Having drugged myself into a familiar, dazed drowsiness with these three hefty volumes for the better part of the time since that last paper was handed in, I've been wondering just why I read (and re-read) fantasy. The genre was pretty significant in the development of my reading habits - I remember Victor Kelleher's Master of the Grove making a huge impression at some point which must've been no later than grade 4, since I have a distinct memory of reading it in the library of my old primary school, and at around that time there were also those godawful 'choose your own adventure'-type books (I can't remember the series title, but they had bright green covers and were written by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone [sp?])...and then, I think, it was David Eddings (and Terry Pratchett) from grade 6 and Stephen Donaldson the year after, in AAP (again, distinct memory of reading and being amazed by Lord Foul's Bane on the way up to camp). I'm pretty sure that Eddings was the first author whose books I was reading from the 'adult' (as opposed to 'junior'/'teenage') section of the library...somewhere in those early years I also read Tolkien and was suitably awed.
At the time, and even (especially?) through high school, I loved the genre because it was so epic - it held the promise of richer, more magical worlds, and, at its best, had such heft and sweep, and my teenage years were stormy and black enough (or, at least, so they seemed at the time, which is of course what counts) that the sheer escapism must've been alluring (though I don't think I ever thought of it in quite those terms). It's really hard to articulate, and I don't think I could've done so properly even at the time when I really felt it.
The thing is, though, that I don't feel it any more, not really, which brings me back to where I started: why do I read these books? I guess that in part it's indolence - they're so easy to read, and an enjoyable escape (even if they no longer make my spine tingle, or at least not as much as they used to), and if I'm going to read anyway, why not? Not really a very good answer, but maybe it wasn't a very good question in the first place.
As to the "Song of Ice and Fire" series itself: Well, this one I only read last year (well, read up to its current state, anyway - it's not yet finished by the author), I think, or the year before at the very earliest, and it struck me at the time as one of the best epic fantasy series out there. Simply put, it's gripping. It has gravitas and the all-important epic sweep, but it also has well-drawn, interesting characters. There's political intrigue a-plenty - much moving of pieces around the board (fates of nations and individual consciences both at stake), unexpected reversals of luck and loyalty, marriages promised and broken for the sake of alliances...the great families bound to one another by a complex merry-go-round of arranged marriages, children of enemies warded in foreign lands, imprisonments, ransoms, escapes, recaptures, characters flung together in strange configurations as they jostle and are jostled for position. But the battle and action scenes are also well done, and Martin doesn't stint on the characterisation either (witness Catelyn's complex emotions, or Tyrion, or the arc followed by Jaime Lannister, to name just a few), nor on the surprises (the first time I read these books, I was astonished when Eddard Stark died, and again when Robb met the same fate). Nor does he go overboard with the magical or fantastic elements - they become gradually more prominent as the series goes on. One of the glowing comments on the back of the books references the War of the Roses, and I reckon that's exactly right. On this re-read, it's slightly less excellent (unsurprisingly) but still pretty darn good.
