Dances with Dragons - My thoughts from Goodreads

A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I was rather bullied into reading A Game of Thrones, the first in this Song of Ice and Fire series, by an old friend from Germany. I kept ducking the issue of whether I was going to follow up on her recommendation until she eventually she just sent me a copy. I was worried because, although under the circumstances I was bound to try it, I was sure I wouldn't like it. Despite my love of Lord of the Rings I have a bit of an aversion to most serious fantasy and all its overcooked melodrama and daft names. Usually a page or two is enough to make me wince and return it to the shelves. In this case a page or two was enough to make me wish I didn't have to finish the book I was reading so that I could immediately immerse myself in the harsh world of Westeros.

Four books (or five volumes) later I was a hopeless addict and, like a huge number of other fans, getting VERY exasperated with Mr Martin who did not seem to be getting on with the job. It was bad enough that he had decided to split this part of the saga geographically, not chronologically, so that it seemed that even the next volume would not resolve the cliff-hangers and answer the outstanding questions, but then the next volume did not come. Deadlines droned past and GRRM's website seemed to record any activity other than actual writing - watching baseball, going to book signings and conventions around the world, relaunches of his earlier works, merchandising, games, and then the casting and pre-production of the HBO mini-series understandably distracted him. While I was with all the complainers in wishing we could shackle him to his word processor, it seemed churlish to berate a chap who had given us so much pleasure...and eventually my patience was rewarded with a gigantic slab of a book of over 1000 pages, saying in effect "what do you mean lazy?".

One of the problems with the delay though was that I had forgotten huge amounts of detail. The plots and subplots in different regions of GRRM's universe involve hundreds of characters and for a good many chapters I was struggling to get back on board and remember who did what, where and to whom, even with a long dramatis personae appended to the book. Before long though I was once more totally immersed in this brutal but incredibly detailed world and didn't want to leave. I can't imagine that anyone is writing better swords and sorcery fantasy than this but I do have a couple of problems with it: One is the sheer number of names. On the one hand putting a name to even the humblest servant does give it a close-up detail which makes it live, on the other hand it becomes completely impossible to remember them all and can "drop you out of the narrative" as you struggle to recall what this name should mean to you.

Another problem for me is the occasional real-world intrusion, which has the same effect of ejecting me abruptly from my suspension of disbelief. I can't decide whether using quotes, near-quotes or other idioms and maxims from our own world is Martin thinking we won't be aware or whether they are deliberate nods that we are supposed to notice. One example was yet another string of names of knights, the final two of which were Ser(sic) Perkin and Ser Lambert. Putting these two names together (both pretenders to the throne of the very real Henry VII) had the immediate effect of dropping me out of the fantasy. Not a big problem but I wish he wouldn't do it.

The last issue I have is that every time I get to like a character he kills, maims or tortures them. With Martin it is no good expecting that there will be a knight in shining armour who is the clear hero and who will still be there triumphant at the end. As soon as you think you've found one you can be sure he will be forced to do something horrible or simply end up on the receiving end of a longsword or crossbow bolt or something much worse. Those that have survived this far are not the people they were, having been through all kinds of hell.

Actually, this is not a actually a complaint and reluctantly I'd have to say is one of the huge strengths of his writing: For all their fantasy setting, his characters are detailed and real...and unpredictable.

Sadly, the wait has now begun for Winds of Winter and I wish I had more confidence in it appearing on time.



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