Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Finished 5 books of A Song Of Ice And Fire

Am finally all caught up on George R R Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire. ...HBO can no longer shock me with cliffhangers and random deaths anymore.



Had planned on reading it ever since i watched the first episode and learnt that the show leaves out a ton of stuff that happens in the book.



I also already had one of the issues of The Hedge Knight Graphic Novel.



The problem was the pricing.. even the paperbacks were so expensive. Then one day at a bookstore i saw people crowding around a pile of collector's sets that had all 4 books.. so i was also tempted to buy it.



A quick and prudent bit of research on my phone and wikipedia, told me that there were 3 more books as yet unreleased.. so some of these fans lining up to buy the "collector's edition" were basically in for a dreadful shock.



Eventually though i found it available as digital Kindle downloads(at a fraction of the price).. and when it went on sale in July i picked up the Kindle versions of the first 4 books.. got the 5th a few weeks back.. and just finished reading it earlier today.



And i did it all on my phone and tablet(kindle's handy android app) :) saving tons of cash in the process.





Managed to get the first 4 books

A Game of Thrones

A Clash of Kings

A Storm of Swords

A Feast for Crows




as a set for INR 274.71

(costs INR 2,313.47 in print. even the digital version now costs Rs. 1,576.84)



You can get it here.



Got the 5th book A Dance With Dragons

for INR 502.45

(price fluctuates, you may now get it for lower. but the print version is still expensive)



You can get it here.



Now waiting for The Winds Of Winter (tentatively planned for release in 2014.) & A Dream Of Spring to release.



So do i recommend reading the books?

YES!!

No offence to HBO or fans (who think the show is perfect), but i feel the creators of the show are more interested in shocking the viewer with graphic sex and violence than actually delivering enough of the actual story.. which is why its taken 3 seasons to get to the middle of the 3rd book! That said the series is pretty well made and i will keep watching. Its fun to see all the characters in the book come to life on screen.. especially with the stellar cast. And i'm a big fan of the vfx enhanced direwolves in the show












ok am generally a fan of creature vfx and cg work








however if you don't like waiting 7-9 months between seasons that end in jaw dropping cliffhangers, just read the book. GRRM's writing makes for swift reading.. and reading it in the kindle app(synced across multiple devices) was a joy.



Tips: on the small screen of the phone i found that scaling up the font to max made for easier and faster reading, with no strain on the eyes. Infact i then went to the tablet and made the font bigger there as well.



via Inaccessible is Accessible http://my.opera.com/chaitanyak/blog/show.dml/86222612

No comments: