A Game of Thrones

The epic saga begins with a great introduction of all the different houses in Westeros, their lands, and their influence. A vast land, different parts each has a lord, and one king tries to rule them all. Watch your back while walking through Kingslanding, an enemy could lure you behind the very next corner. There are spies everywhere and no one to trust, as everyone plays by their own rules to their own benefit. Ridden by greed and hatred, only the strongest get the power and the weak are left behind to suffer. To walk over corpses gets a new definition. I have already watched the Game of Thrones series on TV, and I was mesmerized by the story. That and the dragons involved were reason enough for me to dive deeper into Westeros. As there are always differences between a book and the same named film, I was curious to find parts that weren’t mentioned in the film and how they affect the plot. I think the books and films complement each other nicely, but it’s not necessary to have seen the movies first or vice versa. At first, it may be a bit of a struggle to keep all those families and characters apart, but this settles by itself with reading on as their names occur constantly. Don’t get intimidated by a large number of pages; the beginning might be a bit long and tiresome which takes up pace after the introduction is over. The only parts I didn’t like were the parts with the battles. I usually don’t read fantasy, but this first part of the series has convinced me to give this genre a try more often.

George Martin erweist sich als Meister darin, eine anspruchvolle Welt und ein Menge vielschichtiger Charaktere zu erschaffen. Trotz der Vielzahl der Charaktere geht die Übersicht nie verloren. Die Aufteilung der Kaptiel nach einzelnen Charakteren ist wirklich sehr gut gelungen. Die Handlung ist spannend, und das Buch nimmt immer wieder neue Wendungen. Martin schreckt auch nicht davor zurück Hauptcharaktere das zeitliche Segnen zu lassen, eine für Fantasyromane ja eher unübliche Eigenart. Martins Englisch ist auch für ungeübt Leser englischer Literatur leicht zugänglich, also auch als Einstieg in englische Fantasy zu empfehlen. Tad Williams ist hier etwa deutlich anspruchsvoller. Fazit: Ein rundum gelungener Auftakt eines grandiosen Fantasy-Epos. Für alle Fans von Autoren wie Tolkien oder Williams uneingeschränkt zu empfehlen. Daumen hoch!

If you like fantasy, you MUST read this book. It's even better than the series, although that one is pretty good already (at least until season 7). This books contains a huge cast of characters and has a totally epic scale. There are dragons, there is intrigue, there are battles and there is war. This book contains everything a classic fanatsy hit has to have. But not only that: This book is really special because Martin writes about politics as if they were real. There aren't really good guys and bad guys, it's just full of morally grey characters and most of the villains aren't just evil monsters but humans and some even humans with wounds from the t´past, which led them to be "Villains". If you like huge, epic scale fantasy, read thsi book. If you want a finished series, better watch the show (aöthough the end isn't really satisfying) because I doubt Martin will ever finish the series

I stared reading this after watching the series and I have to say: the series didn't even come close to the books. The different character pov's, you really felt like reading the views of said ones, like daenerys, up to bran, totally different writing styles. The build up of the whole fantasy world, felt like switching to different parts of the world. Martin's writing is fantastic and so well spoken. Definitely one of the best fantasy series I've ever read.

The first volume of „A Song of Ice and Fire” is introducing as to a great new fantasy world. The typical rules of a year with for seasons do not apply here and so a summer can last for decades and so can the following winter. But winter is coming and nobody knows it better than the Starks of Winterfell whose head Lord Eddard Stark is the warden of the north. King Robert is however looking for a new hand and he wants no one else besides Ned to fill this honored position. For Ned this is as much a curse as it is an honor. Life at court is full of intrigues and everyone is only looking out for themselves. Now the Stark family is split apart and has to fight against the treachery while being separated. At the same time the Dragon king living in exile is claiming his right to the throne. I don’t think there is anything new I could add to the thousands of reviews already out there but since I review almost every book I read I did not want to make an exception here. To be honest I have no clue why I waited so long to finally start reading the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. With all the different characters it took me a while to understand who is who and how they are all connected. But once I got a hang of it I kind of flew right through the story. So far I have not watched the tv show yet because everyone keeps telling me to read the books first. Therefore I can not compare the two at all but I also do not think that this is necessary. While reading this book I really enjoyed the style of writing and also the great world building. I loved to have so many different POVs so I could really learn a lot about this world and all the characters and families in it. Although some characters are more important than others I would not say that there is one main character and therefore it’s not like most books where you can really watch one protagonist grow and change throughout the story. As the series progresses I hope we will see more developments in the main characters though. “A Game of Thrones” is probably not the best fantasy book out there but it is a story that I really enjoyed. Therefore I am really looking forward to reading the other books in the series as well. In my opinion it’s a great start of the series and I will definitely continue reading the next book soon. 100% recommendation from my side.