cyvasse, a strategy game played by characters in the books) – moments of big change and excitement surrounded by lots of the far-less-exciting movements of the pieces around the board. It’s also almost completely devoid of comic relief, and the endless descriptions of battling, raping and near raping, burning and pillaging, hanging and disfiguring, forced marrying involving very young women and children, torturing, and abusing were almost enough to make me give up. But I kept on, because I wanted to know what was going to happen in the end.

I did get very tired of the technique of making the point-of-view jump back and forth and sideways between characters on such a frequent basis. It started to be annoying after the third book or so. This was particularly bad in the case of the fourth book, where we mostly follow characters that seem far less important and are far less familiar (or entirely new) to us for an entire book, leaving us wondering what has happened to the major players we’ve been reading about until that point. It had the feel of being on a train that’s shunted off onto a side track while we passengers wonder where on earth we’re going. And then there is the whole other story about the threat from north of the Wall, which is being fed to us in painfully slow dribs and drabs, all the while giving us the feeling that nothing else may matter in the long run if the promised winter and it’s dangers arrives. I have a strong feeling that the series would have been better if it had been restricted to five books instead of the planned seven, with some of the minor characters and side plots edited out completely.

Of course, I still want to know how it’s all going to end. The author has been setting things up so that we, the readers, are left hoping for the one or two still decent-seeming characters to win out in the end.  I find myself hoping with unreasonable hope that the good guys are going to win, but if the first books are any indication there’s no guarantee of that. There’s also no guarantee that by the time the last two books are released I’ll still remember everything that’s happened so far. I hope it doesn’t take that long.

A few of good references:

A Song of Ice and Fire – Wikipedia

Westeros – a fan site with a lot of information, including a wiki

Winter is Coming – about the HBO tv series

George R. R. Martin’s web site (check out the links section to find some interesting interviews with the author)