Review: A Game of Thrones

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I think this might be the great American Novel. A Game of Thrones simultaneously celebrates and deconstructs the American obsession with bravery and heroism; it interrogates the trend of the powerful towards corruption, and even has time to explore the nuances of privilege.

What's really amazing with this book is how effectively it subverts the tropes of modern fantasy, and at the same time revels in them. There are no particular heroes, barely a quest to be found, and the dragons don't show up until literally the last page At the same time we get heroic showdowns*, a fabulous detour through of a mountaintop fortress, and a creepy undercurrent of the wonders yet to behold in this world.

And there are wonderful characters, pithy dialogue, some well written battle scenes, and lots of sex, to boot!


* just not necessarily between the people we would choose to face off...



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Review: Towers of Midnight

Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I really really liked The Gathering Storm, and so I was super enthusiastic about Towers of Midnight. Sadly I didn't like nearly as well as the previous one.

Brandon Sanderson continues to do some things very well.
One of Robert Jordan's major weaknesses was in buildup*. Very frequently the big finale of a book just happened sort of abruptly and arbitrarily. Conversely, the slow build to the conclusion of a few of the storylines here is very satisfying. This is particularly true of Perrins Arc: the grindingly slow progress of Perrin vs. the Whitecloaks; Perrin vs. the Wolf Dream, and finally Perrin vs. Slayer build and build until they come to an epic conclusion**.

And the fights are great! I loved Mat vs. The Golam; and I really loved the multiway Tel'aran'rhiod/Wolf Dream/Holy @#$%, there incredibly powerful assassins in the white tower battle***, ****.

Honestly the biggest weakness in this book was the actual Epic Finale. We have been waiting for Mat's return to the Ael/Eel'finn for eight 1000 page books: It really deserved to a) have been more than 60 pages long and b) be more than just a kind of lame fight scene*****. The ultimate reveal was cute enough, i suppose, but this is one area where I would have most like Robert Jordan's more assured handling of Mat's roguish nature.

But, all in all, it was a very satisfying penultimate volume. On to A Memory of Light!

* Yes, yes some things were built up for Books on end, that's not really what I'm talking about.
** Ok, maybe a little too much. I did get kind of tired after the fourth Perrin vs. the Whitecloaks standoff.
*** Egwene continues to be a bad-ass. I really am enjoying Brandon Sanderson's handling of her.
**** Can Brandon Sanderson write Star Wars VII? I would pay good money to see that.
***** Although I did appreciate that the inside of the Tower of Ghenji is the random room puzzle that's been in every top down scrolling rpg video game since Final Fantasy II.




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Review: The Rook

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I don't know how sophisticated Goodreads' add generation is, but they certainly work on me. I would never have even heard of it if it hadn't shown up here, and I was intrigued enough by the blurb to pick it up.

I'm glad I did, too, although I can't say I loved it. The premise is very compelling--a young woman with no memory wakes up in a park surrounded by dead bodies and discovers in her pocket a note from her past, obliterated, self explaining what's going on.*

The counterpoint between the old self and the new self was delightful. Apart from that the book is just so so. It has the usual modern urban fantasy hijinks: A secret governmental organization that protect us from supernatural threats**, a hodgepodge of barely believable superpowers, and lots of quirky asides about the bureaucracy and mundanity of both these things.

These are the same old tricks as you will find in the Dresden Files, or the Laundry, and these are no better or worse than the ones you'd find there, which is frankly this books downfall. Apart from the conceit mentioned above the book really does nothing to distinguish itself.

* Spoiler alert she's the member of a secret government organization that protects us from supernatural threats.
** I hate this device, by the way. See *.



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