Review: Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
Published: January 6th, 2003 (Harper Voyager, first published in 1996)
Pages: 807
Age group: Adult
Source: bought
Series: A Song of Ice and Fire, #1
Buy the book: Bookdepository
Rating: ★★★★☆


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.

Yes, I'm aware just about everyone and their mum have read and reviewed this book, but I'm going to post my thoughts anyway. While it took me a long, looooong time to get through this book (well over a month of on and off reading), I really enjoyed it! Martin made some kind of medieval soap opera that was kind of a marathon to get through, but very entertaining nonetheless.

In all honesty, I thought about my rating for a long time. Because while I did enjoy the book, it's very long, complicated and not easy to read at all. The prose is very descriptive and for someone like me who doesn't read books with this kind of prose, it was, well, hard. BUT I DID IT! It really felt like an accomplishment when I finally read the whole thing.

So what did I think? Well, my hate list is already terribly long. There were a ton of storylines and protagonists, but only a few were interesting imho. I hated Ned's point of view, because he was incredibly boring and I felt a bit disappointed every time I saw his name above the next chapter. Other people I hated were Robert, Lysa (someone needs to slap her with a stick), Cersei, Jaime, Viserys, Littlefinger and of course Joffrey. Holy crap. I don't think I've detested a character as much as I detest Joffrey. *shudders*

However, there were also some characters I kinda sorta liked and one I loved. I enjoyed the chapters from Arya's point of view, as well as Bran's, Tyrion's and I adored Dany's chapters. She's fierce and feisty, and I kinda love her.

Having said that, some of the so-called big reveals at the end completely fell flat because I saw them coming from about 25% of the book in. I was hoping to be surprised more, mainly because everybody is talking about how Martin messes with your head, but hey, with all those sequels there's plenty of time to do just that.

There are about fifty billion characters is Game of Thrones and while half of them get killed off during the book, I had difficulty keeping track of some of the minor characters. Whenever I came across one that didn't seem too important, I tried to skip over trying to figure out who it was. Whoops xD

I really enjoyed this book. It took me a long time to finish, and the sequel will probably take me equally as long, but I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how shit hits the fan in Clash of Kings. Because I'm pretty sure that will happen.. And I don't mind, at all. Let the kings clash! *grabs popcorn*