Throwback Thursday: A Storm of Swords

For "Throwback Thursday," I'm continuing with the rerunning of my reviews of the books in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, which I read beginning in December of 2011. This is number three in the series, A Storm of Swords.

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Monday, December 26, 2011

A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire #3) by George R.R. Martin: A review

This series just gets darker and darker. George R.R. Martin continues to show no compunction about killing off his characters. Of course, he's got about a million of them so there are plenty to spare!

The clash of the kings continues in this volume. The five contenders for power in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros wage their wars across the face of the land and no one is safe or secure.

Robb Stark still rules in the North and has not yet lost a battle.

The execrable Joffrey Lannister still sits on the Iron Throne most recently occupied by his putative father, Robert Baratheon.

Robert Baratheon's brother, Stannis, has been defeated and disgraced but still hangs on to his army and still plays the game of thrones. Meanwhile, Stannis' and Robert's other brother, Renly, is dead, possibly the victim of witchcraft.

And, across the sea, Daenerys of the House Targaryen, mistress of the only three dragons in the world, makes her way slowly westward, vowing to reclaim the Iron Throne that she considers rightfully hers.
In the north, beyond the Wall, Jon Snow is learning that keeping the chastity vow of the Night Watch is not always an easy thing.

The remaining members of the Stark family still are scattered and, in some cases, unaware of the fate of each other. Arya is in the wild, on the run, sometimes a captive but always moving onward to...where? 

Sansa remains a hostage of the Lannisters in King's Landing and she will become even more tightly tied by marriage to that family. 

The Lannisters also are seeing changes in their fortunes. Tyrion serves as Hand of the King at the behest of his father, while Jaime is himself a hostage of war in Riverrun. Both Tyrion and Jaime show some unexpected depth and complexity of character in this entry and one wonders where that is leading.

The action and the momentum switch back and forth among these powerful families and who can say where it all will end?

Martin is a master of keeping the action moving and the suspense high and providing that shock that the reader least expects. This book was over 1100 pages long and yet it seemed all too brief to me. Which is why I will now be moving right along to A Feast for Crows, the next entry in this epic series.

Throwback Thursday: A Game of Thrones

Five years ago, I first became aware of George R.R. Martin and his series of books, A Song of Ice and Fire. I came very late to the party, but it didn't take long for me to become an addict.

In December of 2011, I embarked upon a project of reading and reviewing all the Martin books in the series, starting, of course, at the beginning. Here is my review of the first, A Game of Thrones.

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Thursday, December 8, 2011

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire #1) by George R. R. Martin: A review

I have freely admitted that before the HBO series "Game of Thrones," I was not familiar with George R. R. Martin's work. Truly, sometimes my ignorance is just breathtaking. 

Once the television series began, I was quickly hooked. It was a rich and fascinating story of families, betrayal, loyalty, human perfidy and cruelty, heroic deeds, all laid over with a mysterious threat to the civilization of the seven kingdoms of Martin's world. The acting was good and the production values outstanding. It was, in short, a very good series. What of the books from which the tale came? I had to find out for myself. 

What I have found in reading the first book of the Song of Ice and Fire series is that the television series was very true to the book. All the characters and all the action that were part of the series are there in the book. It is an amazing read. 

Martin has created a mythical land that seems as though it might have been real in some dim and distant past, perhaps the time we call the Middle Ages. In this world, summers can last for decades and winters for a lifetime or more. We enter the world at a time of summer. It has been summer for many years but now winter is creeping back. Strange things are happening in the haunted forests of the North, beyond "The Wall." 

The great family which rules in the North, closest to the lands beyond the Wall, is the Starks, led by Eddard (Ned) Stark, a man to whom honor, family, and loyalty to friends are everything. While sinister and supernatural forces are gathering in the frozen lands beyond the Wall, news of equally sinister events in the South reaches Ned Stark at his home in Winterfell. The Hand of the King, the man charged with seeing that the commands of the king are carried out, has died under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Now the king needs a new Hand and he calls on his old friend Ned to fill the office. 

Ned is well and truly in the middle. Danger from the North and from the South leaves him filled with foreboding. He has no desire to leave Winterfell and his family, but one cannot say "no" to the king. In the end, he heads South with the king and his entourage, taking his two young daughters with him, so that they will have the advantage of acquaintanceship at the king's court. The reader has a premonition here (even if she hadn't seen the series) that this will not end well for Ned, an honorable man thrown into a pit of poisonous vipers and (Spoiler alert!) it doesn't. 

