{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Reviews of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Part 2 by Karen S. Wiesner

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Reviews of George R. R. Martin's

A Song of Ice and Fire and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,

Part 2

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

As I said last week in this two-part review, I feel bad for Martin. He went head-first into A Song of Ice and Fire and there was no stopping the epic as it grew larger and larger in many different ways, not simply from a writing standpoint but also in the market for the series as it crossed boundaries into TV and other media and merchandising. 

With series that have overarching plots like A Song of Ice and Fire does, finishing in a doable amount of time becomes a nightmare if the entire series isn't written in toto, in advance of publication. Now, obviously, even when he wasn’t as famous as he now is, Martin had a much, much larger audience than I'll ever have as an author, so I've had several luxuries in my writing he's never had. As authors, both of us realize only too well that an overarching series (as opposed to the kind of series with standalone story installments) can't be put off or set aside for too long without becoming off-track and distracted, momentum derailed, and mindset potentially being upset irrevocably to the point of feeling that, as a writer, you're trying to pound an enormous square peg into a very small round hole. In Martin's case, he's spoken of feeling like his books are delayed because he's trying to untangle "the Meereenese knot" (a reference from his own series concerning a nearly impossible act of contortion, and named after the city of Meereen in Slaver's Bay), perhaps in regard to chronology synching up with all the various plot threads. 

Authors who are in the middle of a long, popular series that has left readers dangling for countless years between installments have a tremendous amount of pressure put on them. Who's to blame for that is a combination of many influences, predominately the author's own, the publisher's, and the fans. In this case, Martin had the HBO series aspects added to his stress. However, that pinnacle of outright terror they--Martin in particular--must feel could very definitely impact the quality of writing. I would absolutely hate feeling like practically the whole world was waiting on me to deliver something. Nothing about the scenario appeals to me, though authors who have gone through this situation may have all the money and fame a writer could possibly ever wish for. Does that make the torment worthwhile? Depends on who you ask. Added to Martin's already ponderous burden is this question I imagine he faces each and every day: What if readers are disappointed when he finally provides series arc resolutions with second-to-the-last and final volumes? If there are special types of hell for writers, that's one right there, for sure.              

I've also often wondered how he deals with the fact that the HBO series is finished and he still hasn't finished the book series. The producers were forced to continue on with the conclusion without him, though he reportedly did provide input. Keep in mind, though, that, 1) The writers and developers of films and television have different audiences and opinions on viewer satisfaction than book authors do, and 2) I can't imagine a writer wanting to give away key details about an unfinished book series that may incite readers to feel they have no reason to continue following the series in literary form when he finally finishes writing it. Because the TV show supposedly screwed up the end of the series (according to critics anyway), this gives Martin a unique opportunity to offer the end of the series the way it was meant to be, especially if his rendering is mind-blowingly fantastic. Martin is just too polished and concerned with quality to provide any less than that. But it must be a concern that bugs him even when he's not aware it's there lurking like the harbinger of doom. I also wonder if he's actually watched the portions of the TV series past the point where his published book series ended. As an author, I absolutely would not have watched it or read anything about it. He's said that he doesn't read message boards anymore to prevent his writing from being influenced, so I wonder if that means he avoided watching the final seasons of the TV series, too. I'm not on social media enough to really know whether he did or not watch it or stop after a certain point. 

How a writer ties up the end of a series can either lead readers to becoming lifelong fans or dire enemies, banning that author forever. Like I said, I don't envy authors in this position, regardless of their money and fame. Maybe the challenge is part of the fun for many writers. Nevertheless, those are risks I simply never want to take as a writer because they could so easily blow up in my face. As they say, fame and infamy are two sides of a coin. 

