Game of Thrones Book One. Subtitle: Goodbye Free Time

(#2) Read 25 Books

1. Room by Emma Donohue
2. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
4. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin (book one of the series)

Let me start out by saying, if you are into this kind of thing, you have to read this book. I can’t vouch for the rest of the series-yet- but I loved this one. It starts out slow but by the end you will be turning the pages with fervor and exclaiming out loud to whoever is within earshot “WHAAAAAAAAT! I can’t believe that just happened!”

A Game of Thrones is a fantasy novel taking place largely in the fictional “Seven Kingdoms.” The plot gets quite complex but generally there are three converging stories. Perhaps central is the story of Eddard Stark (“Ned”), Lord of a northern region called Winterfell, and how his life changes as he is selected by the King to be his right hand man. Ned is known to be honest to a fault; the only blemish on his honor being the existence of his bastard son Jon Snow.

Jon is central to another story line- life on “the Wall.” I swear it took me about 400 pages to realize this but the Wall is made entirely of ice. It is the northern border of “civilization” and protects the seven kingdoms from whatever unspeakable things exist in the north beyond. Joining “the Night Watch” is considered an honorable life choice though the cold limits the Watch’s “volunteers” to those who have no other honorable choice to make- convicts, rapists, or in Jon’s case, bastards.

The third story takes place outside of the seven kingdoms, in the East. There an exiled son of a former king, Viserys, lives with his young sister Daenerys. Viserys betroths his sister to a warlord in hopes to raise and army and take back his father’s kingdom. Daenerys starts out rather meek but by the end was by far my favorite character of the novel. (Just writing this makes me relive the final scene of the novel with Daenerys. UGH! So good. Read it immediately.)

This book surprised me in a lot of ways. For one, I didn’t expect it to be so female-friendly. It seems to be the perfect blend of action and drama. There are sword fights and battles, but there is also betrayal, questioned paternity, mysterious disappearances…basically everything you need for a good HBO series. I can see why it has been so successful (and I also can't wait to watch it).

The writing surprised me as well. It does have that pop-culture feel to it- in my opinion the literary value is nowhere near some of my other favorite fantasies like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. I couldn’t help questioning for example how a society totally unique and separate from our own came up autonomously with the phrase “Does a bear shit in the woods?” But I thought the character development was excellent, especially considering how many characters Martin is juggling. I was happy to see so many strong female characters as well, something often missing from these kinds of series.

This book was so good that it threw a major wrench in my goal of reading 25 books this year. For one thing, it is over 800 pages. For another, it is the first in a series of 5 books (or 4 depending on who you ask), all of which are at least as many pages. And somehow counting 5 books of a series as 5 of my 25 just seems like cheating. So I decided to count them as one. Wish me luck.