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Archive Book Review: A Game of Thrones

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Archive Book Review: A Game of Thrones

I’m off to read book 2. Because, seriously, I don’t want to do anything else.

Review Date: October 15th, 2012

Cover Copy

Here is the first volume in George R.R. Martin’s magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows. As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, George R.R. Martin’s stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as they land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.

Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no man-made metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

Review

{I’m a little late getting this posted. I finished it a week ago}. I loved this book so much. I’d had reason to read it long ago but never pulled the trigger. Then a friend lent me the first season of the HBO series adaptation, and by the end of the first episode I was hooked. When I finished it, I was dying to know what happened next. I couldn’t get hold of the second season, so of course, I got the books. (I would have read them anyway, even if I had got hold of season 2). Y’all, I’m not kidding, I fricken love this story. George R.R. Martin is a plotting genius. His characters are so full. So real to me. Which makes me waaaaay too attached to them. I’m so invested. Some of the younger characters… I’m itching to know where their stories lead. So… I’m off to read book 2. Because, seriously, I don’t want to do anything else.

First Line

“We should start back,” Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them.

Favorite Lines

  • You could taste it; a nervous tension that came perilous close to fear.
  • A cold wind was blowing out of the north, and it made the trees rustle like living things.
  • Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?” // “That is the only time a man can be brave.
  • Dread coiled within her like a snake, but she forced herself to smile at this man she loved, this man who put no faith in signs.
  • I swear, women lose all modesty in the heat.
  • Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.
  • I am surrounded by flatterers and fools. … Half of them don’t dare tell me the truth, and the other half can’t find it.
  • They say it grows so cold up here in winter that a man’s laughter freezes in his throat and chokes him to death.
  • Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.
  • Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.
  • She was grey as the winter sea, with a mane like silver smoke.
  • A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.
  • If a man paints a target on his chest, he should expect sooner or later someone will loose an arrow at him.
  • We all need to be mocked from time to time, Lord Mormont, lest we start to take ourselves too seriously.
  • Stories wait, my little lord, and when you come back to them, why, there they are.
  • Thick, moist air covered the city like a damp woolen blanket…
  • …this white stuff began to fall, like a soft rain. Ad first i thought it was so beautiful, like feathers drifting from the sky, but it kept on and on, until I was frozen to the bone.
  • You’re like one of those birds from the Summer Isles, aren’t you? A pretty little talking bird, repeating all the pretty little words they taught you to recite.
  • …every hurt is a lesson, and every lesson makes you better.
  • Folly and desperation are ofttimes hard to tell apart.
  • He was a bee in a stone honeycomb, and someone had torn off his wings.
  • …but the years leech at a man’s memories, even those he has vowed never to forget.
  • A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death.
  • I’d tell you to slap some sense into your sister, if I thought it would do any good, but you’d only bruise your hand.
  • You can’t hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn’t mean tin is useless.
  • Life is not a song, sweetling. You may learn that one day to your sorrow.
  • Shattered legs may heal in time, but some betrayals fester and poison the soul.
  • Watching is not seeing…
  • The heart lies and the head plays tricks with us, but the eyes see true.
  • A nightmare this might be, yet it was no dream.
  • Laughter is poison to fear.
  • He made plans to keep himself sane, built castles of hope in the dark.
  • Did you teach him wisdom as well as valor… Did you teach him how to kneel? The graveyards of the Seven Kingdoms were full of brave men who had never learned that lesson.
  • …but some truths did not bear saying, and some lies were necessary.
  • Father,” taunted the old raven, bobbing its head as it walked across Mormont’s shoulders. “Father.” // The Lord Commander reached up to pinch its beak shut, but the raven hopped up on his head, fluttered its wings, and flew across the chamber…
  • …harder to ignore than a glorified crow.” // “Crow” Jon thought the raven sounded faintly indignant.
  • …the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.
  • You die,” he told him, and he did.
  • The whispering wood let out its breath all at once, as the bowmen … hidden in the branches of the trees let fly their arrows…
  • …her patience rubbed raw with fear.
  • Unless you have a horse with wings like a raven. Do you?” // “No.”… // “Pity, we could use a horse like that.

Last Word

  • dragons

Reader, Author, Bookstagrammer, and Mom; Alexis runs Nerdy Post, a fandom artwork box as well as serves as chief editor and writer on Drop and Give me Nerdy.

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