As a writer, I tend to be adamant about being certain even before I begin work on a project that I can actually finish the series in a satisfactory way…or at all. That's for my own peace of mind as well as for my readers. With both of my overarching series writing projects, I made a point of working on the installments one right after the other. For Arrow of Time Chronicles, I completed all four volumes over the course of about 2 1/2 years. They were only published after I finished writing them. They came out one a month from January to April 2020. The three novel parts of Bridge of Fire, Book 10: Woodcutter's Grim Series were written back-to-back and published within days of each other in September 2021. A series with overarching plots absolutely requires successful release dates to keep fans invested and, let's face it, given these days of social menacing, less vicious. While, as I said, Martin probably didn't have the option or maybe even the desire to hold back this series until he'd finished writing all of them, he wouldn't have had to face the monumental pressures he is now if he'd only completed writing the series before editors, publishers, TV networks and producers, and fans got involved. I suspect a fair portion of the delay in finishing Books 6 and 7 is due to wanting to make them both absolutely perfect, far beyond what fans of the TV series are expecting or even hoping for. 

While I wait as patiently as I possibly can for further installments, I'm reading what else the author has to offer apart from A Song of Ice and Fire, mostly enjoying it, and also looking for other "Game of Thrones" connected fiction, like House of the Dragon and the Egg and Dunk adventures, which I'll review below and hopefully provide something to tide you over for The Winds of Winter. 

 

I first read "The Hedge Knight" in the Robert Silverberg edited Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy collection (1998). This story is associated with George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, set in that world 90 years before the events that take place in the novels. 

It's hard to find a definitive title for the series "The Hedge Knight" is part of because, I suppose, this story was the first and therefore not well-defined at the time it was published. I saw it called Tales of Dunk and Egg, Dunk and Egg Adventures, A Knight of the Seven Kingdom, as well as simply Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The three currently available short novels in the A Knight of the Seven Kingdom series (which is what it was called in the trilogy compilation published in 2015 as well as what it will be called for the forthcoming HBO series) are touted as being part of the A Song of Ice and Fire, or even as a prequel. I don't think either are good descriptions. The storylines are completely different. I would call A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms an off-shoot of that series, at most. 

"The Hedge Knight" takes place while the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne, and it does include characters from A Song of Ice and Fire--Aegon Targaryen (known here as Egg, the future King Aegon V) and Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk, the future Lord Commander of the Kingsguard). In case you're wondering, as I was when I first started reading this, a hedge knight is one without a master that travels the kingdom searching for employment (and sleeping in the hedges). Hoping to gain the interest of a lord as a knight for hire by participating in a tourney, Dunk instead finds himself fighting for his life when he crosses the wrong Targaryen in order to save a young, pretty puppeteer artist. 

The first time I read "The Hedge Knight", I'd just started getting into the "Game of Thrones" world and its massive cast of characters. I didn't really know that series as well as I do now, having both read the books and watched the HBO series countless times since. I had no idea how these characters fit into that world and series. Additionally, the Dunk and Egg (as in, "dunk an egg") aspect seemed silly to me. Beyond that, I have an even stronger opinion of tourneys than Ned Stark--what a waste of time, money, energy, and blood. So I can't say I appreciated the story the first time I read it. However, when I reread it recently in connection with my review of the two Legends short novel collections, it was with a much clearer comprehension of the primary series. I really liked and rooted for Dunk and Egg. As soon as I finished this story, I ordered the trilogy of novellas, published together in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. In large part, I suppose I gave this story more of a chance the second time around because I'm ravenous--more like absolutely famished--for more Ice and Fire world stories. 

"The Sworn Sword", the second story in the A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms series was originally featured in the Legends II collection (2003). I started reading "The Sworn Sword" within that anthology but my copy of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms came, so I jumped over to that collection of the three stories the author has written thus far in the series. I read this short novel in almost no time, and I was unable to keep myself from going on to the third story instead of returning to Legends II. I absolutely loved "The Sworn Sword" in which, a year or so after the events of "The Hedge Knight", Dunk and Egg find themselves sworn to the service of an aging, has-been lord with secrets the old man hasn't bothered to reveal to his "employees". When the water on the land of this lord is stolen with a dam built by a neighboring house, Dunk and Egg go to the thief who's been painted as black as night by their lord. But things aren't at all what they initially seemed. 

