All that is left of this family is the girl Daenerys (Dany) and her older brother, Viserys. They are the so-called heirs of the dragon, though they are in exile in the desert lands beyond the sea. The brother basically sells his sister to the Khal, or big chief of the horse clans. He hopes that the union will result in his return to the throne of his lost kingdom. Viserys thinks that Drogo, the Khal, will furnish him an army to retake his throne.
Dany begins to dabble in things which are best left alone. I am not too big on the occult angle in books but the main story was certainly good enough to overshadow Dany's mistaken flirtation with the dark side of the force, as it were.
While Dany and her brother are hoping to return to the Seven Kingdoms, Eddard Stark and his clan wish that they could just stay in their remote fief of Winterfell. Unfortunately, Eddard is a close friend of the current King, a party-hearty dude called Robert Baratheon, who is obtuse concerning the plots against him. Booze and the ladies, along with hunting, are Robert's concerns. Sounds like a southerner. Ha, ha. Anyway, Eddard must go to the seat of Robert's kingdom and become the "Hand" of the King, like a Chief of Staff.This hand job turns out to be a dangerous and frustrating assignment.
The chief villains in the empire are the motley aggregation loosely called the Lannisters. Lex Luthor and the Joker, even Loki himself, could take villain lessons from this family. Unfortunately, the king is married to Cersei, a Lannister by birth. If she had seven heads with serpents springing from each, she would be no more dangerous. She is a schemer without conscience. She would kill anyone to achieve the throne for her son, Joffrey. In fact, she would gladly kill her own husband. She perceives that the Starks are her primary obstacle to success, which means that Eddard and his brood are in for a tough life, if they survive at all.
Indeed, Jon Snow, Eddard's illegitimate son, may be the lucky one of the family. He finds himself committed to The Night Watch. I find this side story particularly captivating. In the horrifically cold and desolate north country is The Wall. It runs for hundreds of miles and is probably 100 feet tall or more. Horses can be ridden on its top. It keeps weird creatures out of the kingdom. Zombie types like the Others, direwolves and the like. But heck, Jon has his own direwolf that follows him around and the beast would gladly die for him.
Service in the Night Watch smacks of a Warrior Priesthood. They dress all in black. They take an oath, for a lifetime of service. Forsaking marriage, women, family ties and responsibilities, is it any wonder that their numbers are dwindling? Let's see, commit for life to a freezing wasteland, stocked with monsters and undesirable brothers in arms. Where do I sign? Not.
After a first book like this, I can't wait to see where the sequel goes. There are five books in the series and my next read will be Clash of Kings. If I watch the series that HBO has produced, I'll buy season one on DVD and go from there.
A cold winter weekend was the perfect backdrop to crawl inside this tale of the imaginary world of Westeros and its Game of Thrones. It actually took me a couple of weeks to finish it. I'm CE Wills.
P.S. There is an appendix to the book that will help keep the characters straight in your mind.
P.P.S. If you can handle adult content, with a capital A, you'll enjoy this.
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