The Fantasy Phenomenon has reached me...
As much as I had told myself I would not read A Game of Thrones, and fall under the 'literary phenomenon' of this year--or last year, or 17 years ago, or whatever--I have failed to keep my personal promises. After the recent explosion of the Red Wedding on the HBO show, I have found myself more compelled than ever to read the series to know what all that happened. Now, before I go on, let me say that I wasn't even every much shocked by the Red Wedding, maybe it's because I only just began watching the show, am stalled at episode 2-thanks a lot HBO piracy policies!-and can't seem to find it online, and I doubt YouTube will have a link to it. Anyhow, I really wasn't all that moved or horrified by the terror of the Red Wedding. Sure they killed the pregnant girl, and sure Catelyn's little neck cutting stunt was quite the sight, I wasn't at all very 'HOLY SHIT, THEY ALL DIED!'. I was more impressed at the scene, just not mortified by it.
Moving on from that, I know speak about actually reading 'A Game of Thrones' by the American J.R.R Tolkien George R.R. Martin. The first time I ever came in contact with any of the Song of Fire and Ice books was at Wal-Mart browsing-it was a different time, I couldn't get to B&N or HPB-and saw the fifth book in the series 'A Dance with Dragons' and I was compelled to buy it, only to find it was part of a series. I have only read one series out of order, and that was the Percy Jackson series, ever since, I have always read a series from start to finish no matter what I had to do-even if I had to slaughter one hundred Starks for it. Anyhow, because I could not find the other books in the Wal-Mart, I ignored it, but kept picking it back up, wanting to read it so bad, and knowing I could not. Also I was on a budget of 20 bucks, and the book was 25.
Two years later, 2013, AGoT has returned to my attention, begging me to read it, to cherish it, to see all the gory, sexy, and brutal scenes that it held within its fine smelling pages. Yes, A Game of Thrones called to me. Alas, before I bought it-the first time-I was reluctant because of how popular it was. I have tried and tried again to stray from the popular series since sometimes they turn out to be complete pieces of shit and a waste of my time-cough-Fallen-cough. So, it was a grand three months before I decided it was time for me to sit down and read fantasy, and a little side-note it was lucky because I was in one of my moods where there was nothing to read in my library but fantasy, so lucky AGoT.
So, sometime in May, when I did buy it, I started reading, expecting it to begin with some epic scene that would compell me to read on. I'd read the prologue at least 4 times before I bought it-at Wal-Mart when they did have it-and I coudl barely get through the first page. This was before I said I would just read, and so when I did, my final opinion on the Prologue was a pretty good beginning. Though, I expected that same pace to acarry on into the first chapters, and as far as the actual first chapter went it did, but the rest bored me, and I last stopped at page seventy-something. Yes, I thought that A Game of Thrones was pre-etty boring.
Now, though, after watching the first two episodes I am scratching for the book to be in my grip again, because now I know things don't keep the pace of those first chapters. But too bad for me, because when I went to Half-Price Books on my lime green and white bike at top speed, nearly getting hit by several cars in the process, and tethering my bike to the rack-despite the fact that the lock had fallen from the bike, and only gave the illusion of it having a lock-I found it was not there. You see, I have skipped a part of my tale, the part where I traded in A Game of Thrones and A Storm of Swords. When I had traded them, they wer on the shelves a few minutes later, and I came to believe-stupidly-that they would be there for a substantial amount of time. They were not.
I looked hither and fro, rounding bookshelves, and running into a young lesbian couple in the process, and found that A Game of Thrones had dissipated into thin air. Gone. No flash of light. No Poof. No Explosion*. I was filled with anguish and I groaned in failure, that I had come all this way, only to find that the book I so desperately needed like cocaine, was no there. Though I did find a 2002 edition of A Clash of Kings, so I guess that's a plus. I think.
So, here I sit, once more, at my laptop on my cluttered desk, writing my first blog and telling you my story about how I never got to continue A Game of Thrones. Yet, I forget one single thing- I am reading it online, for free. But I don't like e-books, and its in terrible format; furthermore, I can only bare to stare and read from a screen for a