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.
Blasphemer! Martin is awesome and here's why:
ReplyDelete1. You never know which one of your favorite character is gonna get hacked off. Tolkien was kinda strawberry in this respect. No major favorite character died. So while reading LOTR, you're like:" Yeah Frodo cant die...he is the good guy. I just wanna know HOW he destroys the ring".
Whereas in Martin's case, you're like "Eddard Stark is...NOOOOOOO!!!" So when a particular chapter is put forth around a character, say Jon, you DONT KNOW IF JON WILL SURVIVE THE CHAPTER!! Which is very thrilling.
2. Did you not read about the three friggin dragons??!!
3. Tyrion is downright the most witty character I have ever seen created in a fiction novel! If you don't care about his story then you surely havent been paying attention to his wit.
4. I have to admit, yes, Catelyn and Sansa's chapters were a major bore. Catelyn's chapter were just boring and yes Martin did fall below expectations there. But Sansa's chapters are not so much boring as annoying. "How the hell can a character be so pathetic and useless?" Now that my friend is a strong emotion. If Martin is able to evoke that in me it means he is a good author.
5. The way any character's growth is shown is very realistic and intriguing. It's not like 3 dragons are born, whoosh whoosh, job done. The dragons, Bran, Arya all of their growths are described very well. It's interesting to know the history behind an imba character.
Martin isn't THE BEST...of course not. He is different from JRRT too. But he is the best fantasy novelist we have TODAY. (Go read Hunger Games and you'll know why)
I'm sorry to say but none of the characters other than Arya and Jon didn't seem to invoke any sort of interest in me, Tyrion being an exception because of his wit. But other than that, there is nothing intriguing in the whole series, in any aspect. You don't want to know why Sansa is so pathetic and useles, Eddard Stark was a character again uselessly killed and achieved nothing except the feelings of the so called readers. Look at the whole story, all the books together. There are so many characters wasted who are capable of so much more yet Martin fails to excel in any of such matters. What's the big political play involved in all the books? It's a very medicore series and sadly to say, if he is the only good fantasy writers left, then all of us fantasy readers are doomed, we have become used to such medicore and average stories which revolve around detailed sex scenes while wars going on behind the stage. I don't want to know how The great Khal fucks his wife, more so about Cersi and Jamie's sexy sex or how Jon Snow fingers, eats or fucks someone. It's kind of sad that he spends so much of his writing describing sex in the books, when he could have excelled at the political front or the war front. Unfortunately he doesn't. Everybody knows Sex and Shahrukh Khan sell. Everybody. But this is only my opinion.
ReplyDeleteYeah I guess his repeated description of sex in greater detail is somewhat overkill.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do trust in Martin so I do expect some imba shit out of Sansa. I expect her to become like that kickass female from Assassin's creed...Countessa 'Something'...cant recall.
I suppose one needs more patience to be able to enjoy Martin's novel. e.g. when i was reading the first book...I was quite bored. Although one reason for my boredom was that I was not used to his style of writing it was also because, since it was the first book, most of the time the book was setting up the plot for some epic shit that would transpire in the later books. (Although when the dragons are born the book took the cake and i was hooked real bad thereafter). So yeah...his pace/style of narration is not suited for all.
And DUDE! Stark's death was of great significance. He was the like Archduke Franz Ferdinand whose death started the WW I. Here too, everything was peaceful until Ned's death. After his death shit just hits the roof.
Yea. I can see how an audience can like the books, but to compare or much rather even speak of this series as excellent is beyond me. The political games, wars, everything, are very mediocre, you don't really feel interested after a while because it's just 1 man pulling the strings and nobody is even half way towards competing or devising an equally ingenious plan. But like I said, the books, they weren't a waste of time.
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