A Game of Thrones

(c) 1996 by George R. R. Martin

A Game of Thrones is, hands down, the best fantasy novel I have read since The Lord of the Rings. And I read Tolkien almost thirty years ago. Admittedly, I’m not a true disciple of the genre, but since that time, I’ve read the Stephen Covenant books, Stephen King’s forays into the field (The Dark Tower series, Eyes of the Dragon), C. S. Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet stuff and some of his Narnia stuff, and a bit of Robert Jordan’s never-ending Wheel of Time series. All while gritting teeth, I might add, books read for reasons other than pure aesthetic enjoyment. But this book by Martin is the best I’ve read since the Rings trilogy all those long years back. However, this is not to infer that the two series are alike.

No, A Game of Thrones is much more Arthurian than Elves and Dwarves, Orcs and Ents. This world is comparable chronologically to ours circa 500 AD. Yes, there are dragons in the novel, there are witches and black magic, perhaps; Martin is a very, very good at, among many things, quietly hinting at such things, leading you to believe that such dark and nasty oddities cannot exist in his world, yet, when they do, you are simultaneously shocked at the revelation and disappointed in yourself for not seeing it coming down the haunted trail.

But at its heart A Game of Thrones is a thoroughly modern story. It is Arthur for the 21st century. The story that unfolds must be something similar in framework to what developed from the intricate web of alliances and betrayals that was the canvas for pre-World War I Europe, or the growing global conflicts of World War II or the Cold War. Martin’s work hails a cast of hundreds, led by a score of major characters, who live and breathe with more reality than those dry and dusty figureheads from European history less than a century old.

The book starts with the one essential template to create a fantasy world: there’s a map of a strange water-girdled continent. Towns, citadels, rivers, mountains, and something called The Wall in the north. As we read, we discover that the land consists of seven vague kingdoms or “houses” that have been united under a single kingdom for an undetermined amount of years. It appears now shakily ruled by King Robert, a hard-living, hard-drinking monarch who has no desire to rule, only to conquer. An advisor dies, or perhaps is murdered, and our hero, Ned, lord of one of the Northern Houses and boyhood friend of Robert, is summoned to court to serve as the King’s Hand.

There are at least four forces that want to wrest control of the land from Robert’s hand. Some close to the king, some far away in exile, some hiding in woods and dangerous mountain passes, and some possibly not even human. Ned’s family finds itself the unwilling center of the conflict. He, his wife, his trueborn son and his bastard son, his two younger daughters, even his seven-year-old boy – all grow and find themselves scattered to the far corners of the world, reacting, fighting back, deceiving and being deceived. And sometimes merely trying to survive as great events quickly bring the kingdom to the brink of war and beyond.

Was that an adequate teaser? I’m trying not to give too much away. So, let me just say that by novel’s end, 800 short pages later, four major characters will unexpectedly meet their demise. More than a few minor ones, too. All unanticipated. Something truly incredible will happen in the last couple of pages. Jaded me thought I had it all figured out, where Martin the author was going, but it turned I was thrown from my figurative horse. Pleasantly though, as I got up laughing with the crowd and wiping the manure from my leggings (keeping with the medieval theme, see?).

Martin’s genius is that he knows how to make your blood boil. First, he carves out characters for you as real as the last person who touched you (or the last person who cut you off in traffic). Next, he places them in a rich, vivid world, at once both hypnotically attractive and somewhat dreadful. It passes the test, the one which gets the reader to ask himself: What would I do if I lived in this world? Then, each and every chapter, without exception, unwinds a terrible revelation, or a gripping conflict, be it life-threatening or an intense face-to-face confrontation we spend most of our waking lives avoiding. Everyone will eventually get his or her ultimate comeuppance, though it may take hundreds of pages, for the god of Martin, though vengeful, is just.

How good is A Game of Thrones, the first book of what Martin calls A Song of Fire and Ice? Well, I paid him one of the best compliments I can pay any author. I went out and bought the second book in the trilogy (Or tetralogy. Or … ?). Yes, poor sadsack me, denizen of a hundred used book stores, actually bought a new book. So a sale is registered for Mr. Martin, and he gets 45 cents from me. Fine enough and well deserved. But even more important, this next book, A Clash of Kings, gets moved ahead to the front of the line, after two dozen other books, books that have been sitting on my shelves for two or three years, for immediate reading, probably later this week. It’s that good.

Grade: A+.


NOTE 1: See here for my pre-review of Thrones, a shorter but more enthusiastic mid-term grading.

NOTE 2: I just found out that HBO has been casting all throughout the fall for a pilot episode for a series on A Game of Thrones. Hmmmm.