Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

Here's another book that is wildly popular, and yet I just heard about it. It is Book 1 in a five-book series, and I don't know if Martin really finished the story or if other books are still to come. The blurbs on the cover and inside-front of this book compare the author to Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)and T.H. White (The Once and Future King), and those are two of my favorite escapist reads. So I gave it a try.

Game of Thrones is set in an alternate world in a medieval society with knights, jousting tournaments, liege lords, and high kings. The current king, Robert, visits the home of his dearest and oldest friend to ask him to be his "Hand," kind of a prime minister. The friend, Eddard Stark, and his family become the focus of the book, which follows them through a political turmoil of assassination, betrayal, and war. All of this is written realistically and could very well have been inspired by England's long War of the Roses. But lurking on the border of the main action lies an element of magic and the supernatural.

The book is 800 pages, and the plot is too convoluted for me to even attempt to summarize it.

Suffice it to say, Martin is not the new Tolkien or even the new T.H. White, although those authors do write of wars and include elements of magic. He is not even close to being as good a writer as either one. He could certainly be the new Robert Jordan, who attempted the same sort of "epic" series; in fact, that is the best comparison I can think of. But to give Martin his due, he does tell a darn-good story, and I did keep turning those 800+ pages.

He has structured his novel cleverly, with each chapter being from the viewpoint of one of the main characters, with the action being simultaneous but in different places, to follow the multiple story-lines. And each chapter concludes with something of a "cliffhanger," so that the reader keeps reading, wanting to know what happens next, wanting to get to the next chapter from the viewpoint of that particular character. This reminds me so much of the structure of soap operas, which use the same technique exactly. This book is, indeed, a multiple character, medieval setting, political, supernatural soap opera. And as with The Days of Our Lives,you become involved despite yourself. And afterward, you feel as if you have somehow lowered your normal standards, but you watch the next day anyway.

However, some things bothered me all the way through. The writing was very uneven: Sometimes it is actually quite good, as in Catelyn's description of a battle at night: "The battle came alive around her. She heard hoofbeats, iron boots splashing in shallow water, the woody sound of swords on oaken shields and the scrape of steel against steel, the hiss of arrows, the thunder of drums, the terrified screaming of a thousand horses." Sometimes the writing is very bad, as Martin repeats himself often and frequently misplaces modifying clauses and phrases or pronoun references, so that the reader is left adrift as to what is really being talked about. This example is actually very humorous:

"Dany curled up on her side, pulling the sandsilk cloak across her and cradling the egg in the hollow between her swollen belly and small, tender breasts. She liked to hold them. (Woo, woo. This is getting risque.) They were so beautiful, and sometimes being close to them made her feel stronger, braver, as if somehow she were drawing strength from the strong dragons locked inside." (She has dragons in her breasts? No, wait, the dragons are in the eggs.)

Martin is also very free with his depiction of sex, which is not usually particularly offensive to me, except that his situations are pretty off-putting: We have brother-sister incest, many instances of rape, sexual orgies, mentions of children with adults, sexual sadism, and only one mention of what might be considered normal sexual union. It just seems a bit sensationalistic.

I realize that it was difficult for Martin to see the whole as he was writing a book this lengthy, but a good editor should have cleaned things up for him. I could have improved the book myself and cut about 100 pages by leaving out some of the descriptions of the clothing. In a climactic scene where Lord Stark denounces the new self-crowned king, Martin takes time to describe the wearing apparel of all participants. Really?

I don't subscribe to HBO, but I understand the network just aired a series based on this book. The costume designer shouldn't have had to use imagination at all, because all clothing is minutely described.

I will not read this book again, but I might read Book 2 in this series--I want to know what happens. If it is better than this book, I might read the third one. If it is like the Twilight series, and just the same old-same old, then I am done.