Category: 6000 pages

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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, Y: The Last Man – Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra (pages 5535-5909)


Y: The Last Man is a comic book series. Note it’s not a graphic novel IMHO because although you can buy it in different collected forms it was written as a series of 60 comics over about 6 years and it definitely follows a episodic serial narrative.

It’s probably worth mentioning something about the comic book form here. It’s something I only really came to as an adult – yes I read the Beano and 2000AD but not beyond about 13-14 and both of those were weekly comics. I never had the experience of buying monthly comics under what I think of as the US model. Which are aimed more at adolescents and which come out less frequently. They feature on-going stories but also have ‘arcs’ that typically last 4-6 issues. So the “full” story of Y: The Last Man takes 60 issues and 6 years to play out but is comprised of maybe 10-12 story arcs within that. This feels like an odd, slow way to consume a story to me but I guess real comic book fans have several series on the go at once.

There’s another oddity (to me) which is the timing. It takes maybe 5-10mins to read an issue. So if like me you sit down after the fact and read them in long 1-2 hour stretches like you would a novel, then you get a lot of story, a lot of setup-conflict-resolution or whatever in that time. It’s also true that Although it may take 10mins to read there’s often a lot of visual information on the page that’s adding to the story so it sometimes feels like a much more ‘dense’ experience.

I guess for me it’s most similar to watching serialised TV like Buffy – on-going seasonal arc but with shorter episode–length stories. You get the same sense for example of building up to an ‘act break’ which on TV is an ad break and in comics the end of an issue. However the comic book form feels so much more condensed that these occur relatively more frequently.

Anyway, with that in mind, how was Y: The Last Man?

It’s the story of a man, Yorick, who appears to be the last male human left alive on earth after a mysterious plague wiped out all the other men. I’ve explained the premise to people and the usual reaction is “so it’s basically porn, then?”. Well it’s not, but fair comment I suppose. Actually, possibly in reaction to this there’s almost no sex in the first third of the story. This at first is ostensibly because Yorick is on his way to find his girlfriend who was in Australia just before the plague hit. A little later we find out he has “issues” relating to sex which may explain why he’s not taking advantage of his unique position.

In the mean time we get a sort of standard post-apocalyptic survival tale with a twist. Society hasn’t completely broken down but it has significantly changed. Because certain professions have a very high level of men in them (e.g. airline pilots) this has an effect in how the post-plague world operates. Even without a large gender disparity, all the male car drivers suddenly dying (the plague hits quickly and takes effect in minutes) makes a mess of the roads in a way that takes months to sort out.

The book tries to explore what a female only world would look like. What happens in politics, art, commerce, religion, warfare, law enforcement – all these are touched on. It’s quite interesting although at time it borders on preachy/exposition-dumpy to do this. It also tries to have its feminist cake and eat it. Whilst its heart appears to be in the right place it can’t quite avoid the wider comic book traditions of female depiction (ridiculously attractive with gravity-defying boobs). To be fair different artists[1] vary in this respect and the main comic is usually more balanced than the covers.

It’s not just the physical characteristics of the women either. I don’t think it’s entirely unproblematic that we get lots of violence in this book. It’s a very violent book and there is a certain section of the population that just enjoys seeing women laying into one another, whether with weapons or hand-to-hand. On the one hand in a world of only women, women are inevitably taking up all the positions of the moral compass, on the other it can feel at times fetishistic. Overall my feeling was: heart in the right place, occasional uneasiness in specific depictions.

That aside I will say that I enjoyed it. The story lines develop in interesting and unexpected ways. The dialogue had a wit and knowingness that reminded me of Buffy. The ending was not quite what I might have hoped for but not entirely unsatisfying. (I think I read that some were very disappointed. I wonder if I’d have felt more strongly about it after following the characters for 6 years.)

8/10 – Y? Y not? (sorry!)

[1]another comic-book-ism – when different directors shoot a particular episode of the TV show they rarely change the complete look of the show. You almost certainly won’t fail to recognise particular characters because of it.

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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, My Legendary Girlfriend – Mike Gayle (pages 5183-5534)

My Legendary Girlfriend

My Legendary Girlfriend was a choice driven by two criteria. I’d wanted to do another re-read and it was something light. Light because of the books I’ve got in my “queue”[1] many of them right now seem to be crime thrillers or other “darker” material. A re-read because… well sometimes it’s nice to know what you’re going to get, if you know that what you’ll get you’ll like.

