So the book I am talking about is none other than George R. R. Martin's GAME OF THRONES. Just felt I needed the capitalised emphasis there.
It is just so happened that when reading this book, I was having my lovely DIREwolf duvet on my bed... Okay they are just wolves... but I found it cool...
So Game of Thrones... this is probably not going to be like more normal reviews... more of a ramble... I am in that sort of mood :P
I first experienced the world of the seven kingdoms a few years back on holiday on the IOW with Andrew. Flash back to 2014, with this view:
and fining the GOT seasons 1-3 box set in our cottage....
In the space of our week holiday, we had managed to binge watch the whole of series one and half way through series two, that and have a lovely holiday.
I loved watching the series so much that when we got back from holiday we ordered the box set, which sat around the house for a year and a half untouched, and treated myself to the entire box set of the books from The Works, (I managed to get the books pretty cheap as the works has really good deals ;) ). The books also went untouched, until now that is.
A few weeks ago, my hands gravitated towards the Game of Thrones and I was back in the world of Starks, Lannisters, Targaryens and more. I had a few worries about reading this books though:
1. Its a whooper of 780 pages. I have read large books before, but this was a different type of massive book to what I am used to and I thought this book would take me a while to plough through.
2. It was outside my normal reading comfort zone. I have read some fantasy books before, but mostly in the YA category. I don't have much experience with fantasy in terms of ASOIAF. I was scared that I would struggle to follow the storyline and the characters and I would find it hard going.
3. It has been very hyped. I was worried that it being overhyped would mean it wouldn't live up to my expectations.
Therefore I have a sense of pride saying that I have finished it because not only was I worried I wouldn't like it but I have found something else I love. And I did love it, I would rate this book a 4.5/5 stars. My worries I had at the start I felt immediately vanished, the book may have been enormous but I flew through it and was reading it any chance I could. I loved the characters and the world building. I have to say that Martin does an excellent job with world building and you end up being drawn into this original world.
Obviously I already had an idea of what happened in the first book, but I didn't always remember that until I read it again. Me and Andrew have actually started re-watching the first series along with me reading the book, and it was really interesting to be reflecting upon the book and TV Show as I was following the same parts at the same time. The TV show is mostly true to the first book, there are some small differences and the fact that HBO does feel the need to up the sex and gore a lot... But I think they did a good job of the first book. However, the only difficulty when reading and watching along at the same time is the section of the book devoted to Daenerys. This was because her part in the book, is only every hundred pages or so and only for a few pages. However, the TV series tended to include her a little bit in each episode. This just meant that I made sure I had read the next Daenerys part before watching the next episode ... just in case :P
So onto the book solely.
The book is separated into several different character perspectives: Eddard Stark, Catelyen Stark, Arya Stark, Bran Stark, Jon Snow, Tyrion Lannister, Sansa Stark, Daenerys Targaryen ... I think that is it... but I will need to check again :P
Each chapter is quite short before you go on to another POV, and this really helped increase the pace of the book as you were able to jump between short sections. I had a few favourite POV which mostly coincides with my favourite characters. I really love the female characters in this book, particularly Daenerys and Arya. I love how they are such strong characters and how they develop across the book. I enjoyed reading Sansa's POV, even though she frustrated me throughout the whole entire book! I Loved read Jon Snow's section and Tyrions. To be honest I enjoyed most of the POV's, sometimes I found Eddard or Catelyen's POV a little dull, but there were really important aspects to the book and were needed to keep the story going. I love the dire wolves and basically any of the animals and found the animal deaths more difficult to deal with than the human ones.
If you haven't already given these book a go I would say try it. It may surprise you! I am looking forward to reading the next book .... A Feast for Crows? Is that the next one? Anyway... I am not going to put it off as much as I did the first one! I hope to read it by the end of the year at least... but then I did just say it was November... so we shall see.
I am trying to not include spoilers, even though I know the internet is full of them. So to give an outline of the book for those people who don't know anything, or very a little about the first book/series:
Game of Thrones, is what it says on the tin, its about the politics and competing houses fighting over who should be on the iron throne. There are wars, deaths etc. But there is the added fantasy element, that you get a whiff off throughout the book with undead creatures, unusual animals and the other.
I don't really feel that does the books justice though, for that you would have to find out for yourselves :)
