...
Show More
Reviewer's disclaimer: As I write this, I've had two cocktails and three beers in the past three hours. So, while this will not be strictly a Drunk Review, it will definitely be a Tipsy Review. To the extent that I've had to re-type "review" twice because I can't seem to spell it right. Viewer discretion is advised.
My first exposure to this fantasy series was in high school. I was chatting with a friend about books when she said, "Have you read the Song of Ice and Fire series? It's amazing." I had never heard of it and asked for more details. What followed was a ten-minute, rambling explanation of the various regions and families in George RR Martin's epic. I left the discussion wondering how anyone could find such a long and complicated story interesting.
Fast-forward a few years, and suddenly HBO is developing a TV show based on these books. I decide I have to see the show, if only because I've had a mild crush on Peter Dinklage since seeing The Station Agent (a crush that only grew when he played Liz Lemon's boyfriend on 30 Rock - seriously, it's probably a good thing he's a dwarf, because if he were regular size, he'd be too manly for anyone to handle and would explode ovaries wherever he went. The point is: Peter Dinklage, god damn). Anyway, I figure I should read the books (or at least the first one) before watching the TV series.
The book isn't perfect, of course. Although different characters narrate different chapters, there's no change in tone from one character to the next. The eight-year-old thinks, acts, and talks exactly like the forty-year-olds. Some characters are absent for too long, resulting in implausible leaps in their mindsets. For example, Daenerys goes from "I don't want to marry Khal Drogo and I don't want to be queen of anything!" to calling him "my sun-and-stars" and planning to take back her family's throne in just two chapters, with no explanation of how she got there. And some characters who should have had chapters devoted to their perspectives are absent from the book (I'd love to have read a chapter from Cersei's point of view).
But these are minor complaints. This is a great fantasy book because it subverts so many familiar tropes. It's not like The Lord of the Rings, where the good guys are noble and awesome and the bad guys are pure evil. Martin was influenced by the Wars of the Roses, and the similarities are clear: there's no one good guy who deserves the throne more than anyone else. Instead, we have several powerful families, all of them more or less evil, fighting and clawing over a stupid crown. The guy who won the crown from King Robert is our typical fantasy hero, but he finds that ruling a kingdom is a lot less fun than fighting for one. And that's the way things go: it's easy to overthrow a crazy despot, but what happens when you take his place and have to start thinking about taxes and governing the country you fought so hard for? It sucks, that's what. (Also, it doesn't help if your wife is an ambitious psycho bitch who wants to kill you and steal your crown, but whatever).
Another misconception that Martin clears up in his book is the idea that being a woman in a Middle-Ages-inspired fantasy world is anything but a total drag. Let's face it, there are only three female characters of note in The Lord of the Rings: two magical elf ladies and a warrior princess. If you're a woman in a fantasy story, your options are limited. You can be a wife or a whore. If you're a wife, at best you get to watch your husband cheat on you and raise his bastards without complaint. At worst, you get sold off to the richest guy at age fourteen and raped every night until you convince yourself you like it. As for the whores, if you're lucky, you get to be a classy whore who sleeps with noblemen (who are still full of venereal disease, of course) or a regular whore who sleeps with the king and then raises his bastard without protest (are you seeing a pattern here?). Want to be a warrior princess? Okay, but first you have to be rich and have a super indulgent father or husband who will let you get away with it, and then you have to spend hours practicing. Yes, being a badass fighter takes more than just picking up a sword and falling down a lot. Nice try, Frodo.
This book deserves four stars. First, because of the insane amount of detail that went into its planning. Martin creates multiple generations of noble families, each with their own mottoes and crests, and manages to keep them all straight. Second, because Martin is one of the few fantasy authors to point out that all this fighting over a throne is stupid, petty, and ultimately pointless. In the game of thrones, you win or you die, but either way, you get screwed.
My first exposure to this fantasy series was in high school. I was chatting with a friend about books when she said, "Have you read the Song of Ice and Fire series? It's amazing." I had never heard of it and asked for more details. What followed was a ten-minute, rambling explanation of the various regions and families in George RR Martin's epic. I left the discussion wondering how anyone could find such a long and complicated story interesting.
Fast-forward a few years, and suddenly HBO is developing a TV show based on these books. I decide I have to see the show, if only because I've had a mild crush on Peter Dinklage since seeing The Station Agent (a crush that only grew when he played Liz Lemon's boyfriend on 30 Rock - seriously, it's probably a good thing he's a dwarf, because if he were regular size, he'd be too manly for anyone to handle and would explode ovaries wherever he went. The point is: Peter Dinklage, god damn). Anyway, I figure I should read the books (or at least the first one) before watching the TV series.
The book isn't perfect, of course. Although different characters narrate different chapters, there's no change in tone from one character to the next. The eight-year-old thinks, acts, and talks exactly like the forty-year-olds. Some characters are absent for too long, resulting in implausible leaps in their mindsets. For example, Daenerys goes from "I don't want to marry Khal Drogo and I don't want to be queen of anything!" to calling him "my sun-and-stars" and planning to take back her family's throne in just two chapters, with no explanation of how she got there. And some characters who should have had chapters devoted to their perspectives are absent from the book (I'd love to have read a chapter from Cersei's point of view).
But these are minor complaints. This is a great fantasy book because it subverts so many familiar tropes. It's not like The Lord of the Rings, where the good guys are noble and awesome and the bad guys are pure evil. Martin was influenced by the Wars of the Roses, and the similarities are clear: there's no one good guy who deserves the throne more than anyone else. Instead, we have several powerful families, all of them more or less evil, fighting and clawing over a stupid crown. The guy who won the crown from King Robert is our typical fantasy hero, but he finds that ruling a kingdom is a lot less fun than fighting for one. And that's the way things go: it's easy to overthrow a crazy despot, but what happens when you take his place and have to start thinking about taxes and governing the country you fought so hard for? It sucks, that's what. (Also, it doesn't help if your wife is an ambitious psycho bitch who wants to kill you and steal your crown, but whatever).
Another misconception that Martin clears up in his book is the idea that being a woman in a Middle-Ages-inspired fantasy world is anything but a total drag. Let's face it, there are only three female characters of note in The Lord of the Rings: two magical elf ladies and a warrior princess. If you're a woman in a fantasy story, your options are limited. You can be a wife or a whore. If you're a wife, at best you get to watch your husband cheat on you and raise his bastards without complaint. At worst, you get sold off to the richest guy at age fourteen and raped every night until you convince yourself you like it. As for the whores, if you're lucky, you get to be a classy whore who sleeps with noblemen (who are still full of venereal disease, of course) or a regular whore who sleeps with the king and then raises his bastard without protest (are you seeing a pattern here?). Want to be a warrior princess? Okay, but first you have to be rich and have a super indulgent father or husband who will let you get away with it, and then you have to spend hours practicing. Yes, being a badass fighter takes more than just picking up a sword and falling down a lot. Nice try, Frodo.
This book deserves four stars. First, because of the insane amount of detail that went into its planning. Martin creates multiple generations of noble families, each with their own mottoes and crests, and manages to keep them all straight. Second, because Martin is one of the few fantasy authors to point out that all this fighting over a throne is stupid, petty, and ultimately pointless. In the game of thrones, you win or you die, but either way, you get screwed.
