A Game of Thrones (1996) Book Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Monday. I hope you all had a good weekend. Today I'm here to review A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, which was published by Bantam Books in 1996 and serves as the source material for the first season of the HBO series, Game of Thrones (2011-2019). Even though the book is nearly 26 years old and many of you have seen the first season of the show, which is now 12 years old, this will be a spoiler free review. I also won't be mentioning the TV show after this introduction as I've never watched the show, though I am fairly familiar with it being that references to it were everywhere online during the show's run. So let's get into it.

"Winter is coming!" is the motto of the House Stark, led by Lord Eddard of Winterfell (nickamed Ned), and in the case of this book, it's an apt one. Not only is the season known as winter starting, but difficult times also begin in this book. What I find interesting about this book is how the Starks are initially portrayed as the good guys and the Lannisters are portrayed as the bad guys. However, we learn very quickly that sometimes things aren't always as they seem with either House. Especially when it comes to characters like Tyrion and Sansa. In fact, that is one of the things I enjoy about the book. Nobody is simply good or evil. There's a little bit of both in everyone in this book and the only constant is the lust for power that consumes almost everyone in the book. Not necessarily a lust for political power, though that is certainly the case with Cersei Lannister, and her son, Joffrey, and Viserys Targaryen, but a lust for personal power, as we see with Bran, Arya, Catelyn, Daenerys, Jon Snow, and Tyrion as they each struggle to gain control over their own circumstances.

The first time I read this book, back in the summer of 2019, I remember my favourite characters being Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister. However, this time around I found myself enjoying Bran, Arya, Ned, and Catelyn most. Though I still love Jon and Tyrion as characters. Because of the way Martin wrote these characters there are aspects of them to like or dislike as each of their stories goes along. Because we switch focus between the majority of these characters, we get the events of the book from multiple points of view and see all sides of it. Which is what makes them feel like real people rather than stereotypes. 

One of the things that I paid alot of attention to during this readthrough is food. One thing I noticed is that in chapter 25 when Ned meets with Grand Maester Pycelle the Grand Maester offers him a cup of iced milk sweetened with honey. There's no explanation of what iced milk is in the book and when I tried looking it up on any of the Wikis for the A Song of Ice & Fire series, there's no entry for it. So either it's simply milk with ice in it, or it's the Westeros equivalent of ice cream. Either way, it sounds good. 

Without spoilers I don't really have too much to say about A Game of Thrones. It's a good book and I really enjoyed it, but so much happens and there's so many characters it's easy to lose track of what's going on and who something is happening to. George R.R. Martin created such a rich world though and it's easy to just get lost in all of the detail he put into it. And it doesn't matter if you've seen the show or not because this book stands quite nicely on its own, as does the show itself. I recommend reading this book if you've never read it before, whether you've seen the show or not.

Alright my friends that's going to be it for me for today. There won't be a comic book review this week as I'm gonna be finishing up the final season of Star Wars Rebels tomorrow night before bed and my review of the season will be up on Wednesday with my final thoughts on the series as a whole going up on Friday. So until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.