Skip to main content

Game of Thrones

    Hey, everyone. I enjoyed my weekend and it seemed to pass quickly. I finished the initial book in the Game of Thrones series by George R.R. Martin. It is a huge book and well worth the ebook price of $4.99. Its rich detail and diversity of story lines are rarely equaled in literature. For instance, the focus of the missive is on kingdoms which rise and fall and the peccadilloes of the rich. That is just the beginning of the rich tapestry, however.The Stark family's efforts to deal honorably with a decidedly dishonorable bunch of folks is the stuff that holds the reader to the tale. Then, there is a sideline of magic. This involves the former royal family of The Seven Kingdoms.
    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.    
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's So Easy

     Hey, everyone, out there in etherland. I've been playing some new songs this morning on my keyboard. You may remember a Buddy Holly tune called It's So Easy . I hadn't matched the title to the song before today so I was delighted when I saw that it was the one that goes like this: "It's so easy to fall in love, it's so easy to fall in love." It rocks pretty good. A later version of it, after amps and guitars had improved, really rocked. It seems like Joan Jett may have done a version. Anyway, I was playing this song and I thought about a fun thing I like to do. Sometimes I'll start to play a song and tell Carley, or the grandkids, whoever may be there, a silly story about it.      For instance, I would say that once upon a time Buddy Holly came to me and said, "CE, I need a hit, my man. The kids need shoes. I want to go on American bandstand, you know what I'm saying?"     "Yeah, Buddy, I hear you. But the thing is, I think ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Movie Review: Limitless

    Hey, everyone. I ventured off the mountain today, down into the haunts of men. I'll tell you about a movie I saw, then later I'll tell you about some other stuff. The movie is Unlimited . This is a story that you would have to call science fiction, but in the not so distant future you may call it reality.      Bradley Cooper plays Edward Morra. If you looked up loser in the dictionary you would see this guy's picture. He has freeloaded off his girlfriend for years. He claims to be a writer but can't seem to put words on paper. His woman leaves him; he is a scroungy, dirty dude with no future, no drive and no money. He is about to be evicted from his scummy apartment.     Then he bumps into an old friend. The friend wants him to try a new drug which comes in the form of a small, clear pill. What Edward doesn't know is that the pill is pretty awesome. The drug is designed to unlock the true potential of the human brain. We only use a...
4 comments
Read more

The Biscuit

    Hey, everyone. What a relief that Christmas is over, huh? I don't think it was meant to be the way it is.     I started thinking about the so-called good 'ole days today. My wife says that at her house, they would take a left-over biscuit and shine their shoes before church. I one-upped her by saying, "Oh, yeah? I ate the biscuit when everyone got finished with it. And I was grateful for it." Truly, though, you can and people did, shine their shoes with a biscuit. Hey, they were greasy little buggers.     Speaking of greasy little buggers, I remember when everyone had wells and were very conservative about water, particularly those of us who had to crank a handle up and down to get a bucket of water. There was no daily bath. (No showers in those days, mate.) About twice a week we took a bath and here's the recipe: The oldest kid took a bath first, then the next oldest etc. You can see why younger siblings hated the older. Bathing in the...
Post a Comment
Read more