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Just got into the first book about a month ago (almost finished reading it). And I've watched several of the Season 1 episodes (I stay just behind where I've read up to).

So far, it's a fucking awesome story. The writing is kinda so-so, but the story arcs are fantastic. In that way, it reminds me of a lot of Phil Dick's novels (great ideas, good-but-not-great writing). The show is friggin fantastic, and remarkably close to the book in just about every way.

The guy that plays Tyrion steals the show.


Discuss

Love it love it love it. Got into it by watching the show first, then read all the books within 2 weeks or something. I agree about the writing, he's more of a storyteller than a writer is how I see it, the plots are incredible but the actual writing? meh. It's cool though, because the intricate plots alone are more than enough to rank them among my favourite modern books.

I watched the show first, but I kept being shocked when reading the first book just how much of the dialogue they included, and became retroactively really impressed with the adaptation. It definitely confirmed my suspicion that a TV series is a much, much better way of adapting a book than a film, especially a book like this.

The guy who plays Tyrion is amazing, definitely the best thing about the show, just like Tyrion is easily my favourite character in the books.

Possible spoiler if you haven't read much (no specifics though), probably not but I don't want to piss anyone off because I hate even minor spoilers

Great books. Haven't read the newest one yet.

I thought the writing was pretty good. Not amazing maybe, but better than most fiction writers. Better by far than Tolkien who is revered by most fantasy fans as a "great" writer.

The Riddle-Master trilogy by Patricia A. McKillip I think has some of the best writing in fantasy. (Although I think many - if not most - people wouldn't like it. If you need things tied up in nice little bows, and everything explained, and conclusive endings to things... it isn't for you...)

Also, some of the stuff by C. J. Cherryh has great writing (Fortress in the Eye of Time, The Dreaming Tree, etc.), and Steven Erikson's Malazan series (this series is one of the biggest time commitments... you wouldn't believe...). R. Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing series is another great one, and J. V. Jones Sword of Shadows series. Oh, and Mary Stewart's Arthurian Saga.

I'll stop there before I list too many...

I watched the entire first season in a weekend. I love it, definitely one of my top 5 shows. Far better as a series than it would have been with a movie. It's also interesting to hear the creators talk about how long it was in the making and how they went about literally creating a new world on screen. I haven't read much of the first book, because I simply just don't have time with school requirements, but when watching the show it's evident how close it follows the books and how much they put into making that so.

I'm about 1/2 way thru the latest book, started reading the 1st after watching the show in June and been tearing thru them since. Can't wait to see where the 2nd seasons goes as the 1st was damn close to the 1st book.

Trying to say this without spoiling anything, I agree with monkeydancer's spoiler tag, and this (no specifics) -

jfrey wrote: Better by far than Tolkien who is revered by most fantasy fans as a "great" writer.

Martin is more "efficient" with language than Tolkien...but then again so is almost everyone who's ever written anything.

But I still think Tolkien is a better writer overall, in terms of the "beauty" (for lack of a better word) of his use of words.

That being said, I stopped reading The Return of the King because I couldn't take any more 4-page descriptions of a staircase or a lamp post.

culturejam wrote:That being said, I stopped reading The Return of the King because I couldn't take any more 4-page descriptions of a staircase or a lamp post.

I'm ok with stuff like that. I'm patient, and I like lengthy, wordy, descriptions.

I just didn't think Tolkien was that good of a writer. Storyteller - decent I guess.

Things like vocabulary - for example - stick out to me in writing. Tolkien's vocabulary is on par with a 10 year old. There's just no sophistication. Maybe that was intentional I guess (After some research, it looks like it may have been, since he was writing it for his son). But I still don't like that about it.

love the show, need to start reading the books.

jfrey wrote:Great books. Haven't read the newest one yet.
I thought the writing was pretty good. Not amazing maybe, but better than most fiction writers. Better by far than Tolkien who is revered by most fantasy fans as a "great" writer.

Wow, I could not disagree with you more RE: Tolkien. I think Martin's writing is awful. Sensationalist crap. And I absolutely love Tolkien's writing (not to mention his books.) But Martin's series is AWESOME. I also haven't read the fifth one yet.
Relevant:

Mr. Golden Brown wrote:Wow, I could not disagree with you more RE: Tolkien. I think Martin's writing is awful. Sensationalist crap.

