Oh nice, I've got a backlog of posts from earlier in July, so hopefully I can get a few of them written up today. First off is A Game of Thrones, the first book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series from George R. R. Martin. I had seen the first three seasons of the show earlier this year, so to make up for the wait until season 4 starts, I'm going to try to read the first three books by then. This will mean that season 4 will likely cover some things I haven't read yet, as well as some that I have, so that feels like a good spot for me to stop by then- able to see the adaptation in action, but still be surprised by the season's ending. Anyway, enough about my watching and reading plans, how was the book? Mostly as I expected- a very fun read that greatly expanded on the background of the series. I felt like I was at an advantage having watched the first season before, because the book drops so many characters on you, and it's good to know who's important and who isn't. It also helps explain some plot points that I missed completely- I don't think I had any idea what was going on in the show when Tyrion was imprisoned on a mountaintop, but the book made perfect sense out of a scene that I just kinda went with the flow with earlier. The book is divided up into several third-person character-specific chapters, and I had forgotten how Stark-centric season one is- only Tyrion, Danyris, and a few Night's Watchmen in the prologue are non-Starks who get their own chapters. This makes it a bit of a slog when you read chapter after chapter of certain characters, knowing that their story will be "cut short" prematurely, but it never got to be boring at least. So, yeah. As was said to me many times, I will say to others: Read the books.
Excellent. Your thoughts seem to align with mine - having known who was important and who wasn't made the read a much easier process than it probably would have been had I been expecting, say, Ser Roderick to be a major character. When discussing the series with a coworker, who'd read the books before watching the series, he said to my surprise that while reading Book 2 he was surprised at what a major character Theon had become. In my mind, probably thanks to the show, Theon was at least semi-important right off the bat. The coworker, who read and loved Book 1, had virtually no memory of Theon in it at all. Strange!
ReplyDeleteYeah Theon doesn't really do all that much, and I admit the only reason I knew who his character was in season one of the show was because I asked you. I think he's just present at a few important scenes with the Starks, and can be an asshole, which is a quality I didn't feel like he displayed until what happened with him in season two.
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