1/24/2006

Back

I've been home since Friday night in truth. I'm ashamed to admit that while I was away on travel I got sucked into a novel and have been reading during my chess practice time instead. I hope to be getting back into the swing of things tonight with PCT. Anyway, if I can tear myself away from Westeros and George RR Martin's characters I might get better at chess.

To the rest of you bloggers, WOW, when you take a few days off the amount of posts to catch up on is amazing.

4 comments:

Blue Devil Knight said...

A Game of Thrones was an amazing book. I stopped there for now, waiting until the series is complete. I figure that way, I'll be less likely to feel compelled to reread all his stuff every time a new one comes out!

Calvin said...

just got pct. i like the format. should work well, especially with the time constraints. what's the book about?

Jeff said...

The books are about noble families in a fuedal society fighting for the throne. Its interesting because it breaks some of the traditions of typical epic fantasy, yet still delivers a great story.

Blue Devil Knight said...

Martin really breaks with tradition in a great way. I get SOO sick of fantasy novels in which 75% of the text is a boring travelogue.

"And then they walked to the Old Forest. And there was some evil thing hiding that almost got them. But it didn't because someone used some magic that they didn't know would work. Then they climbed a mountain. It took seven days because of his broken leg. On the mountain, there is a tension between two important characters. It will come up every 200 pages or so, and then eventually the bad one will die but everyone will be sad because he really couldn't help it. Then they keep travelling for another year."

BORING!

Of course, there is some travelogue in Martin, but a lot less.

In the past two years, I've read Jordan, Goodkind, James Clemens (Wit'ch Fire). As a kid, I loved Terry Brooks. By far, Martin was the best (though it really is NOT for kids: there's some disturbing sexuality). I can't wait until the rest of that series comes out.

I think Martin's stuff approaches Dune in my esteem (in which Herbert spends almost no time on a travelogue).