Martin makes his fantasy world come alive with his wonderfully intricate descriptions of pageants and plots, the contrast between the harsh and unyielding lives of the North, where "Winter is coming" is more than just the Stark family's catchphrase, and the epicurean kingdom of the South, where food and wine are plentiful and where the great houses play the game of thrones for keeps. 

Martin has created some wonderfully interesting characters that the reader comes to care about and is invested in. Chief among these, of course, is Ned Stark, but there is also his bastard son, Jon Snow and his younger daughter, Arya, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, his other four children. There is Daenerys (Dany), the last of the Targaryens, the old dynasty that had been overthrown by the great families when the outrages of the mad king Aerys II had become too much to bear. Dany and her knight, Ser Jorah Mormont, are fascinating creations and I'm sure we will hear more from them. And then there is Tyrion Lannister, the second son of the great house of Lannister, a dwarf and a cynic who seems a near match for Ned Stark when it comes to honor. 

Characters that one cares about, great action, lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror - it's all here. And more! I can't wait to see what happens next, so I'm heading right into the next book in the series, A Clash of Kings.

Write like the wind, George!

George R.R. Martin's fans have been waiting impatiently since 2011 for the next entry in his fantastically successful Song of Ice and Fire saga. Of course, long-time Martin fans have grown accustomed to waiting. Maybe it is those newcomers among us (like me) who only discovered him after the start of the HBO series Game of Thrones who really haven't absorbed the lessons of the last seventeen years.

As all true fans know, Song of Ice and Fire was conceived as a seven book saga. The first entry in the series, which was entitled Game of Thrones, was published in 1996. It took only two years for the next book, A Clash of Kings, to gestate. And then two more years for A Storm of Swords to reach the salivating fandom. But then things slowed down.

The books got longer and (if possible) even more complicated and it took five years before A Feast for Crows saw the light of day.  But that was as nothing compared to the SIX YEARS that it took to produce A Dance with Dragons which came out in 2011.  As soon as that book was out, the watch was on, somewhat like the one for Kate and William's royal baby, but with a lot longer gestation period and a lot less patience.

The latest word from the author and publisher is that the sixth entry, The Winds of Winter, will be out next year, 2014. We'll see.

Meanwhile, the geek world is doing everything it can to encourage its favorite author, up to and including the composing of songs like this one by the duo Paul and Storm.




Poor George. It must be getting really hard for him to go out in public with people shouting at him, "Get back to your keyboard and finish the damn book!"

At least he has the consolation of his two cats, Augustus and Caligula. Hmmm...I wonder if those two inspired any of his characters.

Get to work, George!

It was announced this week that George R.R. Martin has co-edited an anthology called Dangerous Women. Moreover, he contributed a novella to the collection called The Princess and the Queen. It is set in Westeros in the time of the Song of Ice and Fire and is about the origins of the war between the Targaryens that split the society apart and led to the ongoing conflicts of House against House that we read about in the first five novels in the series.

All of which leads me to wonder just what a novella by Martin would look like. Would it be just 500 pages instead of 1000?

Further, it makes me wonder, WTF, George? What the heck are you doing working on a novella and co-editing a freaking anthology when you should be working on that next book? Don't you know we are dying out here?

We want to know if Jon is dead or alive. Will we finally find out who his mother (and maybe father because I still suspect it wasn't Ned) was? Has Daenerys Targaryen gotten her dragons under good enough control that she is ready to mount her invasion of Westeros to take back the Targaryen throne? And how will the people of Westeros greet her? Will they join her crusade or take up arms against her? What will Jaime do when faced with the heir of the mad king whom he was sworn to protect and whom he slew? What about the Starks? Whose side will they be on? And what about Tyrion and Ser Jorah Mormont? What role will they play?

These are the questions you should be answering, George, not which story should go where in some lame anthology! Come on! Quit procrastinating and get to work!

A Dance With Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5) by George R.R. Martin: A review

George R.R. Martin is back on his game with this fifth volume in his A Song of Ice and Fire saga. He wastes no time in bringing us up to date on the charismatic characters, such as Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister, who were missing from the fourth book, a pale effort compared to the previous three. This book follows those characters and then, in the final third of this very long tale, it brings together many of their stories with some of those that we came to know in the previous book. The paths of the stories converge and one begins to see the faint glimmer of an outline of how the saga may go from here on out. I believe there are at least two more volumes planned and A Dance With Dragons certainly leaves enough loose ends to fill them with their conclusions. We can only hope that we will not have to wait as long as fans of the series waited for this book (six years) before The Winds of Winter, #6 of the "Songs" is delivered to us. 