In the third short novel, "The Mystery Knight" (published in 2010 in the Martin and Gardner Dozois edited anthology Warriors), Dunk and Egg are on the road, staying out of sight after prior events in the other two stories but longing for a soft bed instead of the hard ground, and good food instead of the hardtack that takes away the will to chew, let alone live. When they hear about a wedding taking place nearby, complete with a feast and mini tourney, Dunk decides maybe winning the tilt will provide the means for him and his squire Egg to make their way to Winterfell to see about serving one the lord there. They quickly become embroiled in another deadly conspiracy, this one involving a dragon egg. This series is absolute must-read, as is the one it's set in is. 

The compilation of all three short novels was a joy to read alongside illustrations by the fabulous Gary Gianni. Prior to the frequently placed, amazingly detailed black and white sketches, I'd pictured Dunk as a much older knight (I was inadvertently thinking about the actor Liam Cunningham who played Davos Seaworth in the HBO Game of Thrones series). I also imagined Egg as being older and much larger. The illustrations show a much younger man for Dunk, and small Egg is adorable with his bald head in Gianni's artwork.

In 2011, it was reported that Martin was working on a fourth novella for A Knight of the Seven Kingdom (The She-Wolves of Winterfell) but he was forced to stop writing it with the demand for the next title in A Song of Ice and Fire. In 2014, Martin said he'd roughed out another Dunk and Egg story, The Village Hero, set in the Riverlands. Which will be written/published first remains up in the air. He also has notes and "fairly specific ideas" for a number of other installments with potentially revealing plot titles: The Sellsword, The Champion, The Kingsguard, and The Lord Commander. 

The first three stories were adapted as comic books and reprinted as graphic novels. Additionally, after talk of this series becoming another HBO TV adaptation in the Ice and Fire universe, it was given a straight to series order in 2023 and filming began on the first season, consisting of six episodes, in June 2024. Release date is supposedly late 2025. I can hardly wait! 

If you're a lover of high fantasy similar to The Lord of the Rings (but much, much more graphic) with timeless characters and rich, medieval settings, suspense and danger galore, I can't imagine you wouldn't absolutely love both of George R. R. Martin's connected series, whether reading the books or watching the series, just like I do. The added appeal of dragons, blue-eyed ice creatures, hedge knights, and would-be princes in hiding sold me from the moment I heard about them. There's a lot already available here in this amazing universe with the promise (though I've probably wisely stopped holding my breath) of still more to come. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Reviews of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Part 1 by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Reviews of George R. R. Martin's

A Song of Ice and Fire and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,

Part 1

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

I can't help it, I feel bad for George R. R. Martin. He takes a lot of flak I don't believe he deserves. He had an idea for a phenomenal, epic fantasy story a la Tolkien (and yes, he, like the father of modern fantasy literature, considers A Song of Ice and Fire one very, very, very long story published in several volumes) and it became larger than life, to the point where he couldn't keep up with it and was quickly finding that each installment was growing and spiraling wildly in a way that undoubtedly felt out of control by the time HBO got involved and began producing the television series. 

Add to that stress, Martin isn't just an award-winning author and editor for many, many success anthologies featuring other authors--he's also a successful TV and feature film writer. When he begins to feel writing for TV compromises "the size of his imagination", he, in frustration, returns to book writing. In 1991, after having a vivid idea of a boy seeing a beheading and finding direwolves in the snow, he wrote the first scene of A Game of Thrones. In this fictional world, seasons last for years and can come to an unpredictable halt. Violent political machinations with several family dynasties vying for control of Westeros--including the daughter of the deposed Westerosi king attempting to return from exile and assume the throne she believes belongs to her--are at the heart of the tale with the growing threat of powerful supernatural creatures returning to the civilized world forming an intriguing backdrop I found irresistible from the first time I heard about these "White Walkers". 