Just to explain what I mean, when I say writer I mean just the words, not the content of the words. You could equate it with guitar technique.

For example, Jimmy Page was an awful guitarist. Rusty Cooley is an incredible guitarist. I don't actually like anything Rusty Cooley plays though. What I'm talking about is them as guitarists - not songwriters, or composers, or anything like that.

That's what I mean when I say Tolkien wasn't a good writer. And, like I said, Martin isn't an amazing writer, but definitely better than Tolkien (like a C to a D, or maybe a little better, a B to a C). If you look through any of Tolkiens books you won't find anything more sophisticated than what a person in High School might write.

I like words though - that's just me. The more complicated, old, or obscure the better. And when I read a book, and there isn't a single word I wouldn't have known as a small child... well it's just hard to think much of the writer. Same thing for his sentences. Everything is just a little to simple. It's checkers when it would be so much better as chess.

I still liked the story a lot, but that is a whole different ballgame.

GAME OF THONGS???

jfrey wrote:

Mr. Golden Brown wrote:Wow, I could not disagree with you more RE: Tolkien. I think Martin's writing is awful. Sensationalist crap.

Just to explain what I mean, when I say writer I mean just the words, not the content of the words. You could equate it with guitar technique.

For example, Jimmy Page was an awful guitarist. Rusty Cooley is an incredible guitarist. I don't actually like anything Rusty Cooley plays though. What I'm talking about is them as guitarists - not songwriters, or composers, or anything like that.

That's what I mean when I say Tolkien wasn't a good writer. And, like I said, Martin isn't an amazing writer, but definitely better than Tolkien. If you look through any of Tolkiens books you won't find anything more sophisticated than what a person in High School might write.

I like words though - that's just me. The more complicated, old, or obscure the better. And when I read a book, and there isn't a single word I wouldn't have known as a small child... well it's just hard to think much of the writer. Same thing for his sentences. Everything is just a little to simple. It's checkers when it would be so much better as chess.

I still liked the story a lot, but that is a whole different ballgame.

Yeah, I see where you're coming from. But I still hold my point. I think Tolkien is a technically brilliant writer and Martin is technically stunted. Do you know the Sharpe series, by Bernard Cornwell? Martin's writing reminds me a lot of that. But that's just IMHO!
I'm more concerned with the final result. If the technique that's required to get there is good, then that's awesome, but if the final result is bad, the technique could be the best thing on earth or the polar opposite and I wouldn't care at all.

Mr. Golden Brown wrote:Do you know the Sharpe series, by Bernard Cornwell?

Haven't read that but I'll add it to my list. May take a little while though. I've got like two shelves worth of books ahead of it.

jfrey wrote:

Mr. Golden Brown wrote:Do you know the Sharpe series, by Bernard Cornwell?

Haven't read that but I'll add it to my list. May take a little while though. I've got like two shelves worth of books ahead of it.

Sharpe is kind of like James Bond set in the Napoleonic Wars. It's one of those series where if you like one of them, you'll like all of them, and chronology barely matters. Highly recommended for fun, easy reading

I agree that Martin's writing is pretty bad, just because there isn't a consistent style. Like most of it is done in some weird olde-timey english facsimile that I'm pretty much ok with, but then he'll have someone say "butt" or something that sounds like a modern americanism and it ruins the suspension of disbelief. The difference between that and a good writer (Salman Rushdie for example) is that with Martin's books the words are just a vehicle for the story, but with someone like Rushdie's the words themselves are poetic and convey a lot more meaning than the literal interpretation of how they advance the plot. That's probably a terrible explanation, but that's why I'm not a writer.

Tolkien's writing doesn't annoy me in the same way, because it has a consistent tone and style. And personally I don't find lack of vocabulary an issue, it's not the words but the use of them which is important. Some of the worst books I've ever read have use loads of long or archaic words, but it seems contrived and gives the impression that the writer just wanted to look clever, so it ruins the feel and flow of the writing.