Review of George R. R. Martin's "A Game of Thrones"

A Fist-full of Fantasy

George Raymond Richard Martin weaves a compelling novel of epic proportions in A Game of Thrones, a true giant of fantasy who unfortunately still falls under the shadow of the even greater Robert Jordan. On the back of Martin's novel you read a quote from Robert Jordan which I believe says something to the affect of, “I may be dead but enjoy writing in the shadow of the Wheel of Time series for the rest of your life, sucker.” I'll have to go double check but I believe that's the quote verbatim. Don't get me wrong, I inhaled this novel and I have the coupon for the second book sitting in front of me. A coupon because Border's thinks it's funny to have sixteen-dollar paperbacks, or perhaps that's Martin's fault. If it is, that's another beef I have with him. My main reason for not digging this novel initially was that the author kept killing off certain beloved characters of mine, and not killing others. I wanted to love this novel, plot-lines lay upon plot-lines, and intrigues abound enough so that like Robert Jordan, you're almost tied up and confused by the ending. Which is a good thing, he weaves them deftly, and with aplomb. The story bounces from character to character in a helter-skelter, hold on for dear life, thank you for marking each chapter with the name of the character that's speaking in it... kind of way. A Game of thrones has 284 thousand words. That leaves Martin with a lot of room to write from quite a few character's viewpoints.

The novel starts out in the north, it's cold and though he never actually explains this (you have to figure it out through character dialogue) the seasons last forever. It's summer when everything is hunky-dory and no one has any complaints. As soon as the monsters begin rising and the Queen, Cersei Lannister, makes a clandestine attempt at murdering the King, BAM! Winter is coming. The seasons apparently bank on human psyche. But it's a fantasy novel so I continue. The one good wholesome thing in this wasteland of debauchery, incest, and pedophilia, (yet another of my beefs with Martin and his writing) are the Starks of Winterfell. Led by the good friend of the King, Eddard Stark. He doesn't philander and sees duty as paramount. Do we have a hero? No, not yet, but he does have a signature sword. A greatsword named Ice that he uses to lop off the head of some poor sap at the beginning of the book.

Essentially someone has to stop this evil Queen before she kills Robert the King. The heir to the throne is actually the incestuous offspring of the Queen and her brother, Jaime Lannister. So the heir to the throne isn't even the King's son. He's the result of the Queen's nastiness. Thank you Mr. Martin for enflaming my sense of rage. At this point I'm internally screaming for someone to either kill the Queen or mention this whole horrible debacle to the King who seems content with ignoring all of this intrigue entirely. Which they don't, ever.

It is a well-written fantasy novel though, that's undeniable. I only wish I hadn't read any Tracy Hickman, Margaret Weis, Brandon Sanderson, David Eddings, R. A. Salvatore or Robert Jordan beforehand. By good fantasy I mean he has family's that have solid backgrounds. They all have very defined friends and foes. Each character has a system of beliefs and they all want something. The world is full-bodied and believable. Martin employed Rangers, Knights, carousing, Inns, eunuchs, Barbarians, Direwolves, death, fear, betrayal, liars, cheats, b******s, and innocent little princesses and they all played their parts beautifully. No one was safe and I only called one character's death. That's saying something in fantasy where it's so easy to rely on the author to not kill important characters. However there is such a wealth of great characters that you can't know for sure which are safe. That enables you to be very intimately engaged in the story. I was constantly pulling for the good guys while George R. R. Martin kept killing them off!

Tyrion Lannister is called the Imp. He's a dwarf and more importantly he is the brother of the Queen Cersei Lannister. His family hates him and well, he hates his family. You think there's a great big rift between him and his fellow Lannisters but you aren't sure. At one point in the story he points out that he never bets against his family. If you think that's odd just imagine Martin sitting at his desk writing that and chuckling. Because he knows exactly what he's doing. All the while the reader is left wondering about Tyrion and what he really is. During this characters entire foray he's accused of many horrible things which is almost hilarious in and of itself because he's probably the most honest character in the book. Surpassing the self-righteous and obvious “good guys” by a mile. You want to hate him because his sister is the evil Queen and his brother is... blech, gross. But the whole time you're reading him, you're chuckling to yourself and thinking, “Yeah, he's got the right of that one.” I don't know whether to love Tyrion or hate him. I respect Martin's writing and he's undoubtedly a leader in the field of epic fantasy, my personal misgivings aside, characters such as Tyrion attest to that fact. He wrote an entire book and only played his hand on maybe one or two characters out of a hundred. Well played Mr. Martin, well played indeed.

I read through the mid-part of the novel like I had a thirst that would never be quenched and A Game of Thrones was an unending can of Mountain Dew. When I looked up from the novel it was five in the morning. I'd stayed up all night reading. This, to me, was where the meat of the story was. I expected questions to be answered and what I got instead was more questions and more fury at where the novel was going. This led right up to near the end of the book. Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis also use this type of literary styling with their novels. Just when it seems the punchline is never going to come and there's no way they can fit anything worthy of an ending into those last few pages. They do just that. I must say George, you completely floored me. Suddenly all the intense weavings of the plot, who lived, who died, histories of characters. The good (not much), the bad (a lot more), and the ugly (Tyrion), were all set on a nice high shelf with gilded wood and sharp dressed covers and the ending came out of nowhere and blew them to pieces.

I realized much later that it was Martin's intent all along to leave his readers with barely any hope at all. He abused every notion of what the story should have been... all along the way he kept betting on you staying with him, through thick and thin. Where most novels in the present market realize they have a duty to their readers to make the stories fun-filled, humorous, with a shred of hope always remaining. George Martin pats you gently on the back and says, “Trust me son, this ain't your mom's knitting catalog.”