Martin's Seven Kingdoms resemble England during the Wars of the Roses, with the Stark and Lannister families standing in for the Yorks and Lancasters. The story of these two families and their struggle to control the Iron Throne dominates the foreground; in the background is a huge, ancient wall marking the northern border, beyond which barbarians, ice vampires, and direwolves menace the south as years-long winter advances. Abroad, a dragon princess lives among horse nomads and dreams of fiery reconquest.

There is much bloodshed, cruelty, and death, but A Game of Thrones is nevertheless compelling; it garnered a Nebula nomination and won the 1996 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel. So, on to A Clash of Kings! --Nona Vero

Product Description
Here is the first volume in George R. R. Martin’s magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, George R. R. Martin’s stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.

A Game of Thrones

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.

Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

So, when I came back to fantasy at the end of 1999, I read the usual: Goodkind, Jordan, etc. and then someone told me about GRRM and man, that was the kicker!

Here are the reasons to choose GRRM. I've also listed the reasons not to choose him to make it fair b/c I know their are certain personalities who won't like this series:

WHY TO READ GRRM

(1) YOU ARE TIRED OF FORMULAIC FANTASY: good lad beats the dark lord against impossible odds; boy is the epitome of good; he and all his friends never die even though they go through great dangers . . . the good and noble king; the beautiful princess who falls in love with the commoner boy even though their stations are drastically different . . . you get the idea. After reading this over and over, it gets old.

(2) YOU ARE TIRED OF ALL THE HEROES STAYING ALIVE EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE UNDER CONSTANT DANGER: this gets even worse where the author kills a main hero off but that person comes back later in the story. Or, a hero does die but magic brings him back.

This sometimes carries to minor characters where even they may not die, but most fantasy authors like to kill them off to show that some risked the adventure and perished.

(3) YOU ARE A MEDIEVAL HISTORY BUFF: this story was influenced by the WARS OF THE ROSES and THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR.

(4) YOU LOVE SERIOUS INTRIGUE WITHOUT STUPID OPPONENTS: lots of layering; lots of intrigue; lots of clever players in the game of thrones. Unlike other fantasy novels, one side, usually the villain, is stupid or not too bright.

(5) YOU ARE INTERESTED IN BIASED OPINIONS AND DIFFERENT TRUTHS: GRRM has set this up where each chapter has the title of one character and the whole chapter is through their viewpoint. Interesting tidbit is that you get their perception of events or truths. But, if you pay attention, someone else will mention a different angle of truth in the story that we rarely see in other novels. Lastly and most importantly, GRRM doesn't try to tell us which person is right in their perception. He purposelly leaves it vague so that we are kept guessing.

(6) LEGENDS: some of the most interesting characters are those who are long gone or dead. We never get the entire story but only bits and pieces; something that other fantasy authors could learn from to heighten suspense. Additionally, b/c the points of views are not congruent, we sometimes get different opinions.

(7) WORDPLAY: if you're big on metaphors and description, GRRM is your guy. Almost flawless flow.

(8) LOTS OF CONFLICT: all types, too; not just fighting but between characters through threats and intrigue.

(9) MULTILAYERED PLOTTING; SUB PLOTS GALORE: each character has their own separate storyline; especially as the story continues and everyone gets scattered. This is one of the reasons why each novel is between 700-900 pages.

(10) SUPERLATIVE VARIED CHARACTERS: not the typical archetypes that we are used to in most fantasy; some are gritty; few are totally evil or good; GRRM does a great job of changing our opinions of characters as the series progress. This is especially true of Jaime in book three.

(11) REALISTIC MEDIEVAL DIALOGUE: not to the point that we can't understand it but well done.

(12) HEAPS OF SYMOBLISM AND PROPHECY: if you're big on that.

(13) EXCELLENT MYSTERIES: very hard to figure out the culprits; GRRM must have read a lot of mystery novels.

(14) RICHLY TEXTURED FEMALE CHARACTERS: best male author on female characters I have read; realistic on how women think, too.

(15) LOW MAGIC WORLD: magic is low key; not over the top so heroes can't get out of jams with it.

REASON TO NOT READ GRRM

(1) YOU LIKE YOUR MAIN CHARACTERS: GRRM does a good job of creating more likeable characters after a few die. But, if that isn't your style, you shouldn't be reading it. He kills off several, not just one, so be warned.

(2) DO NOT CARE FOR GRITTY GRAY CHARACTERS: if you like more white and gray characters, this may unsettle you. I suggest Feist or Goodkind or Dragonlance if you want a more straight forward story with strong archetypes.

