A Song of Ice and Fire

First off, A Song of Ice and Fire isn’t a single book, it’s a multiple award winning series of books. Specifically, a historical fantasy – it’s based in a fictitious world in a rough approximation of our own medieval age. There are mystic elements involved, but mostly the story is driven by lords and knights, inspiration is taken from various historical events, especially in European history. In its current unfinished state, it spans four books – one of which the series’ English publishers have split into two, due to its length – each of which is decently lengthy in its own right (as you may have guessed from one book being split into two). Originally designed to total six books, the length that the fourth book, A Feast for Crows (at the time A Dance with Dragons), began to reach during the writing period forced Martin to rethink it, and decide to split the content of the book into two separate, parallel books. The first of these is A Feast for Crows, which was released in 2005, and the second A Dance with Dragons, which is slated for an April 2009 release, although it has already been delayed by about a year. The prospective list of books in the series, as given by Wikipedia, is:

• A Game of Thrones (1996)
• A Clash of Kings (1998) 
• A Storm of Swords (2000) 
• A Feast for Crows (2005) 
• A Dance with Dragons (forthcoming) 
• The Winds of Winter (forthcoming) 
• A Dream of Spring (forthcoming)

Note that in England, A Storm of Swords is further split into I. Steel and Snow and II. Blood and Gold.

That’s quite a lot of background information, and I apologise for that, but it’s important to try and impart a sense of the scale of this series. So far, there are three main storylines going on at the same time, and around twenty main characters. None of these three feel like they’ve been rushed or cobbled together, each would be a decent epic in their own right, but Martin has wound them together to create an intricately detailed masterpiece. As for the characters... there’s a great variety to them, no two are the same. Even those who appear to be the antagonists have great depths to them, showing concerns you might not have thought that they’d have. This is largely down to the style that Martin has chosen to lay the books out in. Each chapter is told from a third person view, but this view is limited to a different character’s perspective, with the character in question changing only between chapters. Martin manages to greatly emphasise the different perspective of each of his characters, with the different experiences and histories of each shaping who they are today, much as is the case with people in real life. You begin to like all of the characters, even the bad ones, and care about them, and that is one of the factors that make Martin such a strong writer, and this series such a good read. So that you know the characters that you’re learning to like aren’t necessarily going to have an easy ride, Martin shows that he’s willing to kill main characters off (my favourite in the beginning, in fact) early on, and this adds to the realism of the story, and also the suspense – you don’t know what’ll happen to each character in any circumstances.

As I have said, there are currently three storylines taking place in different parts of the world, each effected by the others (well, two of them effect each other more than the third) which are beginning to come together. The main storyline (or at least, the one in which the most characters are involved) is that of the continent of Westeros, the story begins after the continent has begun to recover from a brutal civil war brought about by the previous king’s cruelty and bad leadership, only to shortly find growing unrest followed again by war when the new king dies, and 5 seperate claims are made for the throne. The land is divided, and bitter fighting ensues. In the north, a second storyline follows the members of the Night’s Watch as they man the great northern Wall, which spans from coast to coast, the entire width of the continent. The residents of the land beyond the wall start to rally and march on the wall, and it looks as if an army of the mysterious ‘Others’ will be following closely behind them. The third story is that of Daenarys Targaryen, the last descendant of the House that ruled Westeros until the civil war before the beginning of the series wiped them out. She wants to retake the throne of Westeros for herself, but rather than travelling there she travels across the eastern continent. There she plans to build an army with which to invade Westeros and return it to Targaryen rule.

A Song of Ice and Fire is a fantastic series, which, if you like fantasy, you should definitely take the time to read. It’s a series that has to be read in order, trying to comprehend what’s happening in one of the books without reading the prior books is not something I would recommend. It provides a good mix of swords, politics, and fantasy elements, all the character depth you could hope for, and an intriguing and twisting journey that you’ll want to follow. This is one of the best series I have read.

Time calls Martin 'The American Tolkein'. Personally, I think that he is, in fact, better.