Genre-wise My Legendary Girlfriend is something of an oddity. It’s a kind of male chick lit. There’s was a moment – I suppose around the time when I first read this – when I was self-consciously moving away from (only) SciFi and Fantasy and I thought this might be the genre for me. In the end I’m not sure it was, I’m not sure there were ever enough exponents of it. That’s the genre, what about the book?

My Legendary Girlfriend is the story of Will who at 26 is just starting a new job and possibly career as a teacher. This involved a move from Nottingham to London and therefore it is a real chance for a new start. Why does Will need a new start? Well three years ago he was dumped by his then girlfriend Agnes (Aggie) who he had been with for three years, and he’s still hung up on her. Or is he? Can this new start be a break from obsessing over her too?

The novel takes place over the three and a half days of Will’s first weekend in London. We see him in his grotty flat where his entertainment consists of a few pathetic meals (melted ice cream and sugar puffs being a particular low point), listening to a glib irony-free agony aunt on the radio and various phonecalls, many to the girl who lived in the flat before him. Of course interspersed with this we get the back story of his relationship with Aggie, so the conceit of it taking place over a few days in just the one place is not really true.

It’s a fun read and definitely light. I’m not sure how well it’s aged. Although it was actually fascinating to read a story set in the relatively recent past when so many things were different. Will has no mobile phone, there’s no internet, his fantasy aspirational consumer item is a “flat screen TV”. He has a VCR and travel card. The later he loses, much to his consternation because it means he’s lost the money it cost him. These days a quick phonecall or visit to a website would get his credit transferred to a new Oyster card.

But aside from a glimpse back at cultural artifacts that are so soon forgotten, is there pleasure in the story itself? Yes. I think so. Will is a little annoying at times but that’s forgiveable in one so young. There were times when you think Aggie was right to leave him, or at least you understand why she might. The plot reminds me a little of Clueless (Emma) not in any specifics but in that way you are mis-directed successfully from seeing how things will play out and who will end up with who. Of course that only works the first time. Whereas on re-watching Clueless still seems plausible not to see Cher/Josh coming, the final configuration in Girlfriend is obvious once you know it. But that’s no great sin and there is the pleasure of anticipating the final playing out of the plot.

I’d also forgotten some of the slightly darker moments which are a semi-serious reflection on starting out in life and love in your twenties. But it’s more of a light-hearted book that can occasionally do a little depth than a serious book that also does comedy. It’s not, for example, High Fidelity, even though in tone, subject matter and ambition that’s what it most closely resembles.

Not sure I’ll re-read it for another decade, unless I’m really stuck for something to read.

7/10 – a good light read, not legendary, but not forgettable either.

[1]A list which tends to change, re-arrange and always, ultimately get longer. However its mutable nature means it’s never really possible to predict what the next book in the “queue” will be.
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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, Killer Move – Michael Marshall (pages 4827-5182)

Killer Move

A couple of books ago I said it was easy to review a book that I’d hugely enjoyed. Here’s one I enjoyed just as much but it’s harder to review  because, I think I don’t want to give too much away.

Killer Move is a novel by Michael Marshall, a name he goes by when writing crime fiction. When writing his earlier SciFi novels, such as Only Forward, he went by Michael Marshall Smith. And, when he wrote The Servants, which you’ll remember I also loved, he was M.M. Smith.

Anyway this is the first of his crime books I’ve read. I’ve avoided them partly because I knew that there was some fairly grim subject matter in the likes of The Straw Men. I carry around in my head that I don’t like such things but let’s be honest I’ve read and enjoyed Let the Right One In and 1974, and at least read 1977, all of which have material that’s as dark as any you’d find.

Still, the reason I picked up this book rather than the earlier crime ones was the intriguing blurb about it, and the fact that it didn’t on the face of it seem to be dominated by gruesome murders. And in fact that’s true. Mostly.

Killer Move is about Bill Moore, a florida realtor who’s ambitious and trying to push his career to the next level. He’s actually got a very nice life – a lovely home, a successful wife who he loves and enough money for a comfortable lifestyle – but he wants more. One day he receives a business card with the single word “Modified” written on it. From then on weird stuff starts to happen to him and slowly his life starts to unravel.

