A Game of Thrones

Reviewer: Katherine Ray

Author: George R.R. Martin

Published: 1996

Reviewed: 2007-06-14

Publisher: Bantam Books


This is the first book of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, the
fourth book of which came out in 2005, and the fifth of which is
awaited with bated breath. It is likely to end up being a seven book
series.

This book came to me highly recommended. Most of the people I know
who have read it love it. It and its sequels are hardly ever in at
the library. The story is complex, there's plotting and intrigue and
side stories. The book is well written and not cliched in the
slightest.

I didn't like it.

One of the conventions of book writing that Martin breaks is the one
where the main characters always survive. Martin kills them off, and
not just any main characters, but narrator level main characters. So
maybe this isn't so very distressing. But you have to understand, I
didn't like any of the characters in the beginning of the book. I
finally picked out one that I could respect and care what happened to,
and then Martin KILLED HIM OFF. I was extremely annoyed. After his
death, the entire situation goes off to hell in a hand basket, and by
the end of the book I hadn't picked up anyone else to care about.

It's a 600-700 page book, and the sequels are comparable. I
absolutely refuse to drag my way through a book that long for a bunch
of people I don't like or care about.