A Game of Thrones

Touted as the “American Tolkien” George Martin's epic tale begins well enough, with ominous portents that “Winter is coming”. A rich world with a deep history is created with care. Families, feuds, and intrigue abound. But, it just ends up being too much. The book begins to crumble under the weight of the complexity. There just end up being too many people, with too many betrayals, and, for me at least, too many bad things that happen. At the end of the first book I felt fairly hopeless that anything good was going to happen to any of the characters I cared for. By the end, I was ready to be done, and had no desire to read the rest of the series as published to this point. Perhaps I will revisit it some day, but I may have to forget the slightly bitter aftertaste this epic volume left behind.