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xeni 's review for:
A Game of Thrones
by George R.R. Martin
While reading this book (read at a supposed 5 chapters per week, but in reality was a lot more erratic than that) I was annoyed with it most of the time. The fact that I could still rate it four stars at the end was a surprise to me too!
I really loathe the prevailing darkness, despair and death that hang over this novel. I often pointed out in discussions that someone (I threatened to do it myself) should read the novel and make a list of all the people that are killed, slaughtered, tortured, and just plain die (although I can't remember anyone dying from natural causes...). Aside from the actual loss of human life, there is just a deep sense of wrongness in the mentality of just about everyone in the kingdoms. Everyone always thinks the worst of those that surround them (and the few who don't, under the false pretense of HONOR, tend to see the worst in themselves continuously) and then they act and react accordingly. Sadly, this seems to already be acceptable in children (one boy ruler loves "making people fly" i.e. dropping them from his mountain fortress; sisters are allowed to get away with lying, royal children with absolute perversion of the truth) which is probably the reason why there are so many corrupt adults. There are really no mature characters where I can say "wow, now that is a role model!", except for one: Dany. She is the only character that really grows into her own; she forges a new path from almost the beginning of the book, where all the other characers remained fixed in their roles (due to fear, honor, duty, name your excuse, it's there) and that's really the second thing that I really loathe about this book. There was so much character potential, and it seems Martin only really used that for Dany. (Perhaps subsequent novels in the series are more developed in this regard, but as the first-of-a-series this shouldn't have been suh a huge problem here.)
There are a lot of characters that are easy to hate and those that are easy to love. For instance, just about every reader will love Arya, but I felt there could have been more to her. Cersei is an evil witch queen, but as mother's go I really think that Catelyn took the award for worst-mother (and yes, I think she's worse than her sister). Ned annoyed me because all he could focus on was his idea of "honor", but could not even honor his bastard son enough to tell him of his mother. I can continue on in this vein, but it's boring me.
The plot was little better, I thought. It was pretty predictable in it's armaggedon-style, doomsday-approach. Civil war was inevitable from page one, but I feel it was rather interesting to see how it came about. My most favorite character line was the Dothraki happenings, and less the Seven Kingdoms, and defnitely not the Wall.
Martin's writing style was interesting. I think it was seven to ten main characters who took turns telling the story from their points of view. It didn't bother me at all, in fact, I quite enjoyed the shifting perspectives (although sometimes I was enjoying a section quite a lot and then it ended!) Otherwise, I think he did a good job bringing out the different personalities and making the reader believe in them.
I'm not quite so sure that I can believe in his world build-up, though. It's supposed to be fantasy, but other than a few hints and ancient stories there really isn't much that I would call 'magic'. Martin did a much better job of taking feudal Europe and super imposing that on his world. On that note, I think the part that bothered me most (the blood thirstiness of just about everyone; it's somewhat surprising that there were even any people left to kill at the beginning of the story) is probably the aspect that is most in sync with how history actually went down. If you consider that British knights travelled all the freakin way to Jerusalem on a religioius pretense to slaughter people, I guess that time period in history was just rife with savages dressed up as civilians.
Perhaps if I had realized the "true history" aspect while reading this book I could have accepted it more readily, but generally I loathe the bloody-mindedneas of that time period anyway, so maybe not. The thing that redemed this book for me was the very end. I won't spoil it here, but I will say that it boosted the book from two to four stars. A very excellent ending with just enough cliffhanger to want to read the next in the series, but not enough to be annoying.
Other than that, I can't say that I learned much from the book. Perhaps to "stick [my enemies] with the pointy end", but nothing really concrete!
I really loathe the prevailing darkness, despair and death that hang over this novel. I often pointed out in discussions that someone (I threatened to do it myself) should read the novel and make a list of all the people that are killed, slaughtered, tortured, and just plain die (although I can't remember anyone dying from natural causes...). Aside from the actual loss of human life, there is just a deep sense of wrongness in the mentality of just about everyone in the kingdoms. Everyone always thinks the worst of those that surround them (and the few who don't, under the false pretense of HONOR, tend to see the worst in themselves continuously) and then they act and react accordingly. Sadly, this seems to already be acceptable in children (one boy ruler loves "making people fly" i.e. dropping them from his mountain fortress; sisters are allowed to get away with lying, royal children with absolute perversion of the truth) which is probably the reason why there are so many corrupt adults. There are really no mature characters where I can say "wow, now that is a role model!", except for one: Dany. She is the only character that really grows into her own; she forges a new path from almost the beginning of the book, where all the other characers remained fixed in their roles (due to fear, honor, duty, name your excuse, it's there) and that's really the second thing that I really loathe about this book. There was so much character potential, and it seems Martin only really used that for Dany. (Perhaps subsequent novels in the series are more developed in this regard, but as the first-of-a-series this shouldn't have been suh a huge problem here.)
There are a lot of characters that are easy to hate and those that are easy to love. For instance, just about every reader will love Arya, but I felt there could have been more to her. Cersei is an evil witch queen, but as mother's go I really think that Catelyn took the award for worst-mother (and yes, I think she's worse than her sister). Ned annoyed me because all he could focus on was his idea of "honor", but could not even honor his bastard son enough to tell him of his mother. I can continue on in this vein, but it's boring me.
The plot was little better, I thought. It was pretty predictable in it's armaggedon-style, doomsday-approach. Civil war was inevitable from page one, but I feel it was rather interesting to see how it came about. My most favorite character line was the Dothraki happenings, and less the Seven Kingdoms, and defnitely not the Wall.
Martin's writing style was interesting. I think it was seven to ten main characters who took turns telling the story from their points of view. It didn't bother me at all, in fact, I quite enjoyed the shifting perspectives (although sometimes I was enjoying a section quite a lot and then it ended!) Otherwise, I think he did a good job bringing out the different personalities and making the reader believe in them.
I'm not quite so sure that I can believe in his world build-up, though. It's supposed to be fantasy, but other than a few hints and ancient stories there really isn't much that I would call 'magic'. Martin did a much better job of taking feudal Europe and super imposing that on his world. On that note, I think the part that bothered me most (the blood thirstiness of just about everyone; it's somewhat surprising that there were even any people left to kill at the beginning of the story) is probably the aspect that is most in sync with how history actually went down. If you consider that British knights travelled all the freakin way to Jerusalem on a religioius pretense to slaughter people, I guess that time period in history was just rife with savages dressed up as civilians.
Perhaps if I had realized the "true history" aspect while reading this book I could have accepted it more readily, but generally I loathe the bloody-mindedneas of that time period anyway, so maybe not. The thing that redemed this book for me was the very end. I won't spoil it here, but I will say that it boosted the book from two to four stars. A very excellent ending with just enough cliffhanger to want to read the next in the series, but not enough to be annoying.
Other than that, I can't say that I learned much from the book. Perhaps to "stick [my enemies] with the pointy end", but nothing really concrete!