Book Review – A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

Let’s get one thing straight from the jump, the worst thing about this book is easily the donkey-ass horse-ass looking dragon that they draped across the cover. The background is more dragon scales…is the main dragon just a tiny little worm upon the backdrop of a huge mother dragon? Not to mention, this isn’t even the book in the series with dragons in the title. In fact, this is the one and only book in the series where the dragons haven’t even hatched yet. How in the hell did they let this cover happen? Where are the dragon’s eyes? This makes no sense but I have to move on before my blood pressure gets too high.

Over the years, I’ve flip-flopped over whether it’s better to watch a film adaptation of a novel before reading it, or best to read the book first. For a long time I thought it was always best to watch first. The books are always better, and can work as more in-depth and dynamic explorations of the basic movies after you’ve watched them – you see more, learn more, and enjoy the story in a fuller way, whereas with the book-to-film route you just sign on for disappointment, trading depth and nuance for pretty lights and sounds (sometimes). Then I realized it’s very hard to shake off the images of the film when reading the book, even if the descriptions are different. Reading first gives you the clean slate of unbounded imagination to co-create the world and characters the author writes. But in this case, with A Game of Thrones? It’s a mixed bag, because the book and show are identical.

A review should be about the work in itself, but there’s no escaping the connection to the show in my experience with it. Like many others, the show is the only reason I picked up the books in the first place. And I’m happy to say, the incredible quality of the show (in its first 4 seasons) is directly connected to the writing of Martin, so much so that the book almost feels redundant. It’s like reading a shooting-script for the series. Every facial expression, every quip, every sound given importance, is given audio-visual life within the show exactly as it is written, at the exact moment in the story it takes place. And with such similarity, watching first was actually a better route, I think, because like the show, the book simply tosses you into this world with untold swathes of characters milling in and out of the scenes. Having the general familiarity with everything kept things stable from the get-go, and allowed me to more fully enjoy the written aspect of the story, the thoughts and flashbacks the show couldn’t portray. Like many modern books, A Game of Thrones was clearly written with the ubiquitous cinematic intelligence with which we all now digest stories. It is not like Dune, where you hop from one character’s head to another, or dive deep into pages long lores and histories that only a novel can provide. Martin’s first book of the series was an unbelievable gift to HBO, because he simply writes a mind-movie, a screenplay padded at the ends with character thoughts and occasional whimsies of prose.

And this turns out to be its most addicting aspect while also being its (minor) disappointment. Many descriptions are used repeatedly, as if reminders rather than descriptors of mood or atmosphere, and each brick is laid precisely on the last. It’s just a feeling, a faint one, that creeps up when his style is just a little too invisible and the story is just a little too dark, that the story is maybe just an excuse for the world, and the world just an excuse for a point: namely, the subversion of expectations and the grim reality that good guys lose just as often as they win, and maybe even more so. Am I just reading a Rian Johnson-type take on the fantasy genre?

If I am, I’m still lucky it’s Martin writing it, because the situations he builds, and the vast cast of characters he fills them with, are the absolute opposite of contrived. Tension is everywhere and not even Martin can be in all places at once, showing us every single move. People hate on the length of these books, but the amount he is able to show us (and let us build for ourselves as we read between the lines) is incredible, even for 780 pages. There was widespread love for this series well before HBO came knocking, and these are the reasons. It’s one hell of a world to get lost in, so long as you maybe accept that it is indeed the world that matters most. Enjoy every moment and conversation, because outside of the direct experience of it, as it happens, it may just be a (glorious) waste of time.

7/10

Spent all day pretty much recovering from last night and reading A Clash of Kings, the second in the series. I’m very excited for it because all the forums call it “the imp’s book” meaning that Tyrion gets a lot of attention, which is fantastic. Also booked some very important flights for the next months and solidified some dope plans. Very good, very good.

See you on the morrow.

Nick