Good God! A TV Show…

Button fiddling

Long, long time ago, when the grass was greener and the sky a deeper shade of blue, I was naive enough to believe that there was no better epic fantasy than Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.

Somewhere in the gap between n^th and (n+1)^th book I grew bored and decided to look for new options. Immediately A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin caught my attention.

Several reviews praised it to the stars yet also mentioned that no other author was so prone to crippling and murdering his characters like Martin. I knew how attached I might become to the characters so the doubts lingered. Then at some point I decided to give it a shot.

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve read the last book (at the moment) in Sword of Truth (SoT) series. It was the 7^th or even 8^th, I think.

My feelings about the book were mixed. I loved me some fantasy back then. And it appeared to push all the right buttons. Behold:

1. Cute guy living in a forest who is destined to get the sword out of the stone and become a king for great things — check.
2. A seemingly harmless old man who is a mighty wizard in disguise — check.
3. A magic sword that is meant only for one person (guess who?) — check.
4. A pure evil that is a major peril to the kittens, dolphins and vicunas along with democracy and human rights all living things — check.
5. A pretty girl whose fate is intertwined with our hero’s and a miserable fate it is — check.
6. Dragons — what, only #6? How could I forget the dragons? — check.
7. Many other traditional things such as witches, trip to the underworld, evil kings and queens (or duchesses, I don’t remember exactly), curses, other magical artifacts, etc. — check.