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

Even for someone who has watched the HBO series, George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones is an engaging and enjoyable read! The strength of Martin’s writing shines through in these pages. Each chapter is well-crafted. You know exactly how to picture the setting and you feel the desires and discontent of each chapter’s (POV) character. Watching how Martin develops characters, with all their flaws, keeps the story going as much or more than the ‘game of thrones.’ If you’re looking for new information in the book; however, you’re not likely to discover much. Definitely nothing that one could really classify as a surprise.

In fact, it distracted me (for a while) that the two were so remarkably similar (scenes, dialogue, action all seemed to match). When there was a small conflict with the series, I found myself noting the difference. This often had to do with the age of the characters (they are younger in the book) or the description of a few of the characters such as Tyrion. In the end, however, I was swept up in this epic story! I liked the pace produced by the shifting perspectives. The one drawback to this approach (for me) came at the end. It somehow didn’t feel like I’d finished anything. The last chapter was a good one, but because there are so many perspectives and everything is still in motion, (despite the deaths) you don’t feel that anything has really ended. In fact this is true; the ending of book 1 is really just the beginning of Martin’s epic. 4.5 stars!

The book is as good as they say. But having seen the TV show prior to reading it, my suspicions were confirmed and the first book is just good enough, nothing spectacular. Same as with the first season of the TV show (that is very faithful to the book, you could even skip the book (at least this 1st one, I didn't read the others yet), see the 1st season and read the other books). That said, it is still very impressive what Goerge RR Martin has done. It's mostly not as epic as I expected, but is the first book, so it's an introduction and, in my experience, first books are always the worse in a series. But none (of the few) other fantasy books I read managed to accomplish what Martin did. So much happens in this book, so much more than practically any other book! And the writing is so full of details! You can see that Martin thought his world before writing (and during writing), and he has a way with words. Though I don't think I'm good at judging prose, but to me his descriptions were exaggerated in unnecessary parts and lacking when you talk about scenery and people (he prefers to describe foods and clothing and color-code characters (especially color-coded hairs)). I don't know if I would be able to visualize it all well, had I not before seen the HBO show. But it's not too detrimental. The pacing is surprisingly good, I could not believe that such a large book had the pace this had. It was a large manuscript, full of neverending verses, that read like a Dan Brown novel. The dialogue is awesome, the characters are multidimensional and very well-written. It's remarkable, really, that the characters in the book, even the most secondary, have the same depth as the ones on the TV show. Because on the TV show the producers don't have to deal with point of view and can show everything, but the book is tightly tied to points of view. So Martin showed he knew well what he wanted to accomplish and was relentless in achieving it. The best part, for me, was the court intrigue. He's too good at it! The political machinations are some of the best. He can't be too commended for the worldbuilding, because his world is too similar to our medieval society, but still different enough that he MUST be commended for it. So many details! Just a recommended reading all around.