The thing I really like about this book is the way it slowly builds. Things happen at a pace that mean that initially it’s just intriguing, then gradually it becomes stranger, more involved, more dangerous until you’re in a full-on thriller. By the time the gruesome stuff shows up – and it does – it feels like you’re too wrapped up in the story to really worry about it. Plus it has become integral to the story anyway.

But it’s more than just the finely tuned mechanism of the plotting, it’s the slow reveal and/or evolution of Bill’s character. This is an ‘extraordinary things happen to an ordinary person’ type of story and what’s interesting is that the person he is at the beginning – obsessed with success, listens to self-help podcasts, reads positivity blogs and attends branding seminars – isn’t particularly likeable, but he slowly reveals himself to be more interesting than he first appears. I loved the main character of Stark in Only Forward, but I loved him from the first page with his dry wit and cool persona, Bill I grew to like as he both showed more of himself and was changed by the experience.

That’s what sets Killer Move apart from say a John Grisham thriller, though they share a clockwork precision of plot, the characterization. There are characters you sympathise with, ones you instantly like (like Stark), or dislike, or are appalled and intrigued by.

And there is some tough stuff in there but more of it is implied than seen. Certainly it doesn’t have that unrelenting grimness and all-humanity-is-scum feel of 1977.

It would also make a terrific movie.

My only quibble is the title – Killer Move is so generic as to be meaningless and it really doesn’t connect with anything specific in the book. There is an obvious one-word title but I suspect that it was rejected because it doesn’t say enough about what kind of book this is.

9/10 – an excellent gripping read and one that slowly builds up both tension and character development.

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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, Carpe Jugulum – Terry Pratchett (pages 4402-4826)

Carpe Jugulum

Carpe Jugulum is the 23rd Discworld book and as you’d expect from the title is concerns vampires (or vampyres as they prefer it – they’re trying to be “modern”). It’s also a Lancre Witches book which is a good thing as I’m a fan of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg and Wyrd Sisters is probably my 2nd favourite Discworld book. (Mort, since you ask).

The book begins with the preparations for the christening of King Verence and Queen Magrat’s baby. Unfortunately the King invited a family of vampire nobility and inviting vampires in is one thing we all know you shouldn’t do. Perhaps even worse is that although they sent an invite to Granny Weatherwax it went astray. Not inviting the Kingdom’s most powerful witch may have been as catastrophic as inviting blood-sucking fiends.

Into all this arrives an Omnian priest Mightily Oats who has been summoned to perform the christening. He’s an interesting character defined more by lack of certainty than actual belief. Oh and we have the 4th member of the Lancre coven, Agnes Nitt, who’s in two minds about everything, literally.

Carpe Jugulum is certainly a lot of fun. It has some interesting things to say about Faith. I’m not sure there was anything radically new in it. As I’ve said by this stage, book 23, we’ve touched on most of Pratchett’s favourite subjects before, so there’s a lot of familiar ground. But these are characters I enjoy spending time with. I liked the vampires, I like Agnes and I still like Nanny and Granny – though her black-and-white belief in her own rightness pushed me on that.

As with other recent Discworld reads I found I enjoyed the story more than the humour which felt a little predictable in its patterns and rhythms, though there were still laugh out loud moments such as:

‘Indeed?’ said the Count, turning to his son. ‘Right about what, prey?’

I smiled at the subtlety.

8/10 – a fun romp with enjoyable characters and some thoughtful ideas about faith, right and wrong – and the importance of a nice cup of tea.

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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, Before I Go To Sleep – SJ Watson (pages 4037-4401)

Before I Go To Sleep

Before I Go To Sleep is an easy book to write about for two reasons – it’s got an easy to understand concept and I really enjoyed it.

This book is told from the perspective of Christine who, when she wakes up in the morning is in unfamiliar surroundings. This happens every morning because Christine has a condition where she doesn’t form new memories, so each new day is a kind of reset. So she wakes up every day, not knowing who the middle-aged man in bed with her is. In fact she doesn’t really recognise the woman she sees in the mirror as she remembers herself to be much younger than she actually is. Slowly, patiently the man explains that he’s her husband and he gently reminds her about some of the other facts of her life. Something he must have to do every day.