Jon Snow, the 998th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch has more than his hands full here in trying to rebuild the Watch to full strength as he faces the challenges of pitiless beings that inhabit the land of ice beyond the Wall and threaten the realm of men. The Night's Watch is sworn to guard the Wall and protect the Seven Kingdoms from the creatures beyond it but Lord Snow knows that the Wall is only as strong as those who guard it. It is his burden to try to rebuild that strength while surrounded by enemies on all sides including some within the Watch. 

Within the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, the battle for the Iron Throne goes on. The throne is occupied by the child Tommen Baratheon, but who will be the power who controls Tommen? Meanwhile, his uncle Stannis Baratheon continues to claim the throne and marched with his army all the way to the Wall to assist the Night's Watch in repelling the wildlings from the north. Then he turned south again to try to retake Winterfell, now held by the execrable and unspeakably cruel Boltons. 

In the east, Daenerys and her army have swept through several cities, freeing slaves wherever she goes. She has stopped in Meereen, where she, too, is surrounded by enemies and beset by those who would bend her to their will. But hers is the blood of the dragon, and oh, yes, she does still possess those three dragons, and who will dare to dance with them? 

Daenerys is believed to be the last of the Targaryens, and yet, now, we learn that there may be another. And is there, just perhaps, a third, a bastard who also possesses the blood of the dragon? I have begun to suspect that there may be. But now I'll just have to wait along with everyone else to find out for sure.

A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire #4) by George R.R. Martin: A review

"A Lannister always pays his debts" is a refrain that we saw often repeated throughout the first three books of this series. But once Tyrion Lannister paid his debt owed to his father Lord Tywin near the end of A Storm of Swords, he disappeared and he did not reappear at all in volume four. That is unfortunate since he is easily the most interesting character created by George R.R. Martin in this epic saga, but that's only part of the problem with A Feast for Crows. 

Also among the missing here are Jon Snow (except for a short bit at the beginning), Daenarys Targaryen, and most of the far-flung remaining Starks. Arya and Sansa do appear but they feel tangential. 

In fact, most of the characters in this book, many of them new ones that we hadn't heard from before, seem tentative and incomplete. They are not people who engage our attention and sympathies. 

And the blood! My god, the blood and gore! The incessant and incredible cruelties perpetrated on these characters is both mind-blowing and revolting. I cannot count the number of characters who have their ears sliced off in battle. (Martin really seems to have an obsession with his characters losing their ears and noses.) The grossest of wounds are described in great and loving detail and yet the writing just seems stilted and without the passion that pervaded the earlier books. I think that lack, again, can be traced back to the colorful characters that are missing here. 

Most of this story involves Cersei and her evolution into the mad bitch queen that one could see coming a couple of volumes back. She is one more testament to the proposition that absolute power corrupts absolutely. 

A more interesting evolution has been that of her twin, Jaime. Having been maimed and humbled in the last book seems to have given him a clearer perspective on the world and a more sympathetic view of others. Dare I say that he has transformed from villain into hero? He shows definite heroic tendencies here especially in his dealing with Brienne, the Maid of Tarth. 

Brienne, though, is a problematic character for me. She is a female knight who swore to Lady Catelyn Stark that she would find her daughters and return them to her. After reaching King's Landing with Jaime, she also gave him her oath that she would find Sansa Stark and keep her safe. And yet, as she wanders across the face of Westeros seeking Sansa and getting nowhere, she seems to have very little idea or plan for doing what she has pledged to do. In fact, she seems just a bit slow and dense, not a happy or safe combination in the dangerous world of the Seven Kingdoms. One just knows she is never going to find Sansa, because we KNOW where Sansa is and Brienne isn't headed there. One senses that Brienne may be a forever wanderer and that things will not end well for her. 

There is an author's note at the end of this book explaining that the characters with whom we had bonded in the first three books will return in the fifth volume, A Dance With Dragons. Let us hope that Martin's robust muse returns as well and that he gives us better writing in the next entry. Ah, well, when you are writing an epic story of thousands and thousands of pages, I guess you should be allowed a few mediocre ones.

A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire #3) by George R.R. Martin: A review

This series just gets darker and darker. George R.R. Martin continues to show no compunction about killing off his characters. Of course, he's got about a million of them so there are plenty to spare! 

