Game of Thrones

el_presidente

If you like Game of Thrones try Joe Abercrombie. Very good writing, loads of action and interesting concepts but takes itself a lot less seriously and all the better for it.

jonginge

Read the first three a few years back then stalled waiting for the next one... will have to go back and read them again.

Current fave in the genre is Steven Erikson. Completely bonkers in terms of numbers of characters and seemingly disparate plot themes but utterly fantastic. He writes some pretty funny dialogue. For me, it's the one long-running series that hasn't seriously tailed off from a good start.

@JayDub Heaney's Beowulf is pretty good. Been meaning to read the sagas but never seem to get around to it.

woodford2barbican

Read them all in the last 3 months or so. They are alright. But there ain't no pictures.

SimonAH

+1 to El Presidente

Wrath Rob

Loved the first series. Not sure if I want to spoil the next one by reading the books first.

kevess

Thanks CC. Just after your first post I came across all four books, US paperback, in the Weybridge Oxfam and thought why not.

A week of enforced PT and I'm well and truly hooked.

I'm on Virgin Media with no access to Sky Atlantic, but in truth I'm actually pleased that I didn't form any preconception prior to reading the books.

I have to say I haven't enjoyed a fantasy book so much since my first dip into LotR in 1970!!

asprilla

KevEss wrote:

Thanks CC. Just after your first post I came across all four books, US paperback, in the Weybridge Oxfam and thought why not.

You should try the Sam Beare Hospice book shop in Weybridge; I picked up Lance Armstrongs bio, Geoff Thomas' account of his riding the tour for charity in 2005, Wiggo's bio and David Millar's bio all for £6 the other week.

Bargain.

clarkey cat

A week of enforced PT and I'm well and truly hooked

they are dangerously readable... like Bernard Cornwell but with dragons.

I'm currently purging myself of all this easy-reading frippery by immersing myself in 'Rings of Saturn' by WG Sebald. I can't wait til its over and then I can read 'Clash of Kings'!!!

dhope

el_presidente wrote:

If you like Game of Thrones try Joe Abercrombie. Very good writing, loads of action and interesting concepts but takes itself a lot less seriously and all the better for it.

Started the first of the Joe Abercrombie trilogy. Very good fun, ta.

Agent57

KevEss wrote:

I have to say I haven't enjoyed a fantasy book so much since my first dip into LotR in 1970!!

I'm trying to read LotR at the moment. I've made it further than my last attempt (which stalled at Tom Bombadil's house), and this time I've made it to the council of Elrond. I'm finding it hard going and quite a slog to wade through though. So much so, that I'm considering ditching it again, and watching the films again instead.

I don't think I get on with Tolkein's writing style.

notsoblue

Agent57 wrote:

I've made it further than my last attempt (which stalled at Tom Bombadil's house)

That happened to me the first time I read LOTR....just couldn't get past Bombadil... Left the book for a year before I finished it. He's one of my favourite characters in the story actually. He really gives depth to the universe Tolkien created imo.

cjcp

Agent57 wrote:

KevEss wrote:

I have to say I haven't enjoyed a fantasy book so much since my first dip into LotR in 1970!!

I'm trying to read LotR at the moment. I've made it further than my last attempt (which stalled at Tom Bombadil's house), and this time I've made it to the council of Elrond. I'm finding it hard going and quite a slog to wade through though. So much so, that I'm considering ditching it again, and watching the films again instead.

I don't think I get on with Tolkein's writing style.

I found the Fellowship thoroughly engrossing, but The Two Towers seemed to kill the momentum a little - very hard to get into - but TROTK was tremendous.

clarkey cat

Has anyone read any of Margaret Atwood's SFX stuff?

I have read Alias Grace which I enjoyed but apparantly she does a whole line in SFX.

secretsqirrel

Did the right thing and looked for a subject before opening a new thread.

Series 4 and it still very :shock:

Agent57

Such thread necromancy. Very bump.

EKE_38BPM

The book is always better than the film so I must read the books before it all finishes.

barry_kellett99

EKE_38BPM wrote:

The book is always better than the film so I must read the books before it all finishes.

Definitely open to discussion in this instance though.

rubertoe

GOT is awesome.

Every episode.

only two more to go....

FoldingJoe

Sunday's\Monday's was a bit epic!!

FoldingJoe

clarkey cat wrote:

Has anyone read any of Margaret Atwood's SFX stuff?

I have read Alias Grace which I enjoyed but apparantly she does a whole line in SFX.

Read Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood - both centred around a type of bioengineered apocalypse (the way the books were described by one literary reviewer and I thought was quite fitting) and share some of the same characters (not sure if the Year of the Flood is a prequel or sequel).

Both good books and worth a read, as is The Handmaid's Tale.

I've not read MaddAddam yet which is the third in the series.

rubertoe

FoldingJoe wrote:

Sunday's\Monday's was a bit epic!!

Slightly....

FoldingJoe

I'd bet he could do that in real life as well!!

Managed to stumble across a spoiler from the book about what happens, post the fight. Sounds interesting.

rubertoe

Keep it to yourself as someone who hasnt read any of the books.

My Mrs accidentally read the back of one the novels and she knows something about Jon Snow and she keeps threatening to tell me....

FoldingJoe

Yeah - didn't want to give it away!!

dhope

FoldingJoe wrote:

Yeah - didn't want to give it away!!

The tapdancing scene in the books is epic, who knew the Hound was so graceful

macleod113

I started reading read the books when I heard there was a TV show being made so I was well ahead before the show started. I love SF&F and grew up with the fighting fantasy books, then David Eddings (big kids fantasy), then Tolkien and now GRRM. the GOT books are excellent with so many characters you love and hate. I think GRRM doesn't want to skimp on detail which is why they go on and on. i just hope he doesn't pass away before the series is finished.
as for the TV show, its great that my two dimensional imagination gets fleshed out. the scene at the end of Mondays show was staggeringly good and close enough to the book for me.
cat wait for the next 2 episodes (much epicness expected), then its back to the books for another read through before season 5 on telly.

rubertoe

Sansa is developing well....

FoldingJoe

Lord Baelish certainly thinks so.

rower63

I've read LOTR approx 15 times since I was 12, Hobbit perhaps 4 times, Silmarillion 3 or 4 times. I never get tired, and the latest round of re-reading was to prep myself for the films. The films are extremely disappointing, the Hobbit especially so (cartoon-like Disney-esque childish unbelieveable invention). Nothing in any of the Tolkien films remotely matches how I imagine it when I read it.
Game of Thrones seems completely different, although I haven't read the books yet. It's completely believable, I'm immersed and wish the Tolkien films had been made in the same style, i.e. very little (but just enough) CGI, and no continuous split-second coincidences where everyone just survives every 10 minutes or so for hours. Rant over.

jonny_trousers

Love GOT!

My wife's claim to fame is that she got John Snow beaten up in the McDonald's on the Strand when he was attempting to protect her honour. Judging by what she told me about his fighting skills, he doesn't stand a chance against the Wildlings.