The reason this book works so well is that the early chapters work simply as an experience of what it must be like to have this kind of memory condition. If you’ve seen the movie Memento then you’ll have some idea already but this is a slightly different take on the idea. The fact that our hero is female and the setting domestic gives it a different feel. Gradually, we as the reader begin to build up a picture of Christine’s life and also some of what has happened to her. This starts to raise questions which we become aware of before she does and the remainder of the book is almost a thriller, certainly we want to know what has happened and how it will play out if and when Christine starts to discover the truth.

So in the second half of the book you lose some of the psychological subtlety of the first part but you gain a page-turning what-will-happen-next plot. It really works, I found it gripping.

9/10 – both an insight into a different kind of life and a thrilling ride.

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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro (pages 3733-4036)

Never Let Me Go

OK, first of all, if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t really want to know anything about a book before you read it, the kind of person who won’t watch trailers of movies in case they give too much away, then you should really skip this review. Not that I’m planning to ruin the book, I won’t give away the ending, but I can’t sensibly talk about it without talking about the central premise.

Still with me? Good.

Never Let Me Go is a kind of SciFi novel in that it’s set in a world almost exactly like ours but with one difference i.e. it’s an alternative present. Still I say only “kind of SciFi” because although good SciFi is always more interested in ideas than shiny tech, this really isn’t interested in tech at all except in how it changes society. In that way it reminds me of something like Children of Men.

Kathy and her friends Tommy and Ruth grew up in a boarding school called Hailsham. There they are prepared for the life that is ahead of them and we soon see that this is not quite the kind of life one might expect. Nevertheless they have a close relationship and the early part of the book is about their experiences together, their loves and aspirations and conflicts within the relatively small world of the school. There’s an intensity here that may relate to their role in the world or may just be a consequence of that enclosed environment.

We follow them as they grow into adulthood, learning some measure of independence but always with an eye towards a particular future. You see these are human clones who have been bred for the specific purpose of providing organ donations. They live relatively normal but short lives, “completing” once they have made 2,3 or at most 4 donations. Some of them, Kathy in this story, work as “carers” to the “donors” supporting them through the medical procedures. But even the carers eventually become donors themselves.

This is a thoughtful intense book. I enjoyed it for the most part. One annoying habit the author has is in the early part of the book he tells various incidents out of order. Nothing wrong with that per se but the way he does it appears to have no real reason. He’ll be telling you about an incident between two characters and at the end he’ll say something like “…but maybe that’s because of what had happened with the tape.” Then he’ll go back and tell the story of the tape ending it with “…which is perhaps why she fell out so strongly with Tommy.” Then he’ll skip forward and tell you about the argument with Tommy. He’ll do this several times in a row and it left my head slightly spinning and I couldn’t think of a good reason why he couldn’t just describe events in the order they occurred.

The other reservation I have is about why the characters don’t try harder to escape their fate – to run away or rebel. I know the answer but it’s not one given in the story itself. Remember I said this was a kind of SciFi? One of the things that SciFi often prompts people to do is ask “why?” questions – “Why don’t they just use the transporter to beam out of there?”. Often there’s a reasonable answer that the author has alluded to but not gone into detail on because he doesn’t want to distract from the story itself. I’ve been a defender of this kind of story-telling. It’s about suspension of disbelief. You accept certain things to allow the story to be what it is.

Well anyway, this is similar to that but the answer to the “why?” question is “because this is a metaphor” and for the metaphor to work the donors need to be accepting of their future. Why don’t I let Ishiguro himself, talking when the film of the book was released, explain:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jCB59pPG7k&NR=1]

So as a meditation on the meaning of life, its brevity and inevitable end, the book does have some interesting things to say. I confess to being just picky enough to be bothered by the “why?” question. I can extrapolate from hints in the text that it’s because they’ve been socialised their whole lives to be compliant, but still…

7/10 – A thoughtful, challenging book.

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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, True Grit -Charles Portis (pages 3509-3732)

True Grit

I decided to read True Grit after hearing it recommended on a podcast around the time of the recent film version being released. The John Wayne film version is one of the few Westerns I’ve watched and enjoyed so I thought it was worth a read. Was I right? Read on.

True Grit is the story of Mattie Ross, a fourteen year old whose father has just been killed by an outlaw called Tom Chaney. Leaving her mother to grieve and look after her younger siblings, Mattie makes a trip to sort out her father’s business affairs and find justice for his death, since Chaney has fled to lawless Indian Territory and no-one seems too interested in pursuing him.

