Monday, April 18, 2011

Game of Thrones Love

I realized that it is a little odd that I have posted nothing about the new HBO adaptation of A Game of Thrones, given that George R. R. Martin was primarily responsible for inspiring me to actually begin writing a book. I consider his A Song of Ice and Fire series to be the best fantasy by a living writer (in second place for me would be A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin).
The reason, I suppose, is that I feel the need to dampen my own excitement over the show, because I won't be able to watch it for many months. Living in Azerbaijan, I have no legal means of watching it until it is released on DVD.

I was saddened to read today about some generally high-quality news media allowing fantasy-hating reviewers to bash the show while smearing women in general. I won't go into detail since others have done much better, but if you haven't read about it, try this link or this one on Tor. It would be better, in my opinion, for these news sources to have people who actually enjoy fantasy do such reviews. That way we could get an honest opinion on how well it was done.
Oh, and while running about the web today, I came across a Gene Wolfe essay on Tolkien and found this great quote (apologies for being off topic):
"Terry Brooks has often been disparaged for imitating Tolkien, particularly by those reviewers who find his books inferior to Tolkien's own. I can say only that I wish there were more imitators -- we need them -- and that all imitations of so great an original must necessarily be inferior."

I'd like to tell all of my readers who love fantasy and sci-fi about The Silver Key, which I just discovered. The writer is far superior to me, yet sadly he has few followers (perhaps he needs to move his Followers widget higher on his page!). I found it well worth my while to spend a couple of hours reading through old posts there, and I imagine many of you would, too.

9 comments:

  1. The media are usually interested in what gets people watching them so they can justify their advertising prices, and harsh critiques do well in that regard.

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  2. I don't have cable, so I have to wait to catch Game of Thrones too. And I heard early reviewers liked it so well they ordered a second season already - before the first one even aired. I thought the previews looked great.

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  3. Yes, I am really excited and can't wait to see it. I hope they will do all of the series eventually.

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  4. ted! ohmygoodness! we had a free hbo weekend this weekend, so i actually got to see the first episode! and when it came on, my husband hollered, "vic! the show YOU want to see is on!" not the show he wanted to see- although he really enjoyed it, the show i wanted to see.

    ohmygoodness! i loved it! and i'm a woman- AND the only thing i didn't like was the illicite sex. what in the world is that reviewer woman talking about?!?!? yikes!

    i'm just sad that now i'll have to wait until it comes to netflix to see the rest. but that will give me time to read the books. i've never read a single one of them, even though you've been recommending them for so long!

    seriously. those reviews were nuts.

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  5. When I read that review I got so angry I couldn't study or think straight for a good hour. It's not only a bad review, it's an outright insult to any geek girl out there. And in fact, there are passages that are insults to about anyone (such as "if you don't like complex plots, go back to Sex in the City." I'm sorry, but Sex in the City is a great show, please stop implying is simplified and for dummies).

    I'm a woman, and I'll stand up for The Hobbit any time she wants.

    Ok. Deep breath. I'm still pissed.

    Ted, you aren't the only one who can't watch A Game Of Thrones, despite a year of getting excited about it. The series launched right during my finals. It'll be another two weeks before I have time to watch an episode.

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  6. Victoria and Claudie, I'm right there with you wishing I could see it NOW! Victoria, you really need to find time to read those books! They are so great, even when they are heartrending.

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  7. I'll check out The Silver Key. And I don't have HBO anymore, so didn't see the show.

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  8. I don't have cable either, so I'll have to wait to watch Game of Thrones as well. :(

    I was pretty bothered by that NY Times reviewer - obviously she just had no clue what she was talking about. Hopefully it just served to get more eyes on the show, and maybe brought in new fans that otherwise wouldn't have checked it out.

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  9. Have you read The Name of the Wind? Or Ilium? Those are right up there with Game of Thrones et al and The Earthsea Trilogy - imho

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