New ‘Game Of Thrones’ Book Released To Less-Than-Stellar Reviews [Video]

Fans of A Game of Thrones aren’t universally thrilled with George R. R. Martin’s new book, just released on Tuesday. That’s in part due to the fact that the new book isn’t the long-awaited next in the series, but a coffee-table book with artwork and backstories, but there’s more to it than that. Some fans of the A Song of Ice and Fire series don’t think the book feels much like Martin’s writing, and say it’s not up to his usual quality.

A World of Ice and Fire was released on Tuesday, and many fans were already prepared not to like it. The fifth and most recent book in the series, A Dance With Dragons, was released in 2011, and many fans have been anxiously waiting since then for the next book — and for them, A World of Ice and Fire isn’t it.

Many Game of Thrones fans were still excited to see additional histories of locations that have come to feel like a second home, and of families with whom they’ve grown to identify. Producers of the Game of Thrones show used settings that were available, and that fit their own images of the locations, and not all of those match what Martin was picturing when he first put pen to paper. For this book, he worked directly with artists to produce paintings representing the way A Game of Thrones looked in his own mind as he wrote.

On his blog, he shared this video, answering some questions about the newest Game of Thrones book.

The new book soared to a high position on the Amazon charts, but by Wednesday, an increasing number of reviews were negative, in content if not in star count. Though the overall rating still stands at nearly 4 stars (3.7 at time of this article’s publication), but even reviews accompanying high ratings are warning fans off.

“I would call this book must and mainly intended for hardcore followers of series who want to have everything in connection with this incredible world created by innovative author.

“The others could be a bit disappointed with a writing style which is of course very different to Martin’s but also with a book thickness which is less than half of size every ‘Game Of Thrones’ reader is used to. With that came the inevitable – a story that lacks depth we are also accustomed to – therefore it would be good to have realistic expectations before reading ‘The World of Ice & Fire’ because this is not a level we are used to with Martin’s previously published five novels.”

More negative reviews say that the book not only lacks the depth that Game of Thrones fans are used to, but that the writing doesn’t compare to Martin’s previous work, and that the price was too much for a book that’s not as thick as fans are used to in the series. However, Martin himself explained that the book is not a new story, but a collection of information, and that some of it could already be found on the Game of Thrones wiki sites.

None of this changes that the book is a work of art, full of intricate paintings which give the readers a visual peek into exactly what the author was seeing himself.

In fact, even as many positive reviews include negative disclaimers, a large percent of the negative reviews of the book still say that true Game of Thrones fans will love it.

“Despite its shortcomings, TWOIAF is a must-have for the die-hards. However, for the average fan of Martin’s A Game of Thrones series, it doesn’t amount to much more than a fanfictional account of fantasy history in long-form exposition.”

“Beautiful illustrations. This would have been great as a picture book to accompany the novels, but unfortunately that’s not what this is. It’s sort of a fanfiction-y encyclopedia, but it really doesn’t add anything to the series.”

Clearly, the book isn’t the next installment of Game of Thrones or A Song of Ice and Fire, and those who expect it to be will find themselves disappointed, but for those who want a glimpse into the history of Westeros, and the author’s visual imagination, this is it.

[Image: George R. R. Martin’s blog]