Originally Published: August 6, 1996Genre: Political Strategy, Fantasy
Publisher: Voyager Books
Pages: 780 (Excluding the Appendix)
Source: Bought
Series: A Song Of Ice and Fire #1
Price: £15.64 (Library Binding from Amazon)
£3.85 (Paperback from Amazon)
£3.99 (From iBooks)
About the book (Taken from the blurb):
Summers span decades. Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun.
As warden of the north, Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of the Hand. His honour weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he must ... and a dead enemy is a thing of beauty.
The old Gods have no power in the south, Stark's family is split and there is treachery at court. Worse, the vengeance-mad heir of the deposed Dragon King has grown to maturity in exile in the Free Cities. He claims the Iron Throne.
My Review:
There are many pros and cons to this book; which has left me not really knowing how to begin.
The main con for me was the length of the book. I have never, ever been known to be a patient girl and often quit things before I've even started them but I stuck out the 780 pages and I'm actually pretty proud of that! This is by far the longest book I've ever read as I normally stay away from big books like they're the plague, and I don't think it was really worth it.
The ending is a bit naff compared to the rest of the book and left me feeling that there was much more that could have been done to give the story more closure. But, glancing through the next in the series, a cash of kings, the story picks up where it left off, so Martin must have thought closure wasn't needed. Which is a bit strange seen as though the next book came out two years later. Anyway, I'm explaining this terribly, but what I'm trying to say is that it ended really abruptly, like it was just cut at a random point to make two separate books, which I didn't like all that much.
However, the characters were interesting, even though it was written in multiple points of view. I. Hate. It. When. Authors. Do. This. Is it just me that gets really peeved by this? I normally try to avoid books like this like they're the plague as well, so I have no idea why I picked up this book. Was it the hype? Did I think it would be a challenge? I have no clue. It's not too bad when there's maybe 2 or 3 but 8 hurts my soul. I understand that they do it for character development and all that but every time I start a new chapter It's not the person I want to hear from. It gets really annoying. Like, if Martin gave chapters to Tyrion and Sansa then why not Robb for crying out loud! Robb was my favourite character and all Tyrion and Sansa really did was moan, so I thought this decision was highly unfair.
But I did get really emotionally invested in some of the characters, such as Daenerys, Jon and Robb. Even though three out of eight isn't fantastic. Arya was alright I guess but she didn't really do enough for me to like her that much. That's my problem with a novel having multiple points of view, the writer tries to tell all these different stories with all these different views and then doesn't go into very good depth with any of them because he has so many others to get through.
To conclude, I don't think this was really my type of book. Maybe I'm being unfair and I'll start to like the different points of view by the end of the series. Or maybe he'll go into more depth, or the characters will be more likeable, or maybe the story won't be such a bore. But right now, I'm not optimistic. So do I recommend it? That all depends. Do you like stories with multiple points of view? Go for it! Do have more patience than I do? Why not try it! But if not, then I'd just watch the tv show.
Do you think I'm being too harsh? Like novels with multiple points of view? Prefer the books or the tv show? Tell me down below what you think!
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P.S. If anyone dares kill my baby Robb then I will kill them, fictional or not.
Do you watch the series? :)
ReplyDeleteI watched the first few episodes and stopped, they were just way too long for me. Each episode is like an hour long! :0 Do you like he series?
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