The clash of the kings continues in this volume. The five contenders for power in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros wage their wars across the face of the land and no one is safe or secure. 

Robb Stark still rules in the North and has not yet lost a battle. 

The execrable Joffrey Lannister still sits on the Iron Throne most recently occupied by his putative father, Robert Baratheon. 

Robert Baratheon's brother, Stannis, has been defeated and disgraced but still hangs on to his army and still plays the game of thrones. Meanwhile, Stannis' and Robert's other brother, Renly, is dead, possibly the victim of witchcraft. 

And, across the sea, Daenerys of the House Targaryen, mistress of the only three dragons in the world, makes her way slowly westward, vowing to reclaim the Iron Throne that she considers rightfully hers. 

In the north, beyond the Wall, Jon Snow is learning that keeping the vows of the Night Watch is not always an easy thing. 

The remaining members of the Stark family still are scattered and, in some cases, unaware of the fate of each other. Arya is in the wild, on the run, sometimes a captive but always moving onward to...where? Sansa remains a hostage of the Lannisters in King's Landing and she will become even more tightly tied by marriage to that family. The Lannisters also are seeing changes in their fortunes. Tyrion serves as Hand of the King at the behest of his father, while Jaime is himself a hostage of war in Riverrun. Both Tyrion and Jaime show some unexpected depth and complexity of character in this entry and one wonders where that is leading. 

The action and the momentum switch back and forth among these powerful families and who can say where it all will end? 

Martin is a master of keeping the action moving and the suspense high and providing that shock that the reader least expects. This book was over 1100 pages long and yet it seemed all too brief to me. Which is why I will now be moving right along to A Feast for Crows, the next entry in this epic series.

A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire #2) by George R.R. Martin: A review

Incest, fratricide, alchemy, the dead rising to walk and kill, cold hearts and cold steel and, of course, dragons - A Clash of Kings has all that. It also has strong characters and a fully realized mythical world that seems as real and as current as today's newspaper. 

The land of Westeros is in turmoil. Even more turmoil than in A Game of Thrones. In fact, A Game of Thrones seems almost tame by comparison. Yes, George R. R. Martin has definitely kicked it up a notch with this book. 

The king who sat on the Iron Throne, Robert Baratheon, is dead, killed by a boar and by the perfidy of his queen, Cersei. His friend and ally, Eddard (Ned) Stark, the Hand of the King, is dead, killed by the newly installed King Joffrey, a cruel and obnoxious 13-year-old boy, son of Cersei and putative son of Robert. Ned was killed, as the previous Hand had also been killed, because he had uncovered a terrible secret about Cersei and her son. 

Now the Stark family, Lady Catelyn and her five children and the bastard son, Jon Snow, are all still alive but are separated, scattered to the four winds by the chances of war. War rages throughout the land because Joffrey is not the only king. Robert's two brothers, Stannis and Renly, have each claimed the kingship, and in the North, Robb Stark has been proclaimed the King in the North and he leads a formidable army to protect the lands he is heir to and to avenge his father. 

Beyond the Wall in the North that protects Westeros from the wildlings and other even more sinister beings that lurk in the frozen waste, Jon Snow is learning the ways of a ranger of the Night's Watch, a force which is sworn to protect the realm but takes no part in civil wars and contests for thrones. 

Sansa, the older Stark daughter is trapped in King's Landing where she saw her father beheaded and where she is betrothed to the child king Joffrey who ordered his murder. 

Arya, the younger daughter, is in the wilds as the book opens. She had been present at her father's beheading also, but had been protected from actually seeing it by Yoren, a ranger of the Night's Watch, who afterward spirited her away and out of the city. 

The two youngest Stark boys, Brandon and Rickon, are still at the ancient home of the Starks called Winterfell, but their peril increases daily. 

Lady Catelyn accompanied her son, Robb, to war and serves as his emissary to the two Baratheon brothers who vie in the South for the kingship. 

Meanwhile, across the Narrow Sea, the last of the Targaryens, Daenerys, the "Mother of Dragons," raises her three dragons and tries to find a way to get her meager band of followers across the Narrow Sea to take back the Iron Throne which she deems hers by rights. 

And while four "kings" stake their claims and battle for supremacy, other lesser Houses also see an opportunity to advance their own prospects. 

Over it all, in the sky, a red comet takes its journey through the heavens. Is it an omen? And, if so, of what? Each House, of course, interprets the comet in the way most beneficent for that family. 

