Summer Reading

I've done a lot of reading the last couple weeks I've been here. A ton, in fact. Part of that's due to the 40-minute subway rides to and from work every day, and part of it's due to the reading material being really good. It's called A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, and I finished it today.



A Game of Thrones is the first in an ongoing series of books called A Song of Ice and Fire, which is set in the land of Westeros, about fifteen years after a bloody civil war that pitted the land's Seven Kingdoms against eachother. Even as the lands struggle for power or peace, new and terrifying menaces approach from the North and from the East.

The main characters are the members of House Stark, lords of the northern kingdom of Winterfell, a place as cold as the people that inhabit it. Lord Eddard Stark is their level-headed and stoic leader, but he is honorable to a fault. Their enemy is House Lannister, wealthy back stabbers who would trade anything for power.

Aside from the fighting in Westeros, there are two side plotlines. One follows Eddard's bastard son Jon Snow as he mans The Wall, a gigantic structure built to keep the Northern menace from invading. The other follows Daenerys Targaryen, the last descendant of Westeros' previous king Aerys and betrothed to Khal Drogo, leader of the barbaric Dothraki in the East.

I've never considered myself a huge fan of fantasy -- I've read Lord of the Rings, but little else -- but this book was fantastic. I finished it about half an hour ago and I'm leaving to go to Barnes & Noble to pick up it's sequel, A Clash of Kings, right now.

If you're not reading anything this Summer, you should be, and what you read should be this.