Game of Thrones is the first book in an epic fantasy series.
It is about families feuding over who has the right to the throne of the
Kingdom. There are two children who have had to flee the country as they are
the rightful heirs to the throne but, being children, have no way to get it
back. The rest of their family, including their parents and siblings were
massacred at their home. The family who have taken the throne are not a stable
family. They did not wed for love and do not see eye to eye on anything. There
is a lot of tension going on in that family. Our final family live in the north
of the country and were happy to keep themselves to themselves until the head
of the family was asked to work for the king. We also follow a group of guards
who patrol the Wall at the far north of the country against savages and a new
unknown but terrifying foe. There is lots of action, sex and backstabbing in
this book. What more could you want?
At first it is a bit tricky to get into because there are so
many characters. Throughout the story we see things from, I think, nine
different character’s points of view. It doesn’t keep to the same order of
rotation between characters and there are no consecutive chapters with the same
character. Once you get your head round who everyone is and which family they
belong to, it’s pretty easy to figure out. And if you get stuck there are
family trees in the back of the book. And if you get stuck there are family
trees in the back of the book. Each character has their own problems and morals
so you can tell which person you are with by how they behave. Although most of
the perspectives are form one family, there is a good mix of ages and genders.
We have points of view of both adults and children / young adults which I think
is really good as it gives it that something extra.
Fantasy is always a tricky genre because there are often made
up words that you have no idea how to pronounce. There is a little bit of this
in the book but mostly it’s fine and the names are just variations on ones we
know. Such as Eddard instead of Edward. I think this was a wise choice on the
author’s part as there are currently seven book planned for the series and none
of them are short and some have even been turned into two books. So having easy
to pronounce names is important as you don’t want to put your reader off. The
rest of the writing is good. It has a good pace to it and certainly doesn’t
feel like a long book. It is nicely frustrating when Martin ends a chapter on a
cliff hanger and you’re not sure when you’ll be with that character again. It
all adds to the drama and mystery of it.
The world that the author has created is easy to imagine.
It’s your traditional fantasy setting, a world reminiscent of the Middle Ages
where people travel by horse and cart and live in castles. You get a summary of
the history of the world throughout the book and Martin doesn’t try to give you
too much information at once. It’s usually in a speech when a character is
defending their family’s honour. Obviously, with all the books, there is plenty
of time to learn how the world got to the situation it is in now. There are also
plenty of places left to explore and maps to look at. The one thing the book
didn’t have was a timeline. I think it would have been really useful to know
when things were happening and over how long. Switching between characters
means you don’t know whether you are going backwards or forwards in time.
I enjoyed this book and will be reading the other books at
some point. My main concern is what will happen to some of the characters.
There are some I really love. And there are some I really hate. I hope I won’t
have to spend much time in the heads of those I don’t like. The ones in this
book were all good or at least tolerable, which is how you want to start a
series, really. The author has already
killed some characters I liked so hopefully there will be new ones to like in
future books. The first book eases you in to the fantasy. It’s just a world
without oil or electricity, but it does hint there may be more fantasy-ness as
the series goes on. I think it deserves recognition. Although I will read the
others, I’m not going to start straight away. Don’t go into it with really high
expectations because it does take a while to get used to the world but it is
definitely worth a read if you like epic adventure stories.
Overall rating 5 out of 5.
No comments:
Post a Comment