I just couldn't get into A Song of Ice and Fire

I read two pages of it. Twice.

I don't like fantasy. Everyone loves it. I tried.

I tried it. It just wasn't for me, either.

Canislupus54 said:

What didn't you like about it?

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Kind of the same thing as you. Also, the first time I tried to read it I was 14 (why anyone gave me that book then, I don't know) and I couldn't get past Danaerys (spelling?) basically being raped when I was her age. I tried again later and... The characters have to be a special kind of asshole for me to care about them and GoT doesn't have that kind of asshole.

I couldn't get into it either, and I love fantasy. My friend really loves it, but it just did not grab my attention. Normally I'd power through a book anyway, but considering it has a rather large number of sequels I shall pass for something that holds my attention span for longer than 3 seconds.

I found if I skipped the epic paragraphs describing clothing and food, and just skipped from dialogue to dialogue it was a lot more tolerable.

Oh, I really like those books, but as someone who can't quite see what the fuss about Neil Gaiman is, I feel ya.

ASOIAF is one of those bandwagons I am quite happy to jump on, love it. But a lot of the purported amazing worldbuilding feels barely better than someone's D&D janky setting (some of it is great). And those names, ugh.

Couldn't get past the first few chapters.

I tried. I failed. It was grim and repetitive. And when GRRM can't figure out what to do with a character then BAM! Dead. Sorted. And we start again... Not to knock it if it's your thing, just my feelings.

Not all books are for all readers. It's perfectly fine to dislike a book that a lot of other people like -- they probably don't all like the books you love. ASOIAF is strongly polarizing. You are not alone in not getting into it.

For me, I read the early volumes as they were originally published. They definitely stood out from the pack at the time, both in craftsmanship and ambition. But the field has changed around it, as have my tastes, and by the time vol. 4 made its appearance I was profoundly uninterested in reading it. Even less now. My verdict pretty much echoes yumpty-tum.

I'm with you %100. Completely not my thing.

Grrr......I should've known better than to read this thread.

Had never read any of it, nor watched it on TV. With my predilection toward fantasy, figured it'd be another one to toggle with Tad Williams for some reading material. So, just finished the first book a few weeks ago. I can see the merits of both sides - some of it I have to slug through, other portions I can't read fast enough.

So, why am I hating this thread? Too many spoilers! Please edit the OP title to include the words "Warning: Spoiler Alerts included herein"

I can't remember where I heard this . . .

George R.R. Martin, Joss Whedon, Steven Moffat, and Quentin Tarantino walk into a bar . . . everybody dies.


(Should this have been prefaced with Spoiler Alert! . . ?)

Hmmm...on re-reading, there's no specific spoilers from you. But others discuss sexual activities (which I'd already read through, so no spoiler there), someone else did tease about GRRM's predilection toward killing off characters when he writes himself into a corner. Pondering if this is why Eddard...well, never mind, now I am falling victim.

*sigh*

Back to work...

ironmikezero said:

I can't remember where I heard this . . .

George R.R. Martin, Joss Whedon, Steven Moffat, and Quentin Tarantino walk into a bar . . . everybody dies.


(Should this have been prefaced with Spoiler Alert! . . ?)

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I think you killed me with that one. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Thanks.

Game of Thrones is like that guy you meet in high school who's a little bit older, and you think he's cool because you're fourteen and scandalised by swearing. Then the longer you hang out, the more you realise he's all show and no substance, and the things that made him seem amazeballs are actually repetitive and a bit cheap. Eventually you move on to better options, and while you occasionally think of him with fondness, you also roll your eyes a little bit.


Anyway. I read them as a teen before they were popular. I don't think they're particularly great (Matt Hilliard has a fab article on this). With a caveat--I think the very first book was extremely well done. But after that the plot nosedives off a cliff, and has yet to resurface. I do think the show has been an improvement on the storyline though.


Edit to add--I sodding love fantasy. But it's a big damn pool and not everybody swims at the same end. I've met other fantasy enthusiasts where we didn't have a book in common between us.

I just don't want to see another person trying to justify the bloated word count on their first manuscript with "But GRRM did it with his first novel." As if he didn't have a writing career spanning decades before that.

I still have yet to start this series, though I feel a bit bad about having missed all the hoopla due to the popularity of the TV series. A couple of years ago, I saw an intern at my office whip out the latest book in hardcover and that convinced me, "Yeah, I'm gonna' buy this on Kindle. I ain't carrying that." It's on my list, but kind of far down. I know I should get around to it though, it very nearly feels like saying you like fantasy but haven't read Game of Thrones is like admitting you've never read Lord of the Rings either.

I tried to read it after watching the first season or so and I couldn't get past the first three pages. I liked the show waaaay better and was a little shocked that didn't care for the book. I don't watch it anymore, though. Bad things kept happening for seemingly no reason, and I heard that the show went out of its way to add scenes that didn't happen in the books just for shock value. I'm not sure if that's entirely true, but it was enough to turn me off the show. Even if I loved Dany and her dragons

Canislupus54 said:

I think it suffers from being too grim for me. Most characters are jerks, the ones who aren't either die or become jerks, and it's a sequence of bad things happening without any real levity or cause for positive emotion.

Anyone else have issues with this series?

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Couldn't get into it either, and mostly for the same reason. The unrelenting grimness and asshole characters are way too much. While the bloated description style of the books is a little annoying, I could've gotten past that, if I'd given a shit whether any of these people lived or died after the first book. I watched enough of the show to know it only gets worse, and I'd soon start voting for the plot to have a Giant Meteor ending. Just destroy that whole world and everybody in it. The few who don't deserve it would be better off.

Just my opinion. Obviously lots of other people like it, and I'm not saying it's terribly written. Just way too unrelentingly depressing for me.

Heh. I won a trade paperback set of the first few novels in a Del Rey writing contest 6 years ago. There was some hoopla about the HBO series, so the Mr and I caught the first few episodes. I'm a fantasy buff who cut my teeth on Tolkien, Norton, Feist, McCaffrey, etc. in the 70s. I'd loved other GRRM books. Wasn't much impressed by the cable drama, so I hit Wiki to see what happened next.

And...nope. We stopped watching, and I donated the books still in plastic to a local convention's charity auction. I feel no guilt whatsoever. It's not that I'm prudish or can't handle grimdark. But GoT had too many utterly pointless deaths, too much repetition, and a desperate need for major editing.