(3) MULTIPLE POINTS OF VIEWS TURN YOU OFF: if you prefer that the POVS only go to a few characters, this might be confusing for you.

(4) SWEARING, SEX: there's a lot of it in this book just as there is in real life.

(5) YOU DEMAND CLOSURE AT THE END OF EVERY BOOK: this isn't the case for all stories in the series. Some are still going on; some have been resolved; others have been created and are moving on.

(6) IF YOU WANT A TARGET OR SOMEONE TO BLAME: this can be done to some extent but not as much. This is b/c he doesn't try to make anyone necessarily good or evil.

(7) ARCHETYPES: some readers like archetypal characters because it's comfortable; we like the good young hero (sort of like Pug in Feist's THE RIFTWAR SAGA); it's familiar and we sometimes like to pretend we're this upcoming, great hero. You wont' get much of this in GRRM with the exception of one or two characters.

(8) LENGTH: you don't want to get into a long fantasy epic series. In that case, look for shorters works as this is biiig.

(9) PATRIARCHY: men are most of the main characters with lots of power (one female exception). ....



Exceeded my wildest expectations...and I expect a *lot*.   May 25, 2001
 535 out of 569 found this review helpful

I see where a reviewer below faulted A GAME OF THRONES for being so chock-full of "tragedy, bloodshed, cruelty, death, rape, incest, drunkeness, murder, (and) infanticide."

Heh. Where I come from, that's a five-star recommendation.

Glibness aside, the person has a point. A GAME OF THRONES is indeed a graphic, viciously unsentimental novel. It features all the offenses listed above and more besides. It revels in them.

Can't you people see? That's the *point.*

The writers of heroic fantasy like to write about huge and epic struggles between capital-letter Good and Evil. Yet over and over again they demonstrate only the most puerile understanding of what good and evil actually are. In their blinkered, constrained little worlds, "evil" consists of sitting in a dank tower all day sending orcs or demons or what-have-you after the Crampon of Justice or some similarly-named hogwash artifact. Not even the darkest of their generic Dark Lords would be caught boffing his own sister or murdering a child (much less get away with it), and in that fundamentally nonsensical bit of characterization lies the crux of their problem: by sticking horns and a lightning staff onto a one-dimensional pulp villain and calling it Ultimate Evil, they cheapen and debase *real* good and evil.

I'm sure most of these writers realize this perfectly well; the problem is that they're writing to one of the most idiotically attenuated audiences on the face of the planet, people who really want to read the same book over and over ad infinitum with just enough variation from the template to create the illusion of difference. It's a sad state of affairs when we consider that fantasy, which should rightly be the domain of myth, wonder, and what Warren Ellis calls "mad, beautiful ideas," is the second most rigidly unimaginative genre out there (right behind romance, with whom it shares more than a few readers and tropes).

The "Song of Ice and Fire" series is a show-stopping six volume call to arms against this nonsense. Readers who come to the novels expecting another eminently predictable generic quest might be lulled to quiescence in the first few innocuous chapters, but will awake - sooner or later - to the unsettling realization that they're playing George R.R. Martin's game now. In A GAME OF THRONES, he systematically slaughters every sacred cow of "heroic fantasy" and, in so doing, injects a vigor and a zest for life and the written word into the genre that hasn't been seen since the beautiful insanity of Tolkien. Heroes die and villains turn out to be not so bad after all. Magic appears only very rarely, making it infinitely more interesting. The plot steadfastly refuses to go where you'd expect. And lest you purists think that Martin holds fantasy in contempt, consider this: unlike practically every other fantasy writer out there, he's gone to the trouble of writing this novel as if it were the most serious literature: his characters and their motivations are fully fleshed out (Eddard Stark and Tyrion Lannister are especially well-done), his prose is exciting and full of witty and lovely turns of phrase, and his themes are complex and multilayered. In other words, he's actually assumed that his readership is *intelligent.*

After reading this and China Meiville's PERDIDO STREET STATION, I have renewed hope for the future of fantasy. Works like these deserve to be read, reread, and passed to friends; they yank the genre - and its readers - out of bed and lead it blinking and cursing into the light of genuine literary merit.


