Strictly for ASOIAF fanatics..

So I’ve finally decided to take a brush to the virtual dust mound that has settled in this page. And what better way to do it but write about the one thing that I’ve been obsessed with in the last couple months – A Song of Ice and Fire by Mr.George.R.R.Martin!

For the uninitiated who still wish to continue reading, ASOIAF is a fictional saga (or epic fantasy in GRRM’s words) about the battle for the Iron Throne, seat of the King of seven kingdoms called Westeros. At first look, it may sound like yet another fantasy novel, but this one takes the wind of out of you with the enormity and intricacy of the plot, the never ending manipulative characters, the knights who value honor beyond anything else, the houses of lords – great and small, the rich history behind each of these houses, the epic battles that spans across the whole continent, the dragons, the kingsguard, the hedge knights, the sellswords, the free cities, the High Valyrian language, the magical places that are brought to our imagination through GRRM’s words, the depth of characters, the stupendous screenplay and the list just never ends.. I could go on and on about what makes this a truly *epic* fantasy, but I still probably won’t be able to enough justice to it.

I first chanced upon the mention of this book god knows where (a terrible memory – typical me!), but nevertheless I made a mental note that day to order the first of the 7 part series, called Game of Thrones (there’s also an HBO TV series for these books), given the way people were selling this book. So I did and finished reading it as fast as I could just to see what the fuss was all about. To be honest, I was never quite taken by the book. It had all the necessary elements to make a good fantasy novel – but it never struck me as something that would be wildly imaginative with a deeply intricate and tightly woven plot, as I’ve come to realize today.

A brief hiatus (read 1 year) was in sight before I thought I’d start with the second part of the series (called A Clash of Kings), but I did possess a copy of the book all along. It was just that I wasn’t able to coax the reptilian part of my brain to get myself started with the book. It finally happened one fine day and I ended up reading close to 200 pages in one sitting. And that’s how the whirlwind of a journey into the magical lands of Essos and Westeros started. Unputdownable might be the right word to use here, since all I remember doing in my waking hours (except at work, well maybe a little bit at work too :P) was to sift through the endless pages of these books. It doesn’t come as a surprise that I was able to finish the rest of the books in a short span of time (1 – 1.5 months I guess, would’ve been shorter if I didn’t have to work every day :/). Well, it was long overdue anyway, given the fact that the first book in the series was published way back in 1995. I was probably still struggling with my alphabets back then! And the latest one (5th book of the series) published in 2011 with 2 more yet to be released.

Post-reading ASOIAF : This phase is a little annoying, as we’ve to wait for another 2 more years before the next book comes along. But thanks to some of our over-zealous readers who predict the future state of affairs in the book by labelling them “spoilers”. Truth be told, It’s mostly because of them that I’ve come to appreciate the complexity of the plot, the labyrinth of hidden agendas, ulterior motives fraught with prophecies and clues in some of the arid parts of the book, which are easy to slip by the eye of a casual/first-time reader. A thunderclap goes inside the mind when some of the not-so-obvious things at first sight become ever-so-obvious – only that we didn’t have the mind to look at it. I was japing with my friend that a good part of the next 8-10 years of our lives will be spent reading/writing/analyzing spoilers, provided GRRM publishes the last 2 books of the series within 10 years (I pray he does!).

As I’ve said, there’s a HBO TV series for these books as well for people who are interested, but I’d personally prefer the books because as the saying goes, “A person who doesn’t read lives just one life, while a person who reads lives a thousand lives”.