This book is over 900 pages long and there seems no way to sum it up. Martin has created an astonishing work of imagination that is unrivaled by anything I have ever read with the possible exception of J.R.R. Tolkien. This work is definitely on a par with Tolkien. 

One of the things that I find particularly satisfying about the Song of Ice and Fire series is the several strong female characters. This is not always - one could say almost never - the case in such fantasy works. From the pre-teen Arya to her mother Lady Catelyn, to the female knight Brienne, to Daenerys Targaryen, and even the odious Cersei, these are females who take responsibility for their own fates. Yes, they are victims of the society in which they live, but they reject that victimhood. 

For me, one of the most affecting moments of the book was when Arya, who is now a prisoner, goes to the Godswood to pray among the trees to the old gods of her father and she finds an answer to her prayer in the remembered words of her father. And since I can't wait to finds out what happens next to Arya, I'm moving right along to the next book in the series, A Storm of Swords. Did I mention that these books are mesmerizing?

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire #1) by George R. R. Martin: A review

I have freely admitted that before the HBO series "Game of Thrones," I was not familiar with George R. R. Martin's work. Truly, sometimes my ignorance is just breathtaking. 

Once the television series began, I was quickly hooked. It was a rich and fascinating story of families, betrayal, loyalty, human perfidy and cruelty, heroic deeds, all laid over with a mysterious threat to the civilization of the seven kingdoms of Martin's world. The acting was good and the production values outstanding. It was, in short, a very good series. What of the books from which the tale came? I had to find out for myself. 

What I have found in reading the first book of the Song of Ice and Fire series is that the television series was very true to the book. All the characters and all the action that were part of the series are there in the book. It is an amazing read. 

Martin has created a mythical land that seems as though it might have been real in some dim and distant past, perhaps the time we call the Middle Ages. In this world, summers can last for decades and winters for a lifetime or more. We enter the world at a time of summer. It has been summer for many years but now winter is creeping back. Strange things are happening in the haunted forests of the North, beyond "The Wall." 

The great family which rules in the North, closest to the lands beyond the Wall, is the Starks, led by Eddard (Ned) Stark, a man to whom honor, family, and loyalty to friends are everything. While sinister and supernatural forces are gathering in the frozen lands beyond the Wall, news of equally sinister events in the South reaches Ned Stark at his home in Winterfell. The Hand of the King, the man charged with seeing that the commands of the king are carried out, has died under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Now the king needs a new Hand and he calls on his old friend Ned to fill the office. 

Ned is well and truly in the middle. Danger from the North and from the South leaves him filled with foreboding. He has no desire to leave Winterfell and his family, but one cannot say "no" to the king. In the end, he heads South with the king and his entourage, taking his two young daughters with him, so that they will have the advantage of acquaintanceship at the king's court. The reader has a premonition here (even if she hadn't seen the series) that this will not end well for Ned, an honorable man thrown into a pit of poisonous vipers and (Spoiler alert!) it doesn't. 

Martin makes his fantasy world come alive with his wonderfully intricate descriptions of pageants and plots, the contrast between the harsh and unyielding lives of the North, where "Winter is coming" is more than just the Stark family's catchphrase, and the epicurean kingdom of the South, where food and wine are plentiful and where the great houses play the game of thrones for keeps. 

Martin has created some wonderfully interesting characters that the reader comes to care about and is invested in. Chief among these, of course, is Ned Stark, but there is also his bastard son, Jon Snow and his younger daughter, Arya, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, his other four children. There is Daenerys (Dany), the last of the Targaryens, the old dynasty that had been overthrown by the great families when the outrages of the mad king Aerys II had become too much to bear. Dany and her knight, Ser Jorah Mormont, are fascinating creations and I'm sure we will hear more from them. And then there is Tyrion Lannister, the second son of the great house of Lannister, a dwarf and a cynic who seems a near match for Ned Stark when it comes to honor. 

Characters that one cares about, great action, lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror - it's all here. And more! I can't wait to see what happens next, so I'm heading right into the next book in the series, A Clash of Kings.

Fantasyland

I long ago fell under the spell of J.R.R. Tolkien and his hobbits and so I was a prime candidate to enjoy J.K. Rowling's world of wizardry when it came along a few years ago.  I have read and liked all of her books and most of the movies based on them and now, like millions of fans around the world, I'm ready for the final movie which opens today in the United States.  I won't be waiting in line at midnight tonight though.  I'm too much in need of my beauty sleep for that.  No, I'll wait a few days and hope the pandemonium dies down a bit.

