GAME OF THRONES - am I a lone heretic?? ... I am not that impressed ... if you are an addict - do NOT read the rest!!! You have been WARNED!!! Given all the hoopla ... I was a bit astounded when I was bored with the first few episodes of the TV series, it seemed achingly SLOW and not to be leading anywhere in particular ... I think it took a week for me to bother to watch ep 2 ... and then days to get to ep. 3 - after that I guess it began to pick up a bit of pace ... a BIT ... enough for it to start to get me interested - and the end of the last ep was a great cliff hanger! And a HUGE leap into a high level of fantasy that appeared to be totally from absent 95% of the entire 9 other eps. So - thats great - but it was a bit of an abrupt gear change into another (Lord of the Rings) type genre (so from, say, a film on Robin Hood (the era we know from fantasy, about 900AD or 1,100AD) but ending withe a scene of Maid Marion hatching Dragons!! Whacky. Yes - I know there were CLUES about Dragons - all as having died out CENTURIES ago (and maybe even being myths), etc ... Anyway it was a good scene the way it ended, with her in the ash with her 3 babies!!! WOW. That made me interested to try reading ... but the LONG book is SO detailed and so SLOW ... and anyway Id just seen the key stuff on the TV. I will say it was better written (maybe MUCH better) than I had expected - but the VAST weight of TOMES ahead of me is VERY daunting - one reason Id never bought the boxed set of 6 or 7 that Ive seen in sales ... what!!?? Read ALL THAT!!! No - not when there are better things to read. But the DVD softened my anti- enough for me to buy vol 1 second hand - but as I say Id just seen that stuff ... so the next time I was at that shop I got vol 2 ... CLASH OF KINGS - and started ... but it did not pick up where the other book left off ... I HATE THAT!!!! Just imagine if, after EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, wed been given the sequel - with a totally unrelated lead in for 15-20% .... W.T.F.??? And so it was back to short(ish) chapters, each more or less about some OTHER character, one per chapter, as if you might not be interested enough to actually FOLLOW a smaller cast - this has FAR too many leading players - VASTLY too many ... And except in the broadest political military levels, none of this is really interlinked (especially NOT as LITERATURE) ... But it really starts to get me down reading through what at times is like a reference book of the local famous, with their long pedigrees, and 100s of bloody NAMES!!! Some almost identical!! THAT is what the APPENDICES should be for mate!!! TRIM it down ... TRIM IT!!!!!!! With so many chapters devoted to (more or less) one key person (or situation) then zinging off to a totally different chapter, set 100s of miles away, in places that youve barely heard of, that are either difficult, or IMPOSSIBLE, to find on the really AWFUL maps .... aaaaAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!! A good MAP IS ESSENTIAL - what is it with the publishers that they do not get some ARTISTS to do some decent and interesting maps??????????? OK since the first few volumes came out, it does seem that some effort has gone into that - why are these NOT included? All too expensive? I doubt it. They cant be bothered. I despise modern LAZY publishing. Even the later Lord of the Rings hardcovers no longer have the fold out maps!!! Ohh ... but ... you can BUY the wonderful extras ... gee ... thanks ... The great fold out map in the ORIGINAL 1950s Lord of the Rings hardcovers was a VITAL part of the entire mystique of that world creation - it drew you in, your eyes wandered off the thing you looked at it for ... you drifted around, drawn on ... and out ... it expanded, and grew ... whats this ... whats over there??? Endless hints, and hooks - just in the ONE huge MAP!!! Fans could fantasise about the bits that fell off the edges - such as is cleverly reflected in the title of South of Harad, East of Rhun (very clever Jon!! do you still see him William Good?) - this was a Sydney Uni fanzine (mid-1970s). That is why I have wasted so much time on the maps I have been drawing for my (far less padded story). Maps add to the entire package. A token effort is just an INSULT. Ohh yes ... I can go on-line and also BUY others ... It is like trying to read about a mass ping pong championship ... balls pinging off the table out of sight ... zing ... ding ... ping ... where???? Ohh bugger ... there he goes - he starts it off again - OHH NO!!!! And, like Bk 1 - 2 is SO bloody SLOW .... yes, still well enough written, but in an obvious way (meaning a LOT of needless description, nice enough ... but that seems beside the point when it means you are WADING through sticky stuff to get anywhere, the layering on, and on is way beyond what is needed to set the scene etc. This is a pity. He can write well enough, but it has not been heavily trimmed down - I guess publishers have sacked all the good editors you hear of in past publishing houses, where writers used to thank them so much ... where have you guys and gals all GONE???? This is SO wordy and flabby - he could have shed 10-20% of the vapid meretricious, prolixity!! (Maybe like my review??) I guess thats a bit unkind to his work ... but Ill leave it - and I love using such wanky, but extremely PRECISE words!! I am sure you like words too Alex Paige!! GRR Martin has committed the worst sin any writer can commit - Ive basically given up reading his 2nd volume ... bogged down about pp. 100+ but with 700 to go ... and the road to Moscow stretching on forever ... on ... on ... into Winter ... well ... the interest the final DVD scene had fired up in me has been SMOTHERED (so I guess Ill stick to the TV series where the 1,000,000s (YES - MILLIONS) of unnecessary WORDS are CUT - do I really want to WADE through MASSES of meandering, at times plain odd, overly contrived, complex, largely unrelated chapters, to get the occasional morsel of a wow moment ... well, the answer is simple - NO I DO NOT. no way .... no NO, NO!!! Life is far too short. I guess if you love it this is aggravating - especially if you suffered my gazzillion word denunciations of John Nathan-Turners crappiest seasons of 1980s Doctor Who ... for you I feel some sympathy ... as you must feel - here is that loudmouth Know-It-All Antony bloody Howe AGAIN !!! BUT - another reason NOT to tone this down, is, I think that is THE problem with SO MUCH modern Fantasy and SF writing (in fact perhaps nearly ALL pop writing the last 2-3 decades - it seems decades since ANY old page count limitations disappeared ... what a disaster!!!! OBESITY IN WRITING ... No wonder the forests are all getting CUT DOWN - the days of any restraint in paper consumption have vanished! Sadly. Sigh ... there go the Ents ... Tolkien loved forests - hed be bitterly disgusted that pulp mills need to cuts them down to make paper for more pale imitations of his much tauter work.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 12:06:01 +0000
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