So she secures the services of Reuben ‘Rooster’ Cogburn and sets off to capture, and kill, Chaney. They are soon joined by a Texas Ranger called LaBoeuf who is after Chaney for crimes committed in Texas and for the reward.

The plot moves forward in a fairly straight-forward A-follows-B manner. What really draws you in is the main character and her relationship with Cogburn. Her determination and “grit” are what define her and what I suspect would be a very annoying tendency in real life of nagging til she gets her own way, makes you admire her.

The book is written in her voice, and at first I thought that Portis had cleverly captured that childish simplicity of speech. Then I realised that this was written as an older Mattie looking back. I did find the style a little wearing at times but I suppose it does work as a not overly-educated woman of that era writing her memories of these events.

Even so I think you have to take this style, along with her tendency to go off point and talk about religion (complete with scripture references), politics and unrelated history, as tongue in cheek. I’m not sure it was hilariously funny but it occasioned the odd wry smile and chuckle. However it also illustrates the “nasty, brutish and short” nature of life at that time and place, which was a counter point to any humour.

However the book was very readable and not too long. So overall I found it a good read.

7/10 – a good read, probably still prefer the movie though.

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6000 pages reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, The Last Continent – Terry Pratchett (pages 3093-3508)

Finishing The Last Continent brings me up to the point where the next Discworld book is Carpe Jugulum which is Ship of Fools book group’s July book. I should have finished it quite a while ago but I seem to have taken a three week gap in the middle.

Anyway, The Last Continent is about what would be the Discworld equivalent of Australia, called FourEcks (XXXX as in those old lager commercials, still going strong at the time this came out). It’s also a Rincewind book, and I like Rincewind.

Rincewind finds himself in FourEcks doing what he does best, staying alive. Meanwhile back in Ankh-Morpork the Librarian has caught some sort of magical disease and keeps changing shape every time he sneezes. The wizards want to change him back to his orangutan form but need to know his name in order to perform the requisite spell. Rincewind, having worked with the Librarian is likely to know his name so if they can find him they can ask him. So they embark on a journey, via magic to FourEcks, or somewhere not entirely unrelated to it, to track down Rincewind.

Meanwhile Rincewind is being guided in his sequence of adventures i.e. serial escapes from various dangers, by a talking Kangaroo, who has told him that the Continent is out of whack, mystically speaking and only Rincewind can put it right. Rincewind reacts to this in the way you’d expect, by running away.

So there are two plot strands – the wizards on a mission to find Rincewind, and Rincewind on a mission to stay alive and avoid his destiny.

Remember how I said that when I first read Equal Rites I was disappointed that it didn’t feel quite the same as the first two Discworld books, but that later I realised that it was the first real Discworld book because it was the first one with a real story and plot rather than just a collection of jokes? Well the Rincewind story is a bit like that – the jokes mainly being various parodies of Australian stuff. I preferred the wizards story because the jokes are funny but I think I prefer a story. Although having said that I do like the character of Rincewind himself, even, especially since he’s developed a bit since the first couple of books.

In the end of course the two plotlines join together and get resolved in what I’ll call one of Pratchett’s “flights of fancy” – where he attempts to be lyrical and mythic. Which sounds like I didn’t like it but I did, just not so much perhaps as I might have when I was younger and had read so many of his books. It was also a little confusing but I just decided not to worry about the bits I didn’t quite get and take in the general sweep instead.

7/10 – No Worries.

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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, Persuasion – Jane Austen (pages 2788-3092)

Persuasion by Jane Austen

I’ve been a fan of Jane Austen TV and film adaptations for years but Persuasion is the first book of hers I’ve actually read.

It concerns Anne Elliot the daughter of Sir Walter Elliot, who at the age of 19/20 was persuaded to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth given his lack of wealth and status relative to her own. Now, eight years later, Captain Wentworth, rich and respectable enters her life again, but does he still feel the same way about Anne? And if he does will they able to be together or will events and other people conspire to keep them apart?

I think you can guess the answer.

Since I started 25 Books I’ve intended to read an Austen novel and I had chosen Persuasion because it was one of two where I did not know the story already. The other Northanger Abbey, is I understand, very different to her other books and so I thought I’d leave that until later. I have a feeling that Persuasion is not considered amongst the best Austen, so I don’t know how much of my reaction to it is from that or other factors.