As a Tolkien and Rowling fan, you would think I would have heard of George R.R. Martin and his work, but I admit I had not until this year.  Then the HBO series "Game of Thrones" started.  My propensity to like fantasy kicked in, and I was quickly hooked.

Martin had written four books in his series about the fantasy world of Westeros and the HBO series was based on the first.  After just one episode, HBO realized that it had a hit on its hands and renewed the series for another season.  Most likely, we will have a few more seasons to enjoy this fantasyland.

The last book in the series had come out about six years ago, and finally, just this week, the fifth one,  A Dance With Dragons, has been published, just in time to boost sales for the summer for many ailing bookstores.  A George R.R. Martin book and a Harry Potter movie all in one week - the fantasy lover's cup runneth over!

The reviews that I have read of the new Martin book have all been glowing.  The word "masterpiece" has even been tossed around.  The reviews of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2" have been mostly good, too.  Many pleasurable hours of reading and viewing lie ahead.

But before I can purchase and read A Dance With Dragons, I have to read the first four books, currently sitting in their box on my "to be read" shelf.  There are about twenty books ahead of them, but I may have to jump them ahead in the queue.  I've been suffering "Westeros Withdrawal" since the HBO series ended.

Hello, my name is Dorothy and I am a GOT addict

Yes, I admit it. I am addicted.

I'm not quite sure how it happened. I didn't intend it to happen. I only did it really to placate my daughter who insisted that I should. I didn't know what I was getting into. I had never even heard of George R. R. Martin before I started seeing ads for the HBO series based on his fantasy series of books about the continent of Westeros and the Seven Kingdoms. But I watched the first episode of "Game of Thrones" when it started on HBO back in April, and now I am hooked.

And how do I know that I am hooked? Because I am suffering withdrawal. The last show of the season aired on June 19 and yesterday at the time that the show would normally have been on, "True Blood" started its season. No more "Game of Thrones" until next spring. At 8:00 P.M. last night, I started suffering severe depression. How will I ever survive without my weekly fix?

Admittedly, GOT does not fit the profile of my usual choice for entertainment. It is filled with blood and gore, two things which I generally try to avoid at all costs, but the original hook for me was that it had Sean Bean. He's been one of my favorite hunks ever since I first saw him more years ago than probably he or I would care to remember playing Richard Sharpe in the "Sharpe" series on PBS. Then there were lots of movies over the years, including his turn as the conflicted but heroic man of Gondor, Boromir, in that other little fantasy feature you might have heard of, "Lord of the Rings." Sean got me to sit and watch the first GOT episode, but after that, it was really the stories that kept me coming back week after week. And it's the stories that I'm missing this week.

If you haven't been watching the series, there's really no way that I can begin to summarize the plot for you. It is incredibly convoluted and involves an amazing number and variety of characters. Suffice to say that the time is medieval, there are lots of swords involved, and society is very paternalistic with the status of women being very low. And yet the most interesting characters for me are the women and the dwarf son of the House of Lannister, Tyrion, who is actually one of the more appealing personalities in the stories.

I am particularly fascinated by the younger Stark daughter, Arya. In this first season, she is a child and she is seeking to break out of the straitjacket that society forces onto women and girls. When her father Ned (played by Sean Bean) realizes what her ambitions are, he arranges for her to be tutored in the use of the sword and in self-defense. She has a sword given to her by her bastard half-brother which she named "Needle" - the sword not the brother. (In these kinds of stories when a character has a sword that has a name, it usually means that that character is headed for great deeds of derring-do!)

And then there is Daenerys Targaryen, daughter of the house of the deposed and murdered king. She escaped the carnage with her despicable brother who bargained with a band of barbarians to have their vast army back him in his attempt to retake the throne. His bargaining chip was Daenerys. He gave her to the leader of the barbarians in return for his support. But, never fear, Daenerys is a very strong woman and she is up to the challenge. After all, as she assures us, she has the "blood of dragons" in her veins. I expect we'll see a lot more evidence of that in the second season.

George Martin's series has four books. A fifth one is coming out in July. So what's an addict to do when she can't have her weekly television fix? Well, read the books, of course! I am being enabled in that endeavor by my husband. He just ordered a boxed set of the first four books. I may have to arm wrestle him for them though. Yeah, he's an addict, too.