The Prison Sentence

I see that people occasionally want to declare George R. R. Martin "the American Tolkien." They can do so if they like, but I don't think I will.

I'm halfway through the fifth book, and aspects of while Fire and Ice thing are starting to really seriously wear out their welcomes with me. The books are slowly becoming more and more tedious to read, and I find myself skimming more and more.

For example, I don't need to know the following:

* What anyone is wearing

* What anyone is eating

* What songs anyone is singing (I swear, if I am reminded of that "A bear, a bear" song one more time, I may shriek.

* What subsidiary banners fly from what castle's walls

* What the "words" of the houses are

* The names of people who could just as well be anonymous

Admirers of this sort of thing may argue that all this needless palaver lends verisimilitude, but to me, it's like hanging out with a hard-core SCA geek: it's fun for a while, but comes a time when it starts to become tedious, even a little annoying.

But I think the thing that wears on me the most is the endless cynicism of the whole series. Admirers of this sort of thing will probably say that the deep cynicism of the series lends even more verisimilitude; that people really are that self-interested and ignoble. Maybe. But I think that when you put the label "fantasy" on a book cover, realism becomes entirely moot, and I find myself preferring the hints of nobility in Tolkien's writing over the endless barbarism of Martin's. Oh great, another ten-page digression on alliance-by-marriage. Skim. Oh great, another ten-page digression on who has the stronger claim to what throne. Skim. It's an endless procession of murder, insanity, incest, naked ambition, rape, regicide, patricide, fratricide, probably matricide, hanging, torture, mutilation, cruelty, bowel movements, cannibalism, bestiality, greed, and hypocrisy.

Realistic? Sure. But just because it's realistic doesn't mean I want to read about it either. I like to read the occasional fantasy novel as an escape, but Fire and Ice is less an escape than a prison sentence.

It isn't all bad. It has interesting ideas and interesting characters, and I am curious how certain things come out in the end. But it's also bloated, slow, tedious, cynical, encrusted with far too much irrelevant detail, and not especially entertaining, at least in my opinion.