Have You Heard This Song?

"Winter is Coming"

The words of House Stark, from A Song of Ice and Fire

The last time I blogged about books was about eight months ago. Maybe it's because books aren't a very engrossing subject to write about. Maybe it's just that I have not been reading as much as I would consider ideal. Or maybe, it's 'cause the average Malaysian user of the internet fills that little box in their Blogger, Friendster or Facebook profiles regarding their favourite books with phrases like "Books? Can eat arh?" and "Sorry, I have a life, okay?" - so by extension, I am forced to conclude that not many of my readers would like me to talk about something that they aren't quite sure is edible and have possible ruinous effects on
that mockery of what they consider
their lives.

Anyhow, any time I do expend the effort to write about reads is usually when I have something truly awesome to share with everybody. This time around, I like to spread the good word about George R. R. Martin's high fantasy series; A Song of Ice and Fire.

Not the most seductive of book jackets, I know.

The first book was published more than a decade ago but the series had flown under my radar until present time due in part to their lacklustre covers. Yes, in accordance to popular belief, I seriously do judge books by their covers. I chose two of my favourite pieces of contemporary literature off their shelves (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke and Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy) simply because I really like how they look, while not having read any reviews written on them previously. If you need proof that a book with a shitty cover can suck so hard it spawned a website dedicated to tearing it apart in all literary aspects, look no further than this,

The unholy lovechild of Christopher Paolini and Satan.

In the future if I ever manage to get a book of mine published, I'll cite him as my inspiration. He's everything I aspire not to be.

Okay, back to ASOIAF; So, what made me pick up the first book in spite of its really cheap-looking cover)? Well, back to some time last year on a really boring Saturday night, I decided to update my Books-I-Want-To-Read-Before-I-Die List (what d'ya mean you don't have one?) by googling for top 100 lists of fantasy novels. It was then that I discover that that goofy-covered series was in the top ten of every bloody list I scrutinised!

It took me awhile to hunt the first book, A Game of Thrones, down at the Borders of Queensbay Mall in Penang after the Borders at The Curve and the KLCC Kinokuniya failed me (I don't shop at MPH on principle). I started reading it a few months after on the nights I was suppose to slave away at the desk for my Second Year Medical School Exam, and couldn't put it down till I finish it. I was completely hooked. When I visited a proper bookstore in Bangalore after my North Indian backpacking trip, I bought all the other available books in the series in one go.

Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer. One of the many characters in the books which are made out of pure cool.

The story is told through the limited, third person point-of-views of several characters - and in the first book, they are mainly the members from the noble house of Stark, one of the many powerful families controlling the continent of Westeros. By the end of the fourth book, the latest book to date in the series, the number of POV characters ever featured have increased exponentially to a staggering grand total of 25! That is mainly due to the tendency of the author, Martin, to suddenly (and violently) kill off any one of his characters at any time - hence, replacements have to be brought in to fill their shoes.

I've read many, many books of various genres and I noticed that many writers just don't have the balls to kill off their characters - those that matter, at least. George R. R. Martin not only display great testicular strength in that aspect, but he is also willing to kill off many characters that readers care very much and root for. The books read like a game of fantasy Russian roulette. You have this terrible feeling anyone - absolutely anyone - can die in Martin's universe and you're genuinely afraid of growing too attached to any character.

When J. K. Rowling did mass character killing in Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, it came off as s cheap gimmick to draw the readers' emotions out with a syringe; she simply did not give deaths worthy of her characters. Not Martin - this guy makes the deaths come hard, fast and entirely unexpected, with all the drama or irony he can wring out of their corpses.

From a literary point of view, his willingness to remove main characters means that the whole storyline can shift entirely within a chapter, completely abolishing any generic forecasts a reader can make and rendering the plot giddily unpredictable. There's an alarming amount of "Oh my God, he's dead, what is going to happen now?!" moments in his books.

Lord Eddard Stark, cleaning his sword in the godswood in quiet contemplation. Art courtesy of Dabel Brothers Publishing.