Before long, Martin was researching, making maps and genealogies, and writing a few more chapters, which were interrupted for a TV series he worked on for years that ultimately never aired. In 1994, he returned to novel writing and A Game of Thrones. 1,400 manuscript pages in, he started to realize this was going to be a much larger endeavor than he'd originally thought. It was published in August 1996 with 1,088 pages, not including the appendices. At that time, it was touted the first in a trilogy, but, by the time the second book was published, "trilogy" was dropped. A Clash of Kings was released February 1999, coming in at 1,184 (sans appendices) pages. 

In 1999, after Book 2 reached #13 on The New York Times Best Seller list, producers and filmmakers started showing an interest in the film rights to the series. A Storm of Swords, the third book, was turned in several months late, published in November 2000, with well over 1,500 pages. A Feast of Crows, Book 4, came out five years after the previous (November 2005) with events set up to directly follow where Book 3 had left off, and focused on characters from King's Landing, the Riverlands, Dorne, and the Iron Islands. Book 5, A Dance with Dragons (with a whopping 1,600 pages) was set in the same time period but focused on characters in Essos, Winterfell, and the Wall. Only Arya, Jon Snow, Tyrion, and Daenerys had chapters in both parallel-running volumes. It came out in July 2011. With this story, the series had caught up with what had happened in the previous installment around the two-thirds mark of the novel, and then went further. However, it covered much less than the author intended and left several agonizing tenterhooks that fans have been hanging on all this time. While rude critics claimed Martin had lost interest in the series or, devilishly, was looking to make more money and so held off on finishing the book for publication, he says he just spent too much time rewriting and perfecting it, which I heartily believe. 

In the meantime, in 2007, HBO had acquired the rights to turn A Song of Ice and Fire into a TV series, Game of Thrones. The first 10-episode season aired in April 2011. The series was officially a hit. Though the book series debuted without any mass market publicity or buzz of any kind in the genre, forcing the author to earn his audience the hard way--by writing damn good books that his fans were avidly talking about with other readers--Game of Thrones practically came out of the gate with a cannon explosion. Soon, Martin was carried along by the blitz with a seemingly endless succession of book tours and conventions, though he was trying admirably to juggle all that while writing one script per season of the TV series, writing the sixth book in the series, along with his The World of Ice & Fire companion guide and the Dunk and Egg novellas. 

In March 2012, Martin said that he expects the final two installments to be 1500 pages each but later talked about not being "firm about ending the series with a seventh novel". Book 6, The Winds of Winter, is supposed to resolve the cliffhangers from A Dance with Dragons early on, opening with two big battles that were built up in the previous installment. The viewpoint of Sansa and Arya Stark is supposed to be covered, as well as Arianne Martell's and Aeron Greyjoy's within this title. As for the ending to the series, the author says he wants a satisfying depth and resonance but plans to avoid disappointing fans "by deviating too far from their own theories and desires". 

By October 2012, 400 pages of the sixth novel had reportedly been written, half of which needed revising. HBO was churning out the popular series by mainly following the books already published to a fanatical increase in viewers, and Martin was working hard to deliver in hopes of Book 6 being published before the sixth season of Game of Thrones. By early 2016, he announced he wouldn't be able to catch up with the books in time for the last season of the show. As of this writing, July 2024 (13 years later), we still haven't seen the sixth installment (though in October 2022, he said it was approximately three quarters done), let alone the final (probably) book, A Dream of Spring. 

Martin is said to have told the TV show producers the "major plot points" of what may be in the final two installments. One presumes he told them enough so that the show and its stellar actors (some of whom received a million dollars per episode toward the end) went on to earn countless awards. That said, the final season's ending responses from fans and critics were a pretty mixed bag, with a lot of people unhappy with it. 

