The End (for now) of A Song of Ice and Fire

Well after months and months of audiobooking I have finished George R.R. Martin’s series’ A Song of Fire and Ice, that is to say the five books that currently make up the series.  I must say as I have in a previous blog or two that I am amazed at the way Martin does storytelling on such an epic scale.  Though in the books there are perhaps 30-50 characters that actually have a chapter devoted to them (a majority have only one, perhaps two) but the major players keep shining through different parts of the story illuminating a small part of the deep world, that Martin allows us to see.  By having the rotating narrative switch from character to character, allowing first person glimpses into each of the characters, Martin takes the small idea of chapters, and blends it amazingly into the rest of the saga unfolding in the rest of the book, giving way to the grander story happening all around these characters.  Masterful in my opinion. 

I have been very pleased with the series and I anxiously await the sixth book in the series whenever it may come out, and I can only hope that Roy Dotrice (who read four of the five novels) comes back for the sixth novel, but at age 86, it remains to be seen if he will.  I personally will miss his voice accompanying me all over Boston,  voice acting every character in the series (he actually holds a Guinness World Record for voicing the 256 speaking characters in the book Game of Thrones: Book One of A Song of Fire and Ice).  As another side note he will be making an appearance on Season 2 of A Game of Thrones on HBO, as Halleyne, an alchemist in the capital city of King’s Landing.  But regardless, I will miss this series until the next installment and the companion to my reading, Roy Dotrice.

Anyone interested in an engrossing fantasy series that is engaging, deep and complex, pick up the first novel, and prepare to be amazed.      

Opposite sides of the coin lately.

Since I have hit a brief respite from my reading in my short novel class I own my nights again as far as reading is concerned.  One of the guilty nerd pleasures that I have is Kim Stanley Robinson’s ‘Mars’ Trilogy.  It’s a fictional story of the terraforming of Mars.  The three books represent the three major shifts in terraforming towards an earth like planet.  The books are Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars.  I have been reading this series off and on for about six months now.  It has been on my night stand for so long it’s nice to be able to pick up where I left off. 

This story is amazing.  It starts as the first person is setting their feet on the Martian surface.  It moves from there through the process of setting up a base, and center of operations and goes on from there. 

What is so engrossing in this story is how the reader gets a first-hand look of how the culture on Mars might evolve.  Again it starts as humans are just landing on Mars.  The First Hundred people from earth land on mars and begin operations.  It grows and grows and the mars planet takes on a whole other worldly feel as cultures, governments, ecologies, and relationships change throughout the process.  In the story the brilliant minds on mars and a many who follow on to mars synthesize a treatment, when if administered at correct intervals a person can live on indefinitely.  The whole story takes place over the course of 150 years or so, a large amount of the story focusing on the First hundred. 

So it has been nice to get back into the politics of mars and its government and see how it transforms.   Like I said a total nerd indulgence. 

The great thing about this story is how it encompasses so much and envisions the world so clearly.  Robinson’s ability to convey every aspect of science that goes into the terraforming of mars as well as the gravity of the culture is stunning.  

One of the other books I have been able to come back to is The Bible According to Mark Twain, it never ceases to amaze me the brilliance of Mark Twain in everything he does.  I am still in the beginning, looking over the different versions of the Diaries of Adam and Eve; starting with the very short beginning pieces to the much longer stories, much more in detail and more complex.  An excellent look at Twain’s process, which I find fascinating.