I’m not a big fantasy reader—aside from the usual suspects like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, I’ve found too many of the fantasy books I’ve tried to read, or that I’ve had recommended to me, to be pretty shitty, or at least shitty enough to keep me from embracing the genre as much as I’d like.

The exceptions, though, are the four (so far) books in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, which are nothing short of amazing. Crammed with phenomenal characters, complex political scheming, and impressive amounts of both blood and sex, Martin’s books are gritty, smart, and gripping—in the months since I started reading the series, I’ve recommended and/or given the first book, A Game of Thrones, to more people than I can remember, and often to people who wouldn’t normally give two shits about anything marketed as “fantasy.”

Next year, HBO’s eagerly anticipated adaptation of the series begins—and with Martin’s involvement, an impressive cast, and writers like Jane Espenson, it’s safe to say things are looking pretty good so far. Here’s HBO’s super-short, super-vague teaser for the series, via io9.

That ain’t much, but what it is doesn’t look bad. Now for chrissakes, Martin, finish the damn fifth book already.

With honor and distinction, Erik Henriksen served as the executive editor of the Portland Mercury from 2004 to 2020. He can now be found at henriksenactual.com.

6 replies on “Our First (Short) Glimpse of HBO’s <i>Game of Thrones</i>.”

  1. Thanks for sharing. These are now on my list. Do you consider the Dark Tower Series to be Fantasy? I see them as a mix, but a great mix, no, a fabulous mix.

  2. @ Great Wall O Rubish: Yeah, Dark Tower’s definitely a mix of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi–or at least the first book is. I enjoyed that first one but have yet to get around to reading the others; I’ve been curious to, but I’ve also heard from a few people that the series really goes downhill after the first book.

  3. GRRM needs to stop attending cons and writing stories for anthologies and just focus on writing the next book. For reals.

    This sparse trailer looks promising, though.

  5. God damn I can’t wait to see this. Now if only that fucker would stop fiddling around with miniatures and getting drunk at conventions and finish the goddamn next book that he said was already half done FIVE YEARS AGO!! He’s going to die before he’s done with it and they’re going to hire some hack to jerk off on his notes. I just know it! /fanboyrant

  6. I gave the Dark Tower the “old college try” — I read 3 1/2 books (that’s like 1500 fucking pages), still wasn’t into it, and I gave up. I’ve heard that you either like King’s fantasy or his horror, and I guess I like the latter (Misery ftw!).
    Ice and Fire, however, is way fucking awesome. (You can tell how evil the characters are by how much incest they engage in!) I’ve been forcing it upon all my friends since I started ’em in January, and they’re pretty sick of hearing me talk about it.

Comments are closed.