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.

Prelude

ASoIaF is not just a book. Every book is a story but this one is a Story. As much as I respect Martin for that one, the discover of his earlier books (Sci-Fi of luscious-ladies-in-tight-outfits-with-laser-guns type) would never make me look in the direction of his work again. So I believe that this is a case of those sparkles of inspiration that simply have to find its way into somebody’s mind.

Dragons and magic (thank God, no elves!) might attract you to this story if you’re into that stuff, but they have been playing a somewhat desaturated role so far. When I read it first, I found it very refreshing that the amount of magic was cut down to premonitions, dreams and old stories.

The story is set in kingdom of Westeros, what immediately manifests as Europe of Dark Ages: knights in shiny heavy bloodstained armour, stench of war, deadly intrigues and poisonings, bastards, trueborns, lordlings and matters of inheritance.

Key figures, families of Starks and Lannisters are the easiest allusion of all, the War of Roses. The plot follows the fall of Stark family to the hands of Lannisters and their underlings, the civil war tearing the realm apart and the wild tribes stirring at the border. Among other things the surviving child of the previous dynasty is sold to the great clan leader in the Far East.

Other hints are not so eager to be spotted. I have a reason to believe, for example, that the world of Westeros will never see its Genghis Khan

Intercourse

One of the most appealing and wonderfully done feats of the book that truly sets it apart is the way of narrative: each chapter is told from the point of view of another character, sometimes, the “good” guy, sometimes, the “bad”, never judging and never failing to underline that the world is not black and white but the shades of gray.

Besides making it more subjective and objective at the same time, this way of storytelling truly connects you to the characters.

I’m an escapist, what I demand from a book is to take me away, to make come to life in my head, and this is the greatest magic Martin could have possibly invoked. The characters live and breath with you, and you laugh/suffer/love/hate/die with them.

Each chapter is told in the unique voice, even the choice of words used is often specific to the character.

The atmosphere is terrific. Descriptions of balls and battles, knights’ armour and kitchen utensils, sophisticated outfits and meals are very graphic and sound very authentic to what I have read about that era. You can almost smell the scented oils or rotting flesh.

Getting back to magic, it seems to be on the same level that was believed in those times: witches, martyrs, stories of dragons and creatures of the night. The news never travel fast, gossips arising from the news are wildly out of proportion which makes it strike even closer to home.

There are layers and layers and layers of subplots, e.g. the religious confrontation: old pagan gods, the Christian-like seven-faced god and more harsh and strict concept of Red God of Light.

Underneath it all it is an apocalyptic story of the world on the verge of catastrophe: the long winter is coming, the comet paints the skies crimson and long forgotten evil is awakening from its several thousand years slumber. And people are still playing their little games, fighting their petty wars, and that is another ‘so true’ point.

Climax

I could talk about this book for ages. I have read the whole series twice already and I’m sure it’s not going to stop there. Four books have been published to the date. I was lucky to have started reading when there were three already or I could have gone mad.

A cigarette after

Funny thing: first time I was reading the books in Russian, and each book was divided in two parts and published that way. I managed to mistake the second book for first, thought it was author’s plot to immerse the reader in the thicket of the action explaining things in characters’ recollections. Imagine my surprise when the last book I had and started to read in high hopes of finding out what happened next (lots of cliffhangers) occurred to be the first!

I enjoyed the first book nevertheless, learning how it all began, and took a sort of pride in the fact that I rebuilt most of the events in my head. The fourth book came a year later and I devoured it in three days. It wasn’t what I expected but that’s the way of Martin.

Here are some final thoughts that might let you decide whether you wish to mess with ASoIaF:

1. It’s VERY LONG. War and Peace? Multiply by 2 and that sounds about right. For the books already written.
2. Yes, it’s far from being finished. The fifth book is on the way (and been there since 2005), and Martin said, he felt like seven books were enough to tell the whole story. If judged by the rate so far, it might as well take another 10 years.
3. It’s complicated: a whole another kind a pleasure was to pick up things only slightly hinted at and never stated for sure.
4. There are lots of characters, some major, hundreds of other people; historical figures are mentioned constantly. If your memory is good and enjoy puzzles of the kind, then it’s a good read.
5. This book will do things to your head. I keep catching myself speaking to the characters in my mind, even yelling at them and wishing to appear in the scene and kick some ass.

P.S.

George R.R. Martin

Martin is a cruel author. Not only are the books gritty, the characters do really die (quite messy, I must say, especially the good guys) and his cliffhangers are just VIOLENT.

Here, look at the smirking face of this ruthless bastard and hate him as much as I do.

I LOVE you, Mr. Martin. Do publish The Dance with Dragons this year, PUH-LEEEAASE!

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.

But: the more I was into reading it the closer resemblance it seemed to bear to the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (WoT). WoT got to me first so, I thought, maybe I was just being prejudiced.

The story and origins of the main character, the bipolar system of magic, the manipulative Sisters of Light (and Dark Sisters among them), discrimination of male wizardry, the avoidance of naming the evil god — these are the points I remember now but back then I had a whole table of similarities between those two.

Among other things these books have in common are huge armies of fans and the ability to capture and hold reader’s attention. But while WoT feels like a clean version, Sot is more like a wicked dream.

Some scenes are full of vividly described violence but the hardest things are only hinted at and the moment you think of them is the moment you start hating yourself for what you can come up with.

There is a whole army of Mord’ Sith, women who were taken from their parents at very young age, abused and tortured to become the torture masters themselves (also immune to magic). They are dominatrixes clad in skin tight red leather who can reduce even the strongest person into begging and weeping. Does not it count as porn already?

The magic sword (see cl.3 above) is a broken toy too: it only works if the sword bearer truly believes that his opponent is guilty, otherwise it’s useless.

The girl (cl.5) is a holy figure, Mother Confessor, with a power to perform non-surgical lobotomy on people to learn The Truth. The person is a vegetable afterwards though. Side effects of Truth are unpleasant.

With each story arc our hero gets a new enemy that wipes the floor with him in the beginning of the arc and is wiped in the end. No matter what wild powers the protagonist got in the process, the next arch-enemy will overthrow him easily.

I know that there are a few more books but I have no desire to indulge in this guilty pleasure.

Ah, the books also had some strong allusions to Soviet Union as the Empire of Evil. And the main character (who somehow turned sculptor) defeated it by carving a sculpture that by description was a dead ringer for the famous ‘Worker and Kolkhoz Woman‘ only naked.

So, what was that all about? Ah, yes. It was decided to be made into a TV show, Legend of the Seeker. And it’s Robert Tapert and Sam Raimi. It might be cheesy but I’m sold.

Links:

• official TV show site;
• imdb page;
• Terry Goodkind official site.