Another advantage of using a large cast of POV characters is that it essentially allows a rather breathless pacing of the story. The author tends to end every characters' chapter with a cliffhanger (and darn good ones too) and the reader will only find out what follows in the next chapter focusing on that same character. So, imagine some horrible and unknown fate awaits a character you sincerely care for and the chapter ended before revealing the outcome - you'll have to wade anxiously through 4 or 5 chapters concerning the fortunes of the other characters before you can find out. Against your will, you'll be forcefully strung along. These books absorbs you completely into them, and won't let go until the final page is read. "Unputdownable" is something said very often in blurbs found in the dust jackets of novels these days (and that had subsequently cheapened its value) but ASOIAF truly deserve to be praised thus.

There's a living sense of paranoia which hangs over a reader from the start, partially due to the ridiculous amount of significant characters. When someone is murdered in the story, every other character is a suspect. If you've played the board game Clue before, you'd know precisely what I mean.

The crowning attribute of the series, I feel, is the incredibly realistic morality evident in its universe, quite unlike the tired trend in high fantasy of good versus evil. It started off centering on the Stark patriarch and his children, basically the "good guys" of the story (though that means little enough in Westeros). There is an entire circus of apparently evil characters, somewhat evil characters, and characters which naturally attracts suspicions like shit attract flies. I can't say a lot without revealing too much of the twists in the story, but by the time I finished the fourth book, I can't freaking tell which are the good guys and which are the bad guys anymore.

Sansa Stark, eldest daughter of Eddard Stark, building a replica of her castle home, Winterfell, in snow. Also from Dabel Brothers Publishing.

The speculative fiction market is clogged by imitators of Harry Potter, crappy dragon fantasies (with Eragon at its pinnacle, no doubt) and pop fantasies with the same damned elves, same damned orcs and same damned dwarves - the ASOIAF series is one of those original genre defining works that will, in its turn, sire its own bastard clones seeking to emulate its success. I consider it the equivalent of the Lord of the Rings of our generation. What J. R. R. Tolkien is for the Norse myth is what George R. R. Martin is for medieval Europe and the War of the Roses. The irony that they both have the middle initials of two R's was not lost on me.

Anyhow, any one book of the ASOIAF series seems almost as thick as the entire LOTR trilogy, and quite unlike its spiritual predecessor, the events occurring in Martin's Westeros is not punctuated by big chunks of text describing the scenery and the geography of Middle Earth. ASOIAF is a bluntly effective and simple read quite literally stuffed with suspenseful happenings, while making no sacrifices in the beauty of its proses and phrases. I find that fantasy novels often fall into either of two categories; one which painfully describes each and every mundane square inch of the world the story's set in with the excuse that it provides an immersive read - and the other, which is obsessed with the coolness of its characters and awesome fighting and war scenes which basically reads like a sword-and-sorcery version of Die Hard. ASOIAF apparently found the best possible spot in between the two, being immersive without droning and kick-ass without being mindless. I now consider them my favourite novels, displacing Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell from the top of my Best-Reads-Ever list.

It's an ongoing series, and three more books are forthcoming - to make it a nice seven (a number of curious importance in the story). I'm waiting eagerly for the fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, which should hit the bookstores before Christmas this year. I'll most definitely get the prequel novellas, The Tales of Dunk and Egg, as well while I wait for book six and seven (known as The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring respectively). HBO have bought the dramatisation rights to the novels and a television series is currently in planning, with every season encapsulating the events told in a single book. George R. R. Martin is going to be co-executive producer, and is expected to write one episode per season. I can't bloody wait.

In related news, I've updated my Books-I-Want-To-Read-Before-I-Die List again a couple of days ago after sifting through hundreds of reviews on the web. It's pretty short at the moment, considering all the book shopping sprees I've had in the past few years. Here it is, in an order of descending priority,

• The Hedge Knight by George R. R. Martin (from The Tales of Dunk and Egg series)
• The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One)
• The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (from The Gentleman Bastard sequence)
• The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis
• Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
• Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
• Little, Big by John Crowley (also known as The Fairies' Parliament)
  
• The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
• Tea with the Black Dragon by R. A. MacAvoy
• The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth, and Other Stories by Roger Zelazny
• Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson (from The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever)

Quite a number of them won't be easy to get in this part of the world or in Malaysia, I understand - but luckily, I do so enjoy a good book hunt. It's a special kind of satisfaction to have finally found a book of a specific publication and edition which you've been hunting for for years, and finally putting in on your shelf with pride and a swelling sense of accomplishment.

Such bliss. Such sweet, sweet bliss.



Is back to being book crazy,
k0k s3n w4i