I had been tossing around ideas on covering the book mainly for my own reflection. A chapter by chapter overview had occurred to me, but when I got the book Monday I read about four chapters and didn’t feel inspired to write anything. Not that I wasn’t enjoying the book, however. My lack of commentary changed this morning after reading Jon’s second chapter.
Let me rewind.
I stumbled upon the A Song of Ice and Fire series around 2002, during that time I had been reading mostly novels and decided to change pace and read The Once and Future King, a book that had always been on my radar that I’ve never gotten around to.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that I enjoyed the escape that fiction and particulary fantasy novels had to offer. Haven been a long time fan of the Lord of the Rings series this didn’t come as a huge surprise. So I yearned for more – a friend of mine was reading the Wheel of Time series by the late Robert Jordan and while it peaked my interest (and still does) I resolved to do some due diligence upon which I came across A Game of Thrones.
The rest is history, I had the luxury of having three terrific books to catch up on and the further luxury of Martin finishing A Feast for Crows not long after. Unfortunately while I received A Feast for Crows when it came out I didn’t get around to reading it for about 2 years. By that time the story was stale so I trifled through the first three again to re-acquaint myself with the story before reading it.
So while my wait for this one wasn’t quite as long as some – it was just as anticipated as I followed George’s progress (or lack thereof) up until the release. And of course the development and release of the HBO series certainly helped peak my interest. I had actually started reading a A Clash of Kings again after Season 1 of the HBO series ended just to wet my whistle. I was hooked, again. The only thing that could pry me away was the long awaited release of the subject book.
Having not finished the book, my early take on the delay is that if your going to do something do it right. That’s not to say it didn’t frustrate the hell out of me — particulary the false hope George had offered up many times along the way. I remain confident that he did what was right even if he was spending a lot of time with the HBO series, selling action figures and other bullshit.
On with it…
PLEASE NOTE: SPOILERS ABOUND! IF YOU ARE NOT UP TO DATE ON THE BOOKS OR ARE WATCHING THE TV SHOW SOME OF MY COMMENTARY MAY RUIN MANY SURPRISES THAT AWAIT YOU