The Boring Games.

Like the previous series, this too was referred by a friend. Not being such a big fan of young adult anymore, I still decided to give them a read, since he couldn't stop talking about how epic the movie would be. I am completely lost as to why people even think it's a good novel. 

Let's start with the concept first, if you are an avid reader or even an avid movie watcher, I'm sure you would have heard of "Battle Royale", it's a Japanese graphic novel(manga). All though Collins maintains that she hasn't even heard of the book, I can't help to think that it's just a baldfaced ripoff of the manga. Who hasn’t heard of a fight to the death? The idea is entirely overused, so unless the author can breathe life into such an antiquated concept, it’s an idea best left alone. Suffice it to say, Collins’ take was completely uninspired and unoriginal. 

The book is written in present tense, which many writers opt out of, but that's probably one of the good things about the book, it helps with the world-building of post-apocalyptic North America throughout the book. All though I just wanted to stop reading it after I had just finished 40-50 pages, I somehow managed to painfully finish the first novel and reach a conclusion that, Katniss(the main protagonist) is just a dumb idiot. There is nothing out of the ordinary in her character and she fails to see most of the plain and blatant things, which according to her hunting prowess in the game, she should be able to. Collins fills Katniss up with all the stereotypical qualities of every female heroine ever and tries to make it work, but sadly it hardly creates a spark. 

The story and the world are really engaging and its what holds the book together until Collins decides at the end  that she would make it a trilogy and bore us even more. The ending is built up very nicely and and all I expected was that Katniss would commit suicide with Peeta, although again unoriginal(read Romeo and Juliet) but it would have made for a big explosive ending leaving the readers with so many open ended questions to answer with their imagination, but unfortunately Collins has this master plan of making them political targets and in the sequels she utterly disappoints and they are not worth a read at all. 

All though The Hunger games wasn't a waste of time, the world building and sticking to a pretty tight story, helped finish the book for me. But calling it awesome, excellent and brilliant is just ludicrous. The only reason I might like Katniss more, is because she can rock a fire suit and probably beats Bella at everything, yes I mean even at being miserable and pathetic. All in all, read the first installation of the series, but the other two are just a waste of time. These are just my opinions and I'd like to know what you all think about the books too and why you think so? 

HumtY-

A Song of Bulls and Shits.

Ok, so, I started the series on the recommendation of a friend, and I'm disappointed so far, having finished book number three. Said friend made the rather grand claim that George R. R. Martin was the new Tolkein, and since we share many similar tastes in books I decided to give them a read. Problem is, I've now finished what my friend says was the last of the really good books, and I can't even begin to see what it was he was talking about.


Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the books. There are two characters I actually give a fuck about (Arya and Jon), and a number of characters that I find intriguing, even if I don't really worry about what might happen to them (Tyrion, Daenerys, and Stannis). I like low-magic fantasy settings, and Westeros is certainly a good fantasy setting by my standards. The books have managed to keep me interested enough to finish them, so they're not complete wastes of time. My problem is that at best this series has managed to fall somewhere towards the "mediocre" pile. See, the series so far has three big strengths,  A big cast of unique and varied characters, a bit of political deviousness, and a good setting. Unfortunately, it fails to excel in any of these areas.


In terms of characters, there are some interesting ones lying around in the series. Unfortunately, they seem to be wasted a lot of the time. I was looking forward to seeing how Robb handled Roose Bolton and kept him loyal, and how their relationship developed. The lord of the Dreadfort was interesting when he was, to put it in simple terms, an evil character working for the good guys. I was hoping that a character as interesting as he would end up doing something a little more original than simply backstabbing the good guys. Aside from him, a lot of the rest of the cast is just outright annoying. Bran, Theon, Catelyn, I can hardly stand the chapters from their point of view. When Catelyn was killed, it was the single most pleasing moment for me in the entire series so far. Then the ending of A Storm of Swords ruined that. At least she can't speak anymore.


Then there's the supposed political intrigue. Except, when it all comes down to it, it isn't very intriguing. Basically, everything can be summed up as "Littlefinger did it", and political intrigue just isn't fun when, first, the main characters are all completely unable to keep up with the guy pulling their strings, and second, when the political stuff just gives way to open war. See, Daughter of the Empire by Raymond E. Feist (and for the record, I don't even like Raymond E. Feist's books) made for better political intrigue, because there the characters had a framework of rules and traditions to clamber around in, with a main character that was actually good at it. In A Song of Ice and Fire, the first inclination of every character seems to be to raise an army and go to war. It's like watching Alexander the Great with the Tsortean Knot. There's no point to it if no one's going to bother playing by the rules.


Speaking of those battles, the fact that nearly every battle either happens off-screen  or is largely glossed over gets on my nerves, especially when the sex scenes are described in such vivid detail. I mean, more detail on Daenerys's attack on Meeren (as a blow-by-blow account, instead of a flashback) would have been a lot more interesting to read about then details like how Cersei was on her period when she and Jaime reunited over the corpse of their dead son. Honestly that one scene was nearly enough to make me stop reading. I did not need a blow-by-blow account of their incest, but I would not have minded a bit more information on one of the various battles. Robb was supposed to be this genius in the field, but you never see him in action and he always comes across as thoroughly incompetent when he isn't fighting. Since all you actually see of him is him being incompetent, it's hard to feel sad when he's then killed as a consequence of being unable to manage without his mother.


As I mentioned before, the setting is the best part of the series. It's still hardly the best setting I've ever read though, and it's honestly being increasingly ruined by the rising presence of some great evil coupled with the growing presence of magic. If I want a grand and epic war against the forces of darkness, I'll read The Wheel of Time (which I tried, and come to think of it, that series has better political intrigue than A Game of Thrones as well, from my point of view). It seems as if it's trading in everything that made it unique and interesting to begin with an attempt to become a poor imitation of books that have already done this stuff better.Nobody can fault a fantasy series too much for wanting to have a grand confrontation with a malevolent evil, but I was honestly hoping for something more from what my friend had described.


On an unrelated note, I really enjoyed the TV series, quite a bit more than the books, but I think most of that was because Sean Bean is awesome. Again, the books aren't bad, but they're a far from amazing, and certainly not the new Lord of the Rings. So, with that in mind, I was curious. What do other people think of the series? Enjoyment of books is thoroughly subjective, but I would like to know what people see in them all the same.

Explorer.

The air was hot,
Her fingers wet,
from her vulnerability of desire,
Blessed was this moment
of unbearable satisfaction.

As she imagined to herself,
Stay still he grumbled,
As she flinched, ticklish,
His hands mapping out the small feminine body,
That had become his world,
And his preferred place of worship.

Smooth planes, gentle yet well endowed hills,
With their accompanying valleys distracted,
Making for such pleasant and scenic travels.
Lost on silk roads that shivered,
Under inquisitive fingertips.

He had always dreamt of being an explorer,
A new world to explore, he had at his disposal.

HumtY.