Are you watching ‘A Game of Thrones’ yet?

Erik Kain

Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.

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48 Responses

  1. Aaron says:

    Daniel Abraham’s new book, The Dragon’s Path, is pretty awesome. It’s has a great streak of economics running through it — medieval, Medici-style banking plays a big part in the series. It starts out as your traditional fantasy, but it quickly veers into odd directions. I recommend it.Report

  2. DensityDuck says:

    I got a kick out of Daniel Abraham’s “The Long Price Quartet”.

    I also liked David Drake’s “Servant Of The Dragon”, which is the best of a nine-book series which represents an interesting attempt to repeat the same story nine times. …well, okay, that’s not really the idea, but the basic structure of each book is almost completely the same, and “Dragon” is the best-written of the lot and well worth a read.

    Walter Jon Williams’s “Metropolitan”, for all its technological trappings, is basically a fantasy novel. It’s actually an early example of what we now call “urban fantasy”.Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to DensityDuck says:

      …aaaaand there you have it, two recs in a row for Abraham 😀Report

      • Aaron in reply to DensityDuck says:

        I hadn’t read Abraham before, so once I finished The Dragon’s Path, but I enjoyed it so much I went and bought the first of the “Long Price Quartet.” I’m enjoying that quite a bit as well. And, as a bonus, if you buy The Dragon’s Path on Kindle, you get a copy of Abraham’s pseudonymous space opera that’s about to come out, Leviathan Wakes.Report

    • Mike Schilling in reply to DensityDuck says:

      Metropolitan is great and City on Fire even better. If I were immensely wealthy, one of the first things I’d do would be commission WJW to write the third volume.Report

      • DensityDuck in reply to Mike Schilling says:

        Tell me about it. Unfortunately, he seems to be very much driven by his muse, and she’s apparently done giving him ideas about Aiah and Constantine.Report

        • Mike Schilling in reply to DensityDuck says:

          There are prosaic concerns too.

          The editor of the first two books was fired, and his whole line cancelled. (This had nothing to do with me, I hope) Writing the third book will involve getting the first two back from the publisher and then packaging them with the third. This will take a while, and in the meantime I need to eat, so I’ve sold other books elsewhere. But really. I’ll get back to Aiah and Constantine as soon as I can.

          Which is why sufficient wealth would resolve the issue. I wonder if the Koch brothers like urban fantasy?Report

  3. North says:

    I’m watching Game of Thrones. Not bad, good really considering that having read the books I know what is coming.Report

  4. Jaybird says:

    Jim Butcher: Storm Front.

    I’m thinking about having a reading group dedicated to Jim Butcher on the other site, actually…Report

    • Murali in reply to Jaybird says:

      Anything that jim butcher does is just awesome!!! so read the codex alera as well (starting with furies of calderon)

      When is ghost story coming out???Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Murali says:

        It was supposed to be April.

        I know.

        It is now scheduled for July. This is from the website:

        To be released in hardcover from Roc publishing, July 26, 2011.

        Have you read Side Jobs? If nothing else, you should pick it up for the last short story that takes place a day or so after the events of the last chapter of Book 12. Harry doesn’t show up, it centers on Karrin Murphy and the werewolves.

        So. Yeah. It won’t really help with the withdrawal.

        BUT IT’S SOMETHINGReport

  5. Maxwell James says:

    I am. There’s dozens of bits I’ve felt were rushed or would otherwise nitpick, and I’m impressed with their ability to take the already-cheesy early Dothraki chapters and make them even worse.

    But that said, I’m enjoying it quite a lot, and confident it will continue to improve. The third episode was the best yet, and the first where it really started to feel like its own thing.Report

    • Kolohe in reply to Maxwell James says:

      I’ve haven’t read the books, but agree that episode 3 is where GoT really starts to stand out on its own – and moreover, really stand out head and shoulders above The Borgias, which has had thus far a lot of thematic similarities with GoT.Report

  6. Mike Schilling says:

    It occurs to me that as a fantasist the only thing Martin has in common with Tolkien is his middle initials.Report

  7. RTod says:

    It may not count as fantasy since it is a forward thinking mythology rather that one based on past myths, but this winter I really enjoyed Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl. Similar to some that have already been noted on this thread, economic theory plays a dominant role in this one as well.Report

  8. Don Zeko says:

    You’ve read The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear, right?Report

    • E.D. Kain in reply to Don Zeko says:

      Nope. I have the former, but I haven’t cracked it open yet. Since the baby was born I have done very little reading-for-pleasure outside of reading for blogging. Trying to change gears now.Report

      • Boegiboe in reply to E.D. Kain says:

        I just finished Name of the Wind this week. It was a really enjoyable story, and I’m looking forward to reading the other two books once the second one is published. I had some annoyances with it, but I won’t say them, so as not to bias you. All in all, totally worth reading, and well written enough to read with a young child around (though Alice kept saying “All done!” and closing my book when I was nearing the end and unable to put it down).Report

  9. James K says:

    Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy is simply incredible, though all his book are worth reading. He was able to make The Wheel of Time good again, so that should give you some idea of his talent.

    Also I’d recommend Australian author Jennifer Fallon. Her Second Sons trilogy is brilliant and really breaks free of the standard tropes of the genre.Report

  10. Daniel says:

    This is a related thought but I wanted to know if anyone had any opinion on the parallels of Robb’s uprising to the Civil War? I believe I’ve seen the comparison once or twice and it seems to me a bad one.

    The better parallel is that one to the Revolutionary War since Robb and the northerners are simply seeking independence from a monarchy and don’t have any kind of interest in freeing slaves or ending the repression of a racial group.Report

  11. Thursday Next says:

    Of course there is a new Thursday Next book out.

    Jasper Fforde kinda rocks, but then you probably already guessed I thought that.

    I would also highly recommend the first Shades of Gray, The Road to High Saffron. It takes a while to get into it, but a wonderful distopian novel of the future that features a society run by the Chromogencia.Report

  12. Daniel says:

    E.D.

    Have you considered doing a A Song of Ice and Fire book club?Report

  13. Nalbar says:

    Any of Robin Hobb’s trilogies is worth it. It amazes me how little she gets mentioned in this type of thread. The assassin trilogy, with it’s continuing the story in the tawny man trilogy might be the best fantasy I have ever read.

    I second ‘Name of the Wind’. Great book. The second in the series is out ‘Wise Man’s Fear’. Another great book.Report