Disappointed

[mikailborg]

After hearing over and over how good a book it is, I decided to pick up George R.R. Martin's "A Game of Thrones". I was wary... when the first book of a series is 800 pages, it's generally a bad sign. Not always, though, so in I jumped.

I'm 120 pages in. Can someone tell me why I should finish this thing?

The characters seem to come in two flavors: 1) despicable, and 2) shortly to die. The plot seems to be about these unlikable characters squabbling over an unimportant kingdom which is coming apart from beneath them anyway, and leaving massive swathes of death behind them as they do. Not that it matters who wins, since they'll just be setting things up for the next squabble.

At this point, a massive invasion of dragons wiping the place clean would be an improvement. And I'm supposed to want to read another two or three books of this?

So, like I said, tell me how it starts getting better.

If nothing else, I'd like to think I haven't wasted the money and the hour of reading time.

Comments

[vond.livejournal.com]

Like I said, it's grim. But the characters seem to display real emotion, and the story is engaging. If you need the good guys to usually win, then you'd probably best stop reading.

The least unpleasant reading would, I guess, be Jon Snow's story, so you could always just read a few of his chapters into the future and see how that goes.

[eeedge.livejournal.com]

David Gemmell! Read David Gemmell's work! It's not kind to the characters all the time, but everyone has some kind of story, and the plots are excellent. Mr. Gemmell is one of my favorite epic fantasists at this point.