I finished Game of Thrones last night, after a week of infatuation and marathon reading sessions squeezed into the normal schedule. Pretty incredible book, with a massive story line. This book takes on the gargantuan task of introducing you to the entire world in which the series will unfold. Hundreds of characters, dozens of cities and lands, and all the history and relationships that intertwine them. There is a tremendous amount of suspense, intrigue, gratuitous violence and sex, with a plot line that doesn't slow down and never lingers on one character for too long. Definitely not for the faint of heart, and be warned that the book does very little to champion the cause of women's rights.
During the last week I was purely caught up in the story. Now that I'm finished I'm reflecting on WHY it was such a great book. I think the power of the book is in the way it integrates so many universal truths and reflections on human nature into a rip-roaring action story.
What makes people happy? And what motivates people to do what they do? What is honor? What is right or wrong? These themes dominate the book and the hard choices the characters face throughout their (often quite short) lives. No matter how different daily life looks in this book vs. our own, Martin makes it easy to put ourselves in the characters' shoes and think hard about choices we'd make.
And did I mention the violence? After a few hundred pages you find yourself slowly numbing to it, understanding that hacked off limbs, throat slittings, and broken fingers seem to be everyday events. You read it and you stop thinking about the pain and mortality of it. And then after you stop reading for the day and find yourself encountering a drop of blood from a cut finger, the magnitude of the gore in the book really hits you. Anyway, I expect I'll be even more numbed to this through the rest of the series.
Read it.
During the last week I was purely caught up in the story. Now that I'm finished I'm reflecting on WHY it was such a great book. I think the power of the book is in the way it integrates so many universal truths and reflections on human nature into a rip-roaring action story.
What makes people happy? And what motivates people to do what they do? What is honor? What is right or wrong? These themes dominate the book and the hard choices the characters face throughout their (often quite short) lives. No matter how different daily life looks in this book vs. our own, Martin makes it easy to put ourselves in the characters' shoes and think hard about choices we'd make.
And did I mention the violence? After a few hundred pages you find yourself slowly numbing to it, understanding that hacked off limbs, throat slittings, and broken fingers seem to be everyday events. You read it and you stop thinking about the pain and mortality of it. And then after you stop reading for the day and find yourself encountering a drop of blood from a cut finger, the magnitude of the gore in the book really hits you. Anyway, I expect I'll be even more numbed to this through the rest of the series.
Read it.
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