My reaction being that it was very enjoyable but not up there with my experience of the TV/film versions of Pride & Prejudice , Sense & Sensibility or Emma. Part of that I’m sure is the language, which is archaic enough for me to have to work at it. I’m sure my pages/hour stat has taken a hit during this book. Certainly there were several times when I had to re-read sections, particularly great long convoluted sentences with several semi-colons. However it improved towards the end. Partly I got more proficient at on-the-fly-in-my-head-translation-into-modern-English and partly there was more dialogue which tended to be more straightforward anyway.

The story was full of what I consider Austen standard fare – a good-hearted sensible slightly put-upon sister with pompous and/or silly relatives, apparently honourable men who turn out not to be so, apparently cold or indifferent men who turn out to be far from it, misunderstandings about who may or may not “be attached to” (which either means fancy or be engaged to depending on context) whom, various secrets and of course the happiness of being suitably married – which equates to respectability and financial stability.

I think the plot works well in introducing all the various misdirections and obstacles to Anne and Wentworth’s romance. It certainly seems to all shift into gear significantly in the final third of the book. There does seem to be more of an inevitability to their eventually re-uniting than I would have expected. In that sense it’s less of a dramatic reversal of fortunes as in P&P and S&S – but maybe that’s just the way those were edited by various modern writers/producers. Overall though it works – the good end happily and that’s how it should be!

8/10 – a good (very) old-fashioned rom-com.

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6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, A Game of Thrones – George R R Martin (pages 1954-2788)

A Game of Thrones

Normally I start these reviews with a brief synopsis of at least the first part of the story, to give an idea of what the book is about as well as what I think of it. That’s tricky here because there’s so much to cover. Let me try…

Set in a fantasy world that’s similar to but clearly not medieval Europe/Asia, most of the action of A Game of Thrones takes place in the land of Westeros a.k.a “The Seven Kingdoms”. Some few centuries previously these were distinct kingdoms but they are now ruled over by a single monarch from the “Iron Throne”. This monarch, King Robert Baratheon took the throne by conquest from the previous “mad” king and has been ruling for 20 years or so.

As the story begins there is trouble brewing with threats to the throne from within – political machinations, assassination and intrigue at court and without with the remaining heirs of the old kings who are trying to raise an army to attack from overseas. There’s also a possible threat from the frozen north beyond a huge wall to defend against outlaws and the mythic White Walkers, zombie like creatures which many believe have been extinct for thousands of years, if they ever existed at all. The outlaws and wild animals though are real and it’s the job of the Night Watch to guard the Wall and defend the Seven Kingdoms.

A Game of Thrones is one of those books that switches point of view with each chapter headed with the name of a character. We follow about 6 or 7 characters in this way. I have mixed feelings about this. On the on hand it’s good to get the perspective of different characters with different loyalties and motivations. To start to empathise with someone who is on the opposite side of a war to the character in the previous chapter is good in that it stops everything being a kind of black and white morality – which some fantasy suffers from. However the action is then split across different places and Martin plays that trick of building up the tension nicely, coming to a cliff-hanger at the end of a chapter and then switching to a completely different story, which slowly becomes engrossing, tension builds… and so on. It’s a style that has its merits but can be frustrating too.

I definitely enjoyed this book and it was easier to finish than say Under the Dome. In this book whilst there are fantasy elements – the White Walkers, talk of dragons (once again presumed extinct), magic and years-long seasons (“Winter is Coming” is the slogan of one of the Northern kingdoms) – most of the story is to do with the intrigue and politics of gaining or retaining the Iron Throne. With a slight change of wardrobe it could be a 21st century political thriller. But it is engrossing and the characters are well drawn and sympathetic.

A Game of Thrones is part of a series – A Song of Ice and Fire – which is currently up to five books with at least one more on the way. So the story does not so much end as it does find a convenient place to break off. In fact there are plots unresolved, characters missing in action and so on. That said it did feel like a natural place to put a pause but given this I’d’ve been just as happy if that pause had been at 400 pages rather than 835. Still good for the page count.

Will I read the next five books? Perhaps. I’ll read some shorter ones first though.

8/10 – Good solid fantasy with sympathetic characters, an intriguing world set up and lots of intrigue.