INTRODUCTION
     Once again I find myself reviewing a book that I just couldn’t pick up. The complete antithesis of what a reader wants in his novel. To be fair, I did make it to page 200, before the boring, mundane, Seinfeld style writing of daily medieval drudgery forced me to desire to commit suicide. I called a hotline, but they told me they loved it and such thoughts were silly. While I didn’t disagree, my plight being misunderstood made me sulk like an emo vampire. So I feel a need to write this review. Remember kids, I read them so you don’t have to, or in this case, partially read them so you don’t have to.

SYNOPSIS/PLOT
     I don’t fucking know! Something about a battle for a throne, I think. Opining about the days of dragons too. The ongoing day to day lives of tedious people. I think the book is really about testing my patience as a reader, much like Stephen King’s IT. To be fair to Stephen, he was on a hell of a lot of coke to make him a shitty writer. George is, as far as I know, sober. So spin the wheel of plots and fill in the blank as to what this book is about, because George forgot to.

CHARACTERS
     George gets a lot of praise for killing off main characters, something comic books have been doing for years. This doesn’t bother me in the least. I would just like to know who the fucking main characters are. Also, I would like to see them developed so that I might be able to at least feign a twinge of sadness for this idiocy that is Game of Thrones, but I can’t even fake it. Here are all the characters I recall, the shit head brat, but only because of trailers for the show, the lord king, which George constantly reminds us about every fucking time he enters a room. I’m not sure if this is some weird Monty Python style joke, where instead of blaring trumpets upon his entrance to remind us he is a very important person, they tell us, instead. Then there is John Snow, who is a bastard son of 20 slightly mentally ill people. I know this, because, like the Lord Cunt, I am constantly reminded. Is this to make me feel emphatic towards an under-developed virgin? It doesn’t work, because I don’t give a fuck! There is a three eyed raven in a trippy dream sequence, because some kid was pushed out a window and left for dead as well. Oh and my personal favorite, which is when this book is at its most enjoyable, Tyrion Lanister. The God of tits and wine himself. He is a midget with a serious boner for reading, drinking, fucking, Machiavellianism and dropping badass lines like “I drink and I know things.” Fuck yeah, a character I can finally relate to!

PROSE
     Concise as fuck! George is often touted as “The American Tolkien” and it shows in his writing, because an Englishman would of written a better book in the shitter than Game of Thrones is. Tolkien builds worlds, is vivid in his descriptions and builds characters well, throughout just one book. It reads like a dream and is fantastic, especially when Fantasy like this, is not my personal favorite genre. George can’t seem to write interesting scenes worth a good goddamn, but man does he know how to write when it comes to sex, between siblings and other rapist. The plus side to this is, I know all of George R.R. Martin’s fetishes.

DIALOGUE
     It is good. Nothing too medieval, but still with a similar style. Easy to read, no real awkwardness, well from dialogue anyways.

SUBTEXT
     None that I could discern, except that “Winter is coming” is clearly an analogy for a middle age George R.R. Martin who was clearly desperate for a hit before he entered the winter of life, or in this case, old age.

CONCLUSION
     This book sucks. I mean, really, really sucks. Not just a little suckage, I mean air lock blown out on a hanger bay in space, level of suckage. I don’t know what it is about this, but the characters suck, the scenes suck, and the world sucks. It is predicated on a fallacy that incest is best, because Martin wanted very little science involved, yet he wanted it realistic. Well George, it is hard to be fucking realistic when incest would have killed all the bloodlines in the book, so there is no world. Nothing seems of consequence and is insubstantial. Magic has very little write up, but I read that in the Wiki write up of this book. The ending is about dragons returning, as if that fucking matters, because I skipped to the end page to find this out. Winter is coming, but who cares? Shit, the most interesting aspect of the novel, the weird seasons, is just pretty much forgotten about, because, as far as I know, winter still hasn’t come in close to twenty years. Maybe winter should find a fuckin’ Viagra. Also, George must be from a warmer climate, because for those of us from New England, winter coming is nothing. Shit, I intentionally go out in blizzards, just to buy beer so I can enjoy the storm. Hard to make me feel a sense of urgency and doom over season that could potentially last 10 years, when a New England winter fuckin feels the same way.

     Regardless, when Martin does things well, he knows what he is doing. It is just a shame there is so little of that competency shown in this book, because he really grips you when he nails it. So what am I thankful for? This nightmare finally being over!

3 out of 5