Journal Review: A Song of Fire and Ice - A Game of Thrones

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Journal Review: A Song of Fire and Ice - A Game of Thrones

Hello Witcher Communtiy (also have this thread on BSN boards).

So after scouring the Internet and talking with friends, I was suggested "A Song of Fire and Ice" series by George R.R. Martin. People claim him an "American Tolkien" or a "fantasy writing prodigy" and whatnot, so I finally gave in and today (8 August 2011) I've gave in and bought the first book in the series "A Game of Thrones."

It cost me $34 and better be damn worth it (I could've bought Children of Hurin by Tolkien).

Anyways as I'm starting off the first book of the series, I've decided to do an ongoing review as I go along (I find it fun and maybe others will to), so let's get this started.

P.S. I'll try to keep this spoiler-free as much as possible.

-Anathemic

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Pre-Read Review - 8 August, 2011

First off I bought the book, "A Game of Thrones" hardcover (because I love me some hardcovers). So far, here's my initial views on the book.

-The Cover: The tittle "A Game of Thrones" is very original and speaks a promising story to come unlike common generic fantasy titles such as "Sorcerer", "The (Insert Color Here) Knight", The (Insert Word for Evil Here) (Insert a ruling title here)", etc. So plus on that, and the cover art (hilt of a sword) is nice too with the blue background, plus for that.

-The Map: As with mostly every fantasy book nowadays, there's always a map. IE: Eragon. To keep it blunt, the map looks plain, generic and boring. It certainly isn't Tolkien's Middle-Earth status, or CD Projekt's RED's map of Sapkowski's world of the Witcher. There's no scale whatsover so I've no representation on how big the book world is. And also the map instead from the tradition West - East is North-South, and it looks like an extended fail version of Europe's Italy. So the map is bleh.

The Introduction Ad: Most books have a little introduction ad/summary of the story, of either the back cover of the book or the inside cover of the book. The introduction for "A Game of Thrones" was promising until it passed a few paragraphs then I've hit the term "Dragon Prince." When I encountered this term I was repulsed. Note: I like dragons, but I like them done in an original non-cliche way. Dragon lords, Dragon Royalty, Shape-Shifting Dragons, Dragon World Aspects, are really a NONO for me, considering what I had to go through in the Warcraft series. Big nono for me here.

Here concludes my Pre-Read Review.
 
You will find soon enough, that it is one of the best fantasy novels in American history. Mature, complex, incredibly deep. At no point does it fall into a fantasy cliche, it flaunts most of them to absolute opposites.

Don't worry about the Dragon Prince. It's not to be taken literally. Every house in the seven kingdoms proudly bears their coat of arms, the design upon it is commonly used to describe those individuals in common parlance. The Starks of Winterfell bears a direwolf, hence Starks are often referred to as wolves, etc.
 
I absolutely love this series, so I hope you enjoy it! I look forward to reading your thoughts after you've read a chapter or two. ;)
 
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