Please join me in a toast to Mr. George Martin for ripping up the book of storytelling and doing it his own way... sort-of!
Many people have now seen HBO's excellent TV series A Game of Thrones, and many, like me may have progressed to reading the books from whence it came. A Song of Ice and Fire is a true fantasy epic the likes of which I have never experienced.
I'm a true fantasy junkie, from Lord of the Rings to Dungeons and Dragons via some Star Wars (which is as much fantasy as sci-fi) but George Martin's series of books has blown them all out of the water for me.
I have never beheld such a beautiful and beautifully brutal story. I tried and failed to explain some of it to a friend. After my failing was complete he decided he might better understand what I was blathering about by asking questions...
"Who are the bad guys?"
Well... there's Tyrion, the dwarf, but he's not really so bad. Or there's Jaime... but he's more complex than you think at first. I thought Viserys would be the big bad but...
"Ok... who is the good guy?"
Well, there's Ned but look where that got him, or Rob maybe.
I realised when I was reading it and even more so when I was failing to explain it that George Martin has truly managed to create a world where the characters reflect reality... nobody is the bad guy, at least not in their own eyes, everybody has their reasons for doing what they do and nobody is blameless.
Everything about the stories from the point you realise this is very organic. The characters experience and respond much like people would. Some retreat into their personality (Cersei), some are changed by their experiences (Arya, Jaime).
He writes men, women, children, even animals as if he had experienced each existence personally (which I assume he hasn't!) Cersei isn't evil, she's just a mother with a megalomaniac streak.
He also writes death, there is blood in them there pages! No character is indispensable which is the failing of many franchises, not least the Star Wars novels. The callous disregard GM has for his own finely crafted character's lives means that you're never bored by a chapter. At any moment there might be an assassination attempt or a fight breaking out or someone getting sacrificed.
There are so many great characters too, your favourite character might die a horrible death but that doesn't make you throw the book down in anger because you want to know what happens next for the other characters.
George Martin is a true servant to his own story. It feels very much like he hated killing some of his characters as much as you might hate reading it but that is the story and he will tell it true. It reads more like a history than a story because of the number of characters involved and the brutal nature of some of their existences.
Stories aren't normally like this, I'm not sure if they should all be like this but I'm glad this one is!
Many people have now seen HBO's excellent TV series A Game of Thrones, and many, like me may have progressed to reading the books from whence it came. A Song of Ice and Fire is a true fantasy epic the likes of which I have never experienced.
I'm a true fantasy junkie, from Lord of the Rings to Dungeons and Dragons via some Star Wars (which is as much fantasy as sci-fi) but George Martin's series of books has blown them all out of the water for me.
I have never beheld such a beautiful and beautifully brutal story. I tried and failed to explain some of it to a friend. After my failing was complete he decided he might better understand what I was blathering about by asking questions...
"Who are the bad guys?"
Well... there's Tyrion, the dwarf, but he's not really so bad. Or there's Jaime... but he's more complex than you think at first. I thought Viserys would be the big bad but...
"Ok... who is the good guy?"
Well, there's Ned but look where that got him, or Rob maybe.
I realised when I was reading it and even more so when I was failing to explain it that George Martin has truly managed to create a world where the characters reflect reality... nobody is the bad guy, at least not in their own eyes, everybody has their reasons for doing what they do and nobody is blameless.
Everything about the stories from the point you realise this is very organic. The characters experience and respond much like people would. Some retreat into their personality (Cersei), some are changed by their experiences (Arya, Jaime).
He writes men, women, children, even animals as if he had experienced each existence personally (which I assume he hasn't!) Cersei isn't evil, she's just a mother with a megalomaniac streak.
He also writes death, there is blood in them there pages! No character is indispensable which is the failing of many franchises, not least the Star Wars novels. The callous disregard GM has for his own finely crafted character's lives means that you're never bored by a chapter. At any moment there might be an assassination attempt or a fight breaking out or someone getting sacrificed.
There are so many great characters too, your favourite character might die a horrible death but that doesn't make you throw the book down in anger because you want to know what happens next for the other characters.
George Martin is a true servant to his own story. It feels very much like he hated killing some of his characters as much as you might hate reading it but that is the story and he will tell it true. It reads more like a history than a story because of the number of characters involved and the brutal nature of some of their existences.
Stories aren't normally like this, I'm not sure if they should all be like this but I'm glad this one is!
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