Game of Thrones – George RR Martin

This is just book one of A Song of Ice and Fire; the existence of another six tomes for me was a disincentive to ‘get into’ GoT that finally I have overcome.

First up, the maps at the front set the scene and demand a few minutes perusal, forming as they do the board upon which the game will be played. Next the Prologue sets the tone: dark, foreboding, violent. It’s clearly fantasy-land but we are in familiar territory: swords and shields; horses and wolves; mainly just men and women.

Dynastic rule, bonds of fealty and chivalric knights (but Sers not Sirs) are the order of the day. But the rule of Robert Baratheon, in place a dozen years since the violent ousting of ‘Mad’ King Aerys II of the House of Targaryen, is beginning to look under pressure.

His right-hand man, Jon Arryn, has died in his bed but under suspicious circumstances; the King’s in-laws of House Lannister are untrustworthy and probably plotting something; an infant survivor of the purge of the Targaryens is overseas planning revenge; and in the north, beyond the fortified ice-wall, ancient forces are stirring.

Responsibility for guarding the northern frontier lies with the House of Stark, and it is the members of that family that mainly drive the narrative forward, each chapter recounting events through the eyes of one or other of them: Lord Eddard; Lady Catelyn; children Robb, Sansa, Arya and Bran; and bastard son Jon Snow. Two other viewpoints provide balance: Tyrion, unfavoured dwarfish son of Lord Lannister; and Daenerys, the exiled Princess and true heir of the Targaryen dynasty.

It is undeniably engrossing stuff as the action ricochets between the protagonists, spread over not just the Seven Kingdoms but also beyond the ice wall in the north and across the sea in the grasslands of the nomadic Dothraki warriors. The prose is rich but punchy rather than purple. Although invented terms abound, they are cleverly suggestive of their meaning and used in context so do not jar and no glossary is needed.

Closing in on page 800 it is clear not all issues will be resolved. But despite the fact that six more books loom ahead GRR Martin does not prevaricate, springing deaths and dismemberment on the reader before ending this volume not, thankfully, on a cliff edge but satisfyingly paused for the next instalment.

The jury is out on whether to resume reading or resort to the box set.

Feast of the Innocents – Evelio Rosero

Read as leg 6 (Pasto, Columbia) of the Bookpacking reading journey.

The Feast Day of the Holy Innocents, 28 December 1966, is the start of a tumultuous and fateful week for Doctor Justo Pastor Proceso Lopez (Dr Proceso familiarly).  In Pasto, southern Columbia, the day is celebrated by practical joking and begins a week of festivities leading up to carnival parade on ‘White Day’ on 6 January.

The Doctor, who in his spare time has been researching and writing a damning reappraisal of Simon Bolivar, the much revered ‘Liberator’ of his country, decides that actions will speak louder than his dry dusty words.  He commissions a float for the parade on which the Liberator’s misdeeds will be writ, and illustrated, large and uncompromising.

There being no such thing as a secret in Pasto, word gets out and while the authorities apply pressure to dissuade him a shady group of self-styled ‘guardians of the revolution’ plan more direct action.  To complicate matters the Doctor’s domestic life is in crisis due to a love-hate relationship with his wife and his wayward teenage daughters disowning him.  But the would-be urban guerrillas are in similar disarray, some going off half cock and one who would rather be writing poetry.

With the week increasingly fuelled by the local ‘aguardiente’ liquor, reality is diffused by a drunken haze, but its trajectory is ominous for Dr Proceso.

The progress of the book mirrors the unfolding week in tone, beginning light-hearted and humorous, inserting episodically a potted alternative history of Simon Bolivar’s impact on southern Columbia, then spiralling into chaotic comings and goings that climax dramatically on the day of the carnival parade.

Although set in 1966 the book was published in 2012 so the subject must still resonate in Columbia.  The political history lesson is delivered seamlessly within the story, and while the style is fluent and reminiscent of his more illustrious countryman Gabriel Garcia Marquez it doesn’t quite hit those heady heights.