A Song of Ice and Fire Easy Read
Fantasy
Is it worth reading 'A Song of Ice and Fire'?
I must say I am very happy with myself. I've been reading the ASOIAF (A Song of Ice and Fire) series on and off since I was fourteen, and I finally finished A Dance with Dragons at twenty-two. After the dismal ending of the TV series, I now feel primed and ready for the "bittersweet" ending George RR Martin has been promising for the past decade.
You may be one of the many disappointed fans of the TV show, wondering if the books are worth the read just to (hopefully) get a satisfying ending. You might have got the books as a holiday or birthday gift, and they are now gathering dust on your bookshelf because you're intimidated by the size of them. I would give up reading them for months on end only to crawl back to them to see what everyone was up to.
Hopefully, I can help you decide whether it's worth your time.
1. Did you love the show (and hate the ending)?
We aren't going to get a reboot of Game of Thrones any time soon. If you are still seething at the show's anti-climax, the books could make you excited about the story again.
My parents watched the first series and loved it. My dad tuned out by season two because of all the magic. Then my brother got hooked, and my mum was desperate for me to start watching it.
Season three had just concluded so there wasn't too much to catch up on, but I felt that it was right to read the books first. I'd read a hundred pages or so, then watch an episode, but my mum began to get impatient, and the show crept ahead. Before I knew it, I was eagerly awaiting season four while only being on book two.
I adored the show, so I got to watch the decline in real-time. I watched the first half of the last season in denial that the show had become terrible, and the second half laughing in despair at the characters. I knew I had to go back to the books.
If you have made peace with (or even liked) the TV show's ending, reading the books probably wouldn't be very satisfying. But if you're desperate for more, read them! I know they're long, but you've already devoted hours of your time watching the series, re-watching seasons to jog your memory, and googling fan theories.
Don't you want to do that all over again?
2. Do you like a simmering writing style?
George RR Martin is a self-confessed 'gardener' when it comes to writing. His plots aren't super focused and fast-paced. A lot of his writing is rooted in the emotional arcs of the characters, and he plants seeds that grow into a fully blooming fantasy world.
You can't quite pinpoint the main plot of the story. Each chapter is from a different character's point of view. You can leap from one side of the world to the other with just a turn of the page. There are many plots and sub-plots that are very subtly woven into a great epic crossing over two vast and mysterious continents, tapping into themes of love, honour, and power. Vengeance, justice, and magic.
You will read in-depth descriptions of local cuisine, random conversations between sailors and serfs, discussions on theology, and a whole lot of pageantry. You will also get to know how dozens of key characters think, and be let in on secrets that would be game-changing if only the characters from the previous chapter knew, and they're a thousand miles away.
If you like this style of writing, you will love every second of ASOIAF. However, my favourite books are fast-paced, short-chaptered novels of around 350 pages. 'Simmering' sometimes just means 'boring'.
If you're like me and have a habit of skim reading boring chapters, you will probably miss little nuggets of gold, but you won't be lost in the story. If you're not precious about spoilers, you can always do a quick google search to jog your memory. There are plenty of websites that provide chapter summaries if you really want to get onto the next chapter and see what your favourite character is up to.
3. Are you ready to meet a lot more characters?
Each chapter is like a little short story from various characters' points of view, and there are lots of them. There are 31 different POV characters throughout the series. Some that the show fans will be aware of, and some that never showed up on TV, like Jon Connington and Arianne Martell. Then there are dozens, if not hundreds of characters that flit in and out of the series. Some of these characters were smushed together for the TV show, like Gendry and Edric, and some were left out entirely, like young Griff.
Then you have half a dozen nicknames and titles for some of the characters that you must keep track of (e.g. Lord Eddard / Ned / The Hand / The Quiet Wolf / Warden of the North). Also, if the character has adopted a secret identity, the POV chapter title will often change. Sansa becomes Alayne, Arya becomes Cat of the Canals, Theon becomes Reek. That can get confusing too.
Another issue you may run into is not enjoying certain characters' POV chapters, which will make you not want to continue. I was like this with Theon's chapters for a while, but they really spice up after he gets caught up with Ramsay. I always found Bran's chapters boring, which would lead me to procrastinate reading on for months on end. But that feeling is worth it when you finish a particularly dull POV and see that your favourite character is waiting for you on the next page. It's what kept me reading them.
It's easy to gloss over the obscene amount of characters and get a bit confused when they suddenly become important. Luckily there's a 'who's who' appendix in every book. I rarely used these because my go-to was Google, but I did end up with a few spoilers by doing this.
4. Do you love a good fan theory?
The one fun thing that has come out of GRRM's delays on the final instalments is the sheer amount of fan theories that have circulated and developed in the past ten years.
There are so many theories that some major plot twists that are yet to happen in the books (eg R+L=J) now seem boring and predictable. There are some straightforward and interesting theories, like the theory that the northern houses are conspiring together to take town The Boltons and The Freys. Then there are some weirder ones, like Varys secretly being a merman.
I've been delving into the theories since finishing the books, and I've honestly had so much fun doing it. Yes, I'm riding on the coattails of those who have read the books before me and loved them much more than me, but right now, there is nothing like reading arguments on Reddit about the ramifications of 'Lemongate' (again, you are going to have to read the books, or spoil the books, for yourself if you want to know about the clusterfuck that is 'Lemongate').
So, do you think it's worth it?
Even though this type of book isn't my thing, I'm glad I read them. For all the boring chapters, there were plenty of interesting ones. I think that there is something for everyone in this series. There's plenty for the fantasy nerds, but also something for the history nerds, the political nerds, theology nerds…Basically, if you've made peace with your nerdiness, you will find something to enjoy.
If you've decided they aren't for you, it's no skin off my teeth. These books have frustrated me, and they've taken me years to get through. I just didn't want to miss the party, and I think we show-first fans need to gate crash the party, even if we're the last ones on the sticky, bloodstained dancefloor.
Source: https://medium.com/theuglymonster/is-it-worth-reading-a-song-of-ice-and-fire-dc7df690e9a2
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