For my part, I didn't appreciate the very abrupt end of the supernatural angle of the series. It was almost like the producers came up with a checklist out of nowhere and this vital subplot was checked off summarily within an episode or two. I can't really think of how else it might have been done, so I survived that. That said, for the ultimate end of the series, I had three requirements or I would have been absolutely wroth: Arya, Tyrion, and Jon Snow had to survive and Dany had to die by Jon's hand. So I was pretty pleased with the series conclusion. I don't expect to be quite as pleased with the author's own ending, should we get it, given his own words to the effect of killing off major players so readers don't rely on the hero coming through unscathed and instead experience the tension those characters go through page by page. 

You can almost hear the exhaustion in his voice in a 2003 interview when Martin talked about never again writing anything on this scale, of returning to his fictional universe only in standalone novels, and of writing about characters from other time periods within the setting, such as his Dunk and Egg stories. Disaffected fans in this thirteen year interval between book have been abusive and downright merciless, judging the writing process by their own woefully ignorant prejudices, adding to the stress this author is no doubt feeling to the extreme since the Game of Thrones TV series ended in 2019. 

Martin has also been involved in HBO's follow-up attempts to cash in on more success in this fictional universe, not only with writing the massive two-volume, complete history of House Targaryen that--along with novellas "The Princess and the Queen" (published in the 2013 anthology Dangerous Women), "The Rogue Prince" (2014 Rogues anthology), "The Songs of the Dragon" (2017 The Book of Swords anthology) and the Asimov's Science Fiction and Dragon compilations "Blood of the Dragon" (taken from Dany's chapters in A Game of Thrones), "Path of the Dragon" (Dany's chapters in A Storm of Swords), and "Arms of the Kraken" (based on Iron Island chapters from A Feast for Crows)--spawned the House of the Dragon HBO series currently (as of this writing) in its second season as well as the upcoming one for the Dunk and Egg adventures, and several others which seem to have failed to move forward (the Jon Snow one was what I personally was most looking forward to) or are still being discussed. 

I, for one, devoured every installment of the book series when they were first published and continue to read them every couple years in hopes that a new volume will come out soon and I'll be ready to read it the very instant it's released. I also watch the HBO series at least once a year. My only complaint with it is that it's very hard to watch the over-the-top gratuitousness that goes far beyond the "honest necessity" to reflect real people Martin deliberately includes for "an immersive experience" in the novels because sexuality is "an important driving force in human life". I tend to fast-forward through the worst of it. Other than that, over the course of three or four intense days, I binge-watch the entire series every time I get started with it because I'm tortured with the situations the characters are going through and I can't leave long before I have to return to find out what will happen (though, at this point, I obviously already know). 

I love that the characters are so complex and well-fleshed out, it's sometimes hard not to believe they're just fictional imaginings. Not surprisingly, Ned Stark, Jon Snow, Tyrion, Arya, and Davos are my favorites. The settings are lush and vivid while the events are so authentic and suspenseful, I would love to live in the time period--in theory anyway…okay, so maybe just LARPing there. According to Martin at some point since 2012, he definitely doesn't plan to allow another writer to finish his book series for him if he's unable to complete it himself (he is 76 years old, after all). 

In the meantime, I'm avidly, anxiously, agonizingly waiting for the series to be finished, but I'm also understanding of the author's need to do it in his own time, to the very best of his ability, while also trying to juggle so many other things in the process. The less stress his disgruntled fans put on him, the more likely we'll see the next installments, which hopefully come out with satisfactory conclusions instead of the series exponentially growing and growing and growing with each new volume. So practice patience and enjoy what else the author has to offer, as I am, including non-Song of Ice and Fire offerings, as well as Ice and Fire connected House of the Dragon and the Egg and Dunk adventures, which I'll review next week and hopefully provide something to tide you over for The Winds of Winter. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/