“The night was rank with the smell of man.”
George R.R. Martin – Dance with Dragons
Not a bad first line, particularly if you’re a reader who has read the first four books, which I am. But, it gets more intriguing as the paragraph continues.
“The warg stopped beneath a tree and sniffed, his grey-brown fur dappled by shadow. A sigh of piney wind brought the man-scent to him, over fainter smells that spoke of fox and hare, seal and stag, even wolf. Those were man-smells too, the warg knew; the stink of old skins, dead and sour, near drowned beneath the stronger scents of smoke and blood and rot. Only man stripped the skins from other beasts and wore their hides and hair.”
Now, I won’t pretend I’m not a fan of Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, but one thing I like above all else, and in this I’m speaking as someone who once wrote a short story from the perspective of a dog, Martin does a fabulous job of taking himself and his characters, including the animals, seriously. Part of this may be that many of the animals he uses as characters are actually other characters inhabiting them, warg-like. Nevertheless, I’m not a huge fantasy writing fan, but I am an incredibly devout fan of Martin’s. Going to be a while before I pick up another book. Dance with Dragons is long and I intend to read it to enjoy it.
1 comment:
In my reading, it's either the story or the writing that enraptures me. When it's the story, I impatiently await the ending. When it's the story in spite of the writing, the impatience can become maddening (Mockingjay is an example of this). I much prefer when it's the writing itself that calls to me. Cortazar, Allende, Terry Pratchett, Stephen King, all these authors are a delight to read for reading's sake. With George RR Martin, it's both the story and the writing that I enjoy - but the writing is by far the winner. Thus, I don't read his books to get to the end, I do so hoping the end will never come. A Dance With Dragons was a delight to read, as were all the previous ASOIAF books (deaths of beloved characters notwithstanding). I did find it incomplete, and this was explained to me when I read that Martin separated his huge book into two, ADWD being the first part.
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