Monday - July 04, 2011

One Down, Four To Go

I finished off George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones, the first book in the 4, soon to be 5, book series A Song of Ice and Fire. Knights and swords, intrigue, murder, and battle. A little challenging because there are just so many different characters to meet, and they don’t sit still to tell you their biographies. By the end of the first book half the cast has been killed off in one way or another, because the real story is the passing of rule from one generation to the next. Very Medieval, quite violent, but there’s some underlying sci-fi, dark horror, and magic that has just barely begun to show up. Very engaging novel. I could hardly put it down and found excuses to steal away for an hour here and there to read. Took me a week and a half, but I’m ready for the next one. So far it’s refreshingly down to earth fantasy sci-fi; there are no magic swords, talking dragons, fairies, elves, godlings, spotty little twee wizards or any of that crap that made me put this genre away for two decades. No council of senior all-knowing lesbians who stop the world for the dance. Gak. There is minor reference to a previous Age of Heroes, but none of that Silmarillion business, or several made up languages you have to decipher a word at a time. Nor are there endless boring pages of insight, back story, and the musings inside the character’s minds. They think, they speak, they act and interact; it’s fairly fast paced without being nothing but action. Lots of palace intrigue and political maneuvering. In other words it’s the right mix for a book to keep your interest, neither boring you to tears with academic twaddle nor exhausting you with non-stop cinematic blasts.

There will be dragons. Eventually. Three of them. They won’t be pets. There will be more evil Zombies. There will be a Gathering Darkness and a Great Enemy. Winter is coming.

I’m reminded of Robert Silverberg’s series A Book of Swords from 20+ years ago, but this is better. More action, better dialog, less magic so far. Better sword fights. It’s a good big read.

This one was the “little” book, only 800 pages. The next book in the series is a bit over 1000 pages, the one after that 1100 and some. The 4th book is equally long, and the 5th one promises to be a bit over 1000 pages as well. Call it an epic fantasy of epic length; I’d guess about 5300 pages and 3 million words when all is read and done. And that means at least a month of good reading to the avid reader.

OTOH, by the end of all of this, I’ll probably need another decade break from Sword & Fate novels.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/04/2011 at 08:10 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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