A Game of Thrones
George R.R. Martin
835 p.

For Here Be Dragons.

Bantam USA, 1997.
(first published by Bantam Books, 1996.)

Back cover blurb:

In A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin has created a genuine masterpiece, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill the pages of the first volume in an epic series sure to delight fantasy fans everywhere.

In a land where summer can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family born to harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a take of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs periously in the balance, as each endeavor to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

I didn’t think this book was so long. I really didn’t. It looks like it’s maybe 500, but definitely not 800. Partly because of this, I guess, I had problems really getting into the book. (I am not a big fan of too long books, when I can’t think of any justified purpose of them being so long.)

Another reason why it took 500 pages for me to get into it was all the main characters. Every chapter was told from a different perspective, and it honestly took hundreds of pages before I for sure knew what was going on. That the main characters all had nicknames which were used interchangably with their given names didn’t make the thing better. There was a different plot for every character. Alright, so, the different doings influenced the rest, but the first few hundred pages I was completely lost. Admittedly, it only took a bit before I got a new favourite character, but after a while I realised she wasn’t really a favourite character, just that I always knew what was going on in her world, and I was thankful for that. Of course, for her nothing happens. She basically thought about dragons and had sex with her husband. It was safe. All the other characters rushed about cutting each others’ heads off. Not very nice.

So, for the first 500 pages, I was unsurewhether I liked the book or not. Now that I’m finished, I feel that I do quite like it, but on the other hand, I feel it was a bit too complicated and too much happening all the time. Or maybe it is just that I am used to a straightforward narrative without any thought required on my part. Still, it is a bit bad that it takes more than the book before I can even know if it’s any good. Before I can tell between the main characters! Yet… the story was cool.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson
94 p.

For Decades ‘08.

Giunti Gruppo Editoriale, 2001.
(first published by Longmans, Green & Co 1886.)

Back cover blurb:

It was the cures of mankind… that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling.

I just must say that this edition is so weird. It was bought in Italy, it’s published by an Italian publisher, but still it’s in English and all! It’s crazy. Because of this, I have been completely unable to find the cover. It’s not much to see, really. It’s a picture by Toulouse-Lautrec, which is a little weird, I think.

Me being a human being, I more or less knew what this novella is about. What did not know was the perspective it was told. It is told indirectly, without any real showdown with Jekyll and Hyde. And that was amazing. I didn’t have a clue that it was told in that way. I’ve previously seen the musical version of this story, and perhaps some TV-version as well (I can’t really remember, I see so many strange things), and there it is told very straight-forward. The novella is completely reliant on the suspense that is built up. You know something is strange, but you can’t really see what it is, until just at the end. I suppose that is an element of gothic fiction. In the musical there was women in it (SHOCKING I KNOW), but in the novella, there’s nothing of a kind. In fact, there are very few characters. There’s the narrator, two of his friends, a butler and Jekyll/Hyde. And possibly some other very small roles, as well. It is impressive what an atmosphere Stevenson builds up with only these few characters.

I read this the evening after finishing Assassin’s Apprentice, and if the Forged scared me, it was nothing against how Mr Hyde terrified me. Right, I am very easily scared, but still! Stevenson is more than a little talented. (read, a lot.)

Charmed Life
Diana Wynne Jones
252 p.

Collins, 2000.
(first published 1977 by Macmillan Children’s Books.)

Back cover blurb:

Welcome to the worlds of Chrestomanci where magic is as common as mathematics - and twice as troublesome in the wrong hands!

Everybody says that Gwendolyn Chant is a gifted witch with astonishing powers, so it suits her enormously when she is taken to live in Chrestomanci Castle. her brother Eric (better known as Cat) is not so keen, for he has no talent for magic at all.

However, life with the great enchanter and his family is not what either of them expects and sparks soon begin to fly…

There’s a badge on my copy of this book proudly saying Hotter than Potter!. I assume Collins added this badge to sell more copies, and seeing as my sister bought this novel eight years ago, I guess it worked. However, if they did it in order to make children actually read the novel, they have failed dramatically. This novel stood in my bookcase for eight years, merely because of that badge. Being a Potter fanatic during the turn of the millenia, I believed anything which claimed to be greater than Harry Potter must be awfully bad, because, obviously, Harry Potter was the best. This was the reasoning of a ten-year-old, mind you.

Admittedly, if it wasn’t Diana Wynne Jones who had written this book, I doubt I’d ever have read it. I have, since getting to know who she is, held in quite high esteem, even though I never have read anything by her before. Although many of my friends have read many of her books, I have never really got around to it. When I, in preparation of the summer, looked through my bookcase, I found this book, placed under W, as it should be. I thought that, seeing as the greatest Potter-era is over, I might as well read some children’s fantasy. Actually, it is here I admit that I in a way prefer children’s fantasy, because they are rarely as pretentious as adult fantasy often is. They are also a lot more fun to read, I think.

So, to begin with, I wasn’t very impressed with the book. I was vaguely interested during the first two chapters, but not much more. After the slow start, however, the book became more and more exciting. I spent a lot of time flailing because I disliked Gwendolyn so, and even more time cooing because I found Chrestomanci so amazing. He was so charming! The last few chapters I read with unbearable excitement. Magic! Gardens! Animals! Stuff! The magic teacher! I can’t really remember his name, but he was pretty awesome as well. This autumn I’ll have to read some more Wynne Jones. Maybe I should read Howl’s Moving Castle, so I can let my family watch the film some time…

Assassin’s Apprentice
Robin Hobb
435 p.

For Here Be Dragons.

Bantam Spectra, 1996.
(First published 1995 by Spectra/Voyager Books.)

Back cover blurb:

Young Fitz is the bastard son of the noble Prince Chivalry, raised in the shadow of the royal court by his father’s gruff stableman. He is treated as an outcast by all the royalty except the devious King Shrewd, who has him secretly tutored in the arts of the assassin. For in Fitz’s blood runs the magic Skill - and the darker knowledge of a child raised with the stable hounds and rejected by his family.

As barbarous raiders ravage the coasts, Fitz is growing to manhood. Soon he will face his first dangerous, soul-shattering mission. And though some regard him as a threat to the throne, he may just be the key to the survival of the kingdom.

This if the first (new for me) fantasy novel I have read in Ages. (so long the Ages is capitalised!) Earlier, I used to read fantasy novels all the time, so returning to this kind of literature after quite soem time, I felt a bit unbalanced. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Additionally, I wasn’t sure if this was a very serious novel, or a more light-weight one. Soon I realised it was a serious novel. It was also a quite unsettling novel. (The forged scared the living daylights out of me.)

So, the plot was quite slow-moving, and at times I wondered if there even was a plot, but the more I read of the novel, the more I liked it. If the plot ever was boring, Hobb’s language made up for it. In a way, I wish I could read the second book in the series now, partly because of the story and partly (yes, I am that way inclined) to find out what the gay is. But I’ve got my planned reading, and anyway, I don’t have my hands on the second novel. Maybe this autumn I’ll be bothered finding it. Probably.