A Song of Ice and Fire

After discovering that there is in fact Life After Goodkind (see the previous post), where is one to go for epic fantasy that is compelling, emotionally engaging, and original? When I was busy defending The Sword of Truth from naysayers, I always heard people sing the highest praises of George R.R. Martin's series, "A Song of Ice and Fire". Of course, people who hated Goodkind recommending a series to me just made me not want to read it, which was a serious mistake. I truly wish I had found this series much earlier, because it's everything I've ever wanted in an epic fantasy.

A Song of Ice and Fire has pretty much everything that the less satisfying massive epic fantasies (Sword of Truth, Wheel of Time, etc.) lacks. Each chapter is told from the perspective of a different character, so the world presented in the story is much more fleshed out. Martin doesn't shy way from putting each character's preconceived notions and misconceptions into his work, which makes the character's actions and thoughts much more realistic and believable. There are also no strict "good" heroes or "bad" villains. Every character thinks that they are good and that their enemies are bad, and that they are justified in their actions. Seeing events from multiple sides of a conflict really makes the reader ponder who is truly right and question whether their initial impression was really accurate.

Martin also writes an adult tale for an adult audience. While this statement could potentially be applied to Goodkind as well, as there was plenty of graphic violence and grown up themes in the Sword of Truth novels, Martin takes it to a whole new level. There isn't violence just for violence's sake (or just to get an emotional reaction from the reader from time to time - something that it pains me to admit Goodkind is very much guilty of). There is death, and war, and torture, but it is told to either advance the story overall or have some kind of character development. There are highly graphic and explicit descriptions of a wide variety of sexual situations, but these descriptions are accurate and consistent with how people really act. While plenty of people like to pretend that humans aren't sexual creatures with sexual desires, Martin doesn't bother with that pretense. He realizes that everyone is motivated by sex in some way and exploits that fact. The more conservative reader might find these scenes offensive, but it should be stated that sex is not used as a pornographic device to titillate the reader, it's only there when it makes sense to be there.

My favorite aspect of Martin's writing is how he ignores the genre standards entirely. The world he describes is a violent one (based loosely on the Hundred Years War), and people in his world are mortal. Unlike other epic fantasy series where heroes or villains who have been built up as the main characters can never permanently die or be removed from the equation until the very end or in a highly emotional scene, Martin lets his characters die when they get themselves into dangerous situations, and no character is spared from this rule. The inevitability of a confrontation between the ultimate good and the ultimate evil of other series is also completely removed. Where as in a more standard series a major bad guy could never be brought low by a peasant with a vendetta and a lucky stroke, a case of serious illness, an infection from a festering wound, or most deadly of all, a political miscalculation in the game of thrones, Martin will gleefully show that no one is untouchable, and no one is beyond the reach of Reaper's scythe. A similarly great aspect of the series is the realism in how the characters interact with one another. Misunderstandings, misinterpretations, people with opposing philosophical views, and lies said in anger are more potent enemies to the main characters than any army or magical beast.

If you want to leave the childish and silly staples of fantasy behind and move into more compelling adult territory, you owe it to yourself to pick up Martin's books.