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A Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin

★★★★
It's not that I resisted reading this, it's more that it just wasn't really on my radar.  It was gifted to me by a friend as an epub, and I knew it was fairly long so it appealed to me as something that I could read while traveling.  I made the mistake of starting it last Thursday, and devoured it in a weekend, and anticipate starting the second book in the series as soon as I can get it loaded on my iPad. I resisted looking at anything about the HBO series until I was finished with the book.  I really like being able to imagine the characters and wonder about how they look when they do things.  Characters are seldom well visualized from the beginning for me.  It takes a while before I know what they look like in my head.  I didn't want to spoil my own imaginings with how some producer thinks they look.  I took a peek after I finished the book because at that point, I felt like my ideas were well enough ingrained to resist alteration by some pictures.  I'm glad I did resist because I like some of my characters much better.

One of my favorite things about the novel was the sheer scope of the story, but the novel remained cohesive - I wasn't ever lost about who I was reading about or where they fit into the story.  Martin did a great job of introducing people gradually before he made them a narrator.  Also, it was clear why the individual narrating was narrating - they were providing a perspective that no one else could provide at that moment. 

I really enjoyed how the story was about the kingdom, and not so much the people.  There were particular characters, but we don't follow any one narrator for long enough for them to become the hero or heroine although I'd be lying if I said I didn't have my favorites.  Even within a family or story, you don't follow one person for the whole.  In King's Landing, the narrator changes often, allowing us to see the world from multiple perspectives which, rather than fragment reality, gives us the sense of having a much better grasp of the "truth."  It's a device that can go horribly wrong, but when done right is really excellent.  I think it's done really well here.

Finally, this is some crazy fantastic stuff.  The Daenerys plotline is craziness, and doesn't even reach the height of weird until the very end, a cliffhanger I loved.  I can't wait to see what she gets up to in the next one. 

Loved it.
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