{"id":1826,"date":"2011-08-16T08:50:48","date_gmt":"2011-08-16T12:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/?p=1826"},"modified":"2011-08-16T08:50:48","modified_gmt":"2011-08-16T12:50:48","slug":"a-game-of-thrones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/?p=1826","title":{"rendered":"A Game of Thrones"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just finished reading A Game of Thrones<\/em><\/a> by George R. R. Martin. I’m really late to the game here, as it’s been out several years now. It’s the first in a (so-far) 5 book series. The Wife picked it up for me and said it’s being compared to The Lord of the Rings<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I can see why. The book is filled with royal families and set in a land all it’s own. Martin takes the time to develop family histories and relationships in great detail. There’s so much of it that it’s hard to keep all of it straight. There’s even an appendix in the back for reference on who the main characters are and there positions in the families.<\/p>\n

That said, the book mainly deals with people, as opposed to the hobbits, elves, orcs and other fantastic characters of the Tolkien lore. That isn’t to say it’s inferior; rather, it’s just different. The book itself is a fairly dense 800+ pages and it took me less than a week to read it. So clearly, Martin knows how to write a story and keep it interesting.<\/p>\n

The world Martin creates is a harsh, brutal one and not just in the day-to-day lives of the story’s characters. It’s brutal to the traits of the characters. It’s a world where honor and innocence counts for little and seems as like to end in the characters demise as not. By contrast, being a feckless little weasel seems to offer the best chances for survival. That, and being an honorless pursuer of power. There are few “good” guys to speak of. Instead, Martin fills the book with characters ranging from out-and-out sociopaths to severely-flawed-but-doing-the-best-they-can. The Stark family appears to be the good guys of the story, and they suffer severely as the story is told.<\/p>\n

Having started the series, my main fear is that I’ve signed on to a never-ending tale. There are so many moving parts that it’s difficult to see how the story ultimately resolves itself, or where it is, in fact, even going. With the Tolkien version, there was a clear purpose to the story and was something that everyone could easily grasp. That was the strength of the story.<\/p>\n

Martin’s unfolding series is less straight forward. Is it about the path a young Princess will take to work her way back to the throne that was so savagely seized from her family? Is it about the path a family will take to retain it’s honor in a time of change? Is it about the toll that exacted on the innocent by those who seek power at all cost? Or perhaps, in a more simple sense, is this just a story that Martin has created with nothing more to offer than a chronicling of the lives of his creations? All of the above?<\/p>\n

The next book in the series is +1000 pager. In fact, none of the 5 books is less than 800 pages, putting Martin firmly into Stephen King territory in terms of verbosity. That said, he’s so far proven that he could write a story interesting enough to get my attention. We’ll see if he is able to keep it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just finished reading A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. I’m really late to the game here, as it’s been out several years now. It’s the first in a (so-far) 5 book series. The Wife picked it up for me and said it’s being compared to The Lord of the Rings. I can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sahd.lamafam.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}