I’m not sure if anyone here has read George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series (as far as it is, at least). It’s an excellent fantasy series (that is actually somewhat light on the fantasy). It’s political intrigue with a bunch of great characters for you to love and hate. The books leave you wanting more, more more. (When is that stupid fifth book coming out, anyway?)

A year or more ago Entertainment Weekly had a blurb about HBO picking up the rights to these books to make them into a series. And this week Entertainment Weekly had a couple pages of pictures from the set. Sweet!

You can see some of them, plus others, online here.

I will more than likely be subscribing to HBO in the spring just to be able to watch this.  😊

From what I remember of the first book it seemed rather light on your typical fantasy staple of swords and sorcery.  There was some, but the book was dominated by character studies and the ‘investigation’.  It didn’t seem the type of thing that would readily appeal to a television audience without some heavy-handed compromising of the story.

Charybdis - 22 November 2010 03:04 PM

It didn’t seem the type of thing that would readily appeal to a television audience without some heavy-handed compromising of the story.

Strong characters and a good story wouldn’t appeal to television audiences? While I can’t remember ever watching an HBO series, that always seems to be what they are acclaimed for in their shows. Seems like a good fit and I’m betting on HBO doing it well once again.

And yes, as I said the series, while fantasy, is light in what people think of as fantasy. Very little supernatural elements and fantastical beasts and creatures. It’s more of medieval setting in a made-up world.

I dunno, when I think of medievalesque fantasy television I can’t help but think of things like Xena.  Good dramatic fantasy is rare on television unless Joss Whedon is involved, I hear.  Before LotR we were programmed to equate fantasy with goofy.  But then I haven’t watched anything on HBO since “Dream On” so maybe they are capable of making it appeal to a wide audience.  It’s certainly a sordid enough story to at least get peoples’ attentions.

To be quite honest, I just couldn’t get into the books but my hubby and Brother in Law are both super excited about this.

Ok, I’m up to part two of book 3 now and I’m loving it! Took me a while to get into the books (a different POV character every chapter makes getting into the story difficult I’ve found but I got there eventually) but now I’m really looking forward to the series 😊

I think the series will be done really well, the level of involvement that George R R Martin has means that it won’t be butchered like Sword of Truth was (Legend of the Seeker) and from the few clips I’ve seen, it looks like a lot of detail has gone into it.

Looks like yet another book you guys are gonna make me have to read! 😛 :lol:

daveprime - 05 April 2011 10:46 AM

Looks like yet another book you guys are gonna make me have to read! 😛 :lol:

Nah, just watch it when it comes out on television.

Game of Thrones panel at San Diego Comic Con. (Some plot element spoilers from book one/season one in case that matters to you and you’re inclined to sit through the entire 45 minutes to watch.)

Of course this series has renewed interest in the books, and of course everyone is loving them to death.  I wonder why I’m so often the odd man out in these things?

I know a (married) couple who were interested in the books before the show came out. (They don’t have TV any more than cane be received form an antenna anyway, so wouldn’t have ben able to watch the show on HBO.) They got the first book, each read about a third of it and didn’t like it. The books have political intrigue, a lot of characters and very intricate and interwoven storylines. Not everyone enjoys that in a book. I don’t think it makes you an odd man out for not liking them.

And the jump in popularity is natural for this type of thing. It also helps that the next book in the series just came out about the time the series (first book) was finishing the first season. Harry Potter was similar. It was pretty big, but when the first movie came out the early books jumped in popularity again. And each subsequent book sold more and more.

It’s not that I don’t like intrigue and interwoven storylines (I made it through 10 Wheel of Time books before finally succumbing to battle fatigue), I just didn’t think the first book was well written.  Lots of stuff happened, but so much of the more interesting bits didn’t end up making any difference in the story.  I don’t know, it was years ago.  Maybe I’ll dig the book out and try it again if I still have it.  I did give Pratchett a second chance, after all.  😛