This! Highly recommend for anyone who is a fan of long fantasy series books or even just anyone who likes to read about power struggles and good drama. This series called A Song of Ice and Fire has the perfect blend of:
1. setting - it's a medieval setting but a fictional world that's pretty similar to our own but a smaller scale - enough so that the author covers events and adventure, or if even just a touch of history of the entire expanse of the lands of the fictional world, but also uses intricate detail of this world to shape events of the story - like the way surrounding geography of a region influences the outcome of wars, battles, strategy, struggles, etc. The technology available to the fictional people is exactly the same as what was available in the mid to advanced middle ages (trebuchets, catapolts, siege towers - no cannons / gunpowder used for projectiles) but there is also a touch of demons, magic, and dragons but this is not spot lighted, so it makes the store feel more real.
2. Character Developement - Easily the most impressive thing about this tombe, possibly offsetting for others, but there is
hundreds characters, though more like 50-75 prominent characters, but it feels overwhelming and hard to keep track of at first, but you quickly learn what you should remember, and what not. There is a very complicated genealogy that the author made up himself and somehow manages to prefectly keep track of (I suspect he has a large chart of the whole genealogy he keeps and just adds characters to it as he makes them up), but it makes for a really interesting story line
3. Level of Detail - No level of detail is missed, this might also be something that is off putting. Everything is vividly described which creates a very vivid picture in turn, and makes it easily to get lost in the world which is one of my favourite things about it. He also has a poetic flair to his writing and always finds unique was to describe something without getting repetitive. The book is also written with an old english feel to it, but in such a level of detail that he has basically created a new dialect complete with it's own euphemisms, euphemisms, cliche phrases, and just way of saying things and describing things. Very refreshing.
4. Story line - The concept is really nothing new, it's an epic fantasy story spiced with monsters & magic, but if I had to describe the book in a one sentence, it would be about the power struggle of ruling families in an ancient time. The drama is exquisite and really makes the book exciting and hard to put down. Betrayals and backstabbing at every turn. Disclaimer: there is alot of sex, killing, and some profanity so don't give it to young kids - it will ruin their innocence. It is how r.r. martin weaves the elements of a fantasy novel into a it's so good I can't put the book down drama that makes the story really hit home.
If you haven't noticed by now I am a huge fan of this series - now I haven't actually read it but listen to it via audiobook while I commute to work every day - each book is 1000 pages and would likely take me the better part of a year to get through the whole series instead of a book every 40 days since I am a slow reader and free time is limited. I'm normally not huge on the whole audiobook thing but it is really also well read; the voice actor Roy Dotrice does a really good job with it - there are multiple readings for different volumes of the book, but I think he's the best.
#1 Favourite series though as has been touched on before is Stephen Kings dark tower series; I just feel like there are alot of personal themes in the book that really reverberate with me and my own life experiences. I think I have to say that A Song of Ice & Fire is a better story.
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