A Song of Ice and Fire 1: A Game of Thrones product reviews

What an intense book! "Game of Thrones" is a heavy, dark, and complex novel, rich in details and characters, most of whom are nowhere near as simple as they first appear, which is discovered as you move further into the book and discover each layer in what is really an absolutely fascinating storyline. There are so many levels, so many clever key characters... and so many twists and turns to the plot that the author uses to keep you guessing right the way through as to just who is on whose side, because they seem to keep switching!

I'm not normally a fan of this heavy sort of book unless it has a very large dose of "typical" fantasy (dragons, magic, the Fae or supernatural, other realms, etc), but the constant fast pace and twists and turns kept it interesting, drawing me on to the end, and I actually found myself enjoying the magic and fantasy elements taking a bit of a back seat in the plot. BIG books like this usually seem to drone on and on and on, especially with this level of detail and a plot this complex, but George R.R. Martin writes in a way that keeps it fresh and interesting... and it wasn't the book making me yawn! It was the sitting up til the small hours reading it because I could NOT put it down!

I absolutely loved "watching" the growth of all the individual characters, especially Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow, Tyrion Lannister, and Arya Stark. And although Sansa Stark annoyed me, as she was weak, shallow, insipid, and materialistic.. a BIG contrast to her stronger willed, fiestier, "thoughtful" younger sister Arya, towards the end of the book, there are hints that there could MAYBE be more to Sansa as well, so I'm rather interested to see just how this particular character develops, along with Lord Varys and Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish, both of whom are big plotters and several layers deep... definitely not what they seem!

Game of Thrones is a novel that is very much in a league of its own with a strong medieval, Middle Ages taste to it. There's adventure, intrigue, betrayal, and battles aplenty, with really only a hint of "typical" fantasy in there in the snippets of magic and "other worldly" creatures, which show up more as you get well into the book. But this book is also edgy and gritty with an author who doesn't shy away from things like sex or incest or swearing.. or the sick, nasty cruel side that is all too common of human nature, and which most fantasy (and many other genres for that matter) authors seem to shy away from. What also makes it stand out amongst others in the same genre, is that it pays not to get too attached to ANY character! Most fantasy books will keep the main "heroes" (and usually their main companions) alive no matter what scrapes they get into, but in this epic novel, no-one's safe! Happy endings are kind of few and far between here, that's for sure.

I also loved how each chapter was done from the viewpoint of a different character, but done in a way that was smooth and easy to follow so that you were able to keep track of exactly which character you were with and just where you were in the subplots. Many of the characters don't fit neatly under one particular label of "good" or "bad" either... there were many times I was just starting to think a particular character would slot under one label when they'd turn around and do something that would fit them in under the other, so there was really no ONE main defined hero or villain in this particular story, there were several of each.

The book doesn't allow you to happily close the door on the story... it makes it clear you HAVE to move on to the next book to continue with many of the plots within the story, unlike most books. It's definitely not a series where you can read the books out of order.. you'd lose far too much of the detail and background if you did, and would rapidly lose track of the full plot with all of it's subtleties because of how many twists and turns there are throughout this one book.

NOT a quick easy read by any means... but definitely a thoroughly enjoyable one if you like a book with a decent, well thought out, heavily detailed, complex plot that will keep you guessing and the pages turning constantly. NOT a book for the faint-of-heart who enjoy the more lighthearted, fantasy-heavy kind of books!