Possibly the best of Fantasy in the last 20 years   August 25, 2003
 64 out of 66 found this review helpful

I spent quite a while staring at the blank screen in front of me to come up with a fitting description of A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin. Should I compare it to the classic Lord of the Rings for its impressively epic scope? Would it be best to focus on the honest, often painful humanity of the many characters - so rare in a fantasy novel - that personalizes each point of view? Perhaps I could impress other customers here with the sheer brilliance of a plot that weaves so many seemingly disparate stories together to form a believable alternate universe in which not only politics, intrigue, war, adventure and romance can coexist plausibly, but magic as well. How could I do such a work justice?

I might as well get this part out of the way first. Obligatory Synopsis: in a fantasy continent that bears a familiarity to Middle Ages England, Winter is coming. Winter in this world means a sort of mini ice age that will last for seven years before receding. In the always-frosty Northern area, the races of nonhuman beings are gathering to advance with the snows; there are hints that there is an ancient, evil power behind their forces. At the same time in the South, political infighting for the Throne has begun. Overseas, the daughter of the dispossessed former King is maneuvering forces of her own for a bid for the throne. All this is told through the various stories of both "good guys" and not-so-good guys.

For starters, AGOT can't be accurately compared to any other book or series in the Fantasy genre (not without insulting it). The nearest thing of its type is the laborious Wheel of Time series by Jordan - see what I mean? And yet this first in the Song of Ice and Fire series is fathoms above that aimless, droning style. Martin has perfected what Jordan had arguably introduced; the multiple characters' points of view telling the vast saga on an intimate, up-close scale. Never did I feel that I was being strung along, but rather lead by increments toward an incredible revelation somewhere up ahead. Martin builds the suspense masterfully in each book.

But by far the most striking thing about the Song of Ice and Fire is the "rules" that the author breaks. Martin is not afraid to tell the tale from the point of view of some very unlikable, even immoral characters. He is bold about revealing facts from a character's past that challenge one's impressions and assumptions about their ethics. He does not lay all his cards on the table up front, but rather unexpectedly reveals details that later change the whole picture and twist the plot admirably. And his most unusual move: this author even allows "favorites" to die occasionally (no names here...)! These risks pay off well to serve the story as a whole, bring a sense of true humanity to the people of this world and drive the reader on to the next series installment.

It's just too bad that I can't magically transplant my sense of admiration for AGOT onto this page. Hopefully, you are intrigued enough to give it a try; it would be a shame to miss what IMHO could be the best series of the decade.
-Andrea, aka Merribelle


Overhyped Fluff Reads Like a Cheesy Movie Script   January 13, 2004
 59 out of 217 found this review helpful

George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series, of which the Game of Thrones is the first of a projected seven volumes (the fourth of which is due to be published in mid-2004), is the most overrated fantasy series of the day. The poor writing and the lack of likeable or believable characters combine to create an unworkable mess.

Martin's show-biz mind comes up with numerous ludicrous moments. His "heroes" are impossible to take seriously because they keep doing impossibly dumb things such as putting themselves and their families into the hands of their enemies. His "villains" are impossible to take seriously because they are incapable of successfully assassinating a middle aged woman, or, for that matter, a young child.

(The fact that Martin's characters are generally trying to commit such deeds makes for extremely unpleasant as well as frustrating reading).

The scare quotes two paragraphs above indicate the moral ambiguity of Martin's universe. He does not really believe in heroism or villainy, which makes for an extremely blah story. Granted that two-shaded, black or white storytelling is _almost_ as mindless as writing gets, Martin still does not improve on this. He actually falls short of even that low standard. His one shade of gray in the middle for everybody is even more mindless. It also creates a story that is inherently uninteresting - why should the reader care who "wins" when one character is as good/bad as another?

Like horror movie protagonists, Martin's characters are often defenestrated, throat-slashed, thrown into the river, or set on fire - yet they just keep coming. The extremely graphic violence would be less unbearable if it weren't all so ineffective.

The motivations and actions of the characters are completely unbelievable. How much familial loyalty would a real man have left if his father had the young man's girlfriend raped by an entire company of soldiers (including the young man's brother) because she was unworthy of their family? That Martin revels in such moments is bad enough. That his characters' responses to them are so flat goes far beyond the bounds of credibility. Fantasy setting or not, people are simply not like this. No author who understands human nature so little can have much of interest to say.

Martin believes that he has single-handedly discovered a major flaw common to almost all other writers: that their major characters inevitably survive to the end (or close to the end) of the production. He does not understand that he is putting the cart before the horse, and so missing the point entirely. Of course other authors have "mortal" characters. However, other authors are simply intelligent enough to realize that the major characters of a work (or a real-life episode) are generally to be found among those who are alive for a significant part of it, and to construct their storytelling accordingly. By repeatedly focusing on characters who shortly thereafter meet their demises, Martin succeeds only in punishing his readers with a series of unproductive false starts.

Martin's writing is similar in many ways to that of another very flawed writer, one whose many faults are more widely recognized: Terry Goodkind. Martin shares Goodkind's penchant for violence and sex, though Martin's versions are even more graphic and unappealing (he does, fortunately, lack Goodkind's particular brand of sappy smarminess). Nevertheless, the comparison ultimately favors Goodkind because he can at least wrap a story up, something Martin, like Robert Jordan, is incapable of doing. Goodkind is under the disadvantage of having published eight books with which to annoy readers, as opposed to Martin's three (in this series).

To compare Martin to Tolkien, or to Herbert or Donaldson, is to lose all credibility. Donaldson at his 25 year-old, strained-vocabulary worst was infinitely the better writer. Thrones and its successors should be avoided at all costs. Instead, go with Tad Williams, Michael Scott Rohan, Jack Vance, or early Raymond Feist.


Good stuff, some less good stuff; more of the latter, though   July 23, 2004
 56 out of 112 found this review helpful

With A Game of Thrones, it's the good stuff that sucks you in, but all the problems that leave you frustrated and resentful when its done.

The good stuff includes writing that flows well, characterizations that that may be occasionally ripped off but are at least many and varied and usually aren't completely flat (better than most fantasy/sci-fi), an immersive world, tension amongst the characters and factions, and hints of dire developments to come.

But please, this is an 800 page book that fails to completely tell even one story. George R R Martin has taken about 8 plots, none of which would amount to even a novella on its own, and put them all in a blender in the hopes that when it all comes out as sludge, you won't notice that it doesn't add up to anything. The constant switching back and forth between plot lines and perspective doesn't allow even a single one to develop in more than a halting manner. I am of the school that believes if you are going to make me read 800 pages and call it a book, and make me wait 3 years for the next one, you better be able to write one complete arc anyway, somthing that has eluded this author. Good grief, when did it become acceptable to write an 800-page book with so little actual content? Huge swaths of this book could be deleted and it would make little difference to the reading experience.

As frustrating as this is, it wouldn't in and of itself amount to fatal criticism if the book didn't have other problems. I think the chief one is just that we've seen all these people before. The Catelyn/Eddard/Robb trio seems so similar in feel to the Leto/Jessica/Paul trio in Dune that they could almost be carbon-copies, minus the trappings of setting; Catelyn's lines could be Jessica's in many spots. Sansa is straight out of the pages of War and Peace. I'm sure Arya basically wrote herself. I'm not opposed to borrowing in general, but I prefer that authors make some effort to disguise their efforts in this matter.

Strip out all this, though, and you are left with some good stuff. Except in the more vulgar passages, which usually seem simply ostentatious, Martin clearly has a grasp of language. His descent into detail is occasionally tiresome, but often does do a good job at conveying a time and place, and the trade-off is well worth it. While the crush of different characters with hard-to-remember names can make War and Peace look like a one-man play, it does lend the novel a sense of grandeur and scope that is unique and welcome. And the building up of subtle tensions (like the ominous rumblings from beyond Hadrian's, er, The Wall) are well-handled, or would have been if they had ever amounted to anything.

Still, at the end of the day, three books came to mind when reading this: a) Tolstoy's War and Peace; b) Stephen R Donaldson's Mirror of her Dreams; and c) Donaldson's Gap series, starting with The Real Story. A Game of Thrones is but a pale shadow of any of these books. Tolstoy has a very similar soap-opera-esque feel, but he is a master crafstmen who had a story to tell, who told it, and finished it. Martin appears to be none of these things, but of course War and Peace is a classic of western literature. Donaldson's Mirror of her Dreams features an incredibly similar medeval-esque setting of political intruige, but Donaldson's story had great imagination, vastly superior characters, and a plot that had an arc and momentun. Donaldon's Gap series had a similar format (character-switching chapters), similarly traumatized characters and a similar willingness to kill off anyone, and similar layers and layers of intruige - but it again had vastly richer and far more believable characters, managed to make even the nasty ones sympathetic at some level, and had a plot which actually moved and allowed the characters to develop in interesting ways and stuff to happen. In short, A Game of Thrones seems amaturish and derivitive by comparison to any of these books.

A book can be of less-than-epic quality and still do OK, but when it comes to A Game of Thrones, I keep coming back to one fact - 800 pages, and it's little more than an introduction to Westros. If I were an author writing an 800-page book, I'd want more to show for it.