‘The Song of Ice and Fire: A Game of Thrones’ Book Review

Mount Readmore Book Review, 2017 52/100

A Game of Thrones By George RR Martin

Audiobook Edition

Finished on 5/30/2017

Goodreads

Genres: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Adult

Winter is Coming

Spoiler-tastic review

Wow, talk about an ambitious book. Starting from small beginnings in Winterfell, and expanding to the breadth of both Westeros and Essos. Not only is this book geographically vast, but it’s characters are as innumerable as the stars. We have Bran, Catelyn, Ned, Dany, John, Rob, Arya, Sansa and more as just the viewpoint characters. And you know what? Juggler GRRM didn’t drop a single ball. It was all fantastic.

I watched the first season of the TV show about 6 years ago, so I knew a little about what I was getting into plot-wise. GRRM’s prose was entirely new to me. For example, the constant food mentions made the world feel more 3D. Between the book and the series, I think I preferred the book.

Plot: You know, I’m not sure what the plot was. There were simply too many POV characters for there to be an overaching plot. Jon had his Wall storyline, which culminated in a choice between staying and leaving. Catelyn had a ‘keep the family safe’ plotline, culminating in Riverrun. Dany had an independence plotline, beginning with her marriage to Drogo and slavery to her brother, to the deaths of her brother her and Drogo causing her independence. There wasn’t an overarching plot, but many subplots.

Characterization: Fantastic. Simply fantastic. Sansa and Arya bugged me, but they bugged me because they were realistically squabbling siblings. I’m not going to go into details because there’s too many details.

Highly recommended. This would be a good starting place for someone who wants to get into the Fantasy Genre, if they are a serious reader (~850 pages). Will I be continuing the series? Maybe when I’m not committed to 100 books a year. Right now massive books are simply too much for me.