The most likely reason it's taken me 20 years to read this book is that I stopped enjoying "fantasy" books in general. The silly, made-up names; the quasi-Medieval settings; the insistence on using British English as it's spoken in the UK regardless of the books' actual settings - it all just got on my nerves at some point, and I stopped being interested. So to be fair, this book series escaped my notice entirely until HBO made a TV series about it. At the same time, I discovered Hague Publishing, and reading their well done fantasy/sci-fi books made me think I might be able to dip my toes back into that lake once more.
Strangely enough, while I am not a huge reader of fantasy, I don't mind watching filmed versions of it too much, and I really like the show. It's brutal, to be sure, and binge-watching a lot of episodes at the end of December/beginning of January did give me nightmares a couple times; but it's also nicely complex and I enjoy all the scheming and occasionally seeing a villainous character get their comeuppance. Of course, knowing the show was based on a series of books made me think I should read the books, but I put that off until I just couldn't stand it anymore, and now here I am, trying desperately to talk myself out of reading the rest of the books ASAP.
If you watch the show or if you've read the books (or at least this one book), there isn't much I can really add. The show follows the book pretty closely from what I can remember. I liked how the point of view changes in each chapter, so we get something of a deep dive into a select group of characters' motivations and thoughts. And two of my four favorite characters (Tyrion Lannister and Arya Stark) are among these featured characters, which is great (the other two haven't shown up yet). The writing has a bit of clunk here and there (for some reason I irrationally hate the word "nibble" and for some reason Daenerys Targaryen is always "nibbling" something or other; this author also shouldn't try to describe, well, adult things) but it's generally smooth and leads to page turning.
So what say you, readers - do I blow off all my challenge reading and dive into this series now? Or get my challenges under control and then take the plunge? Let me know what you think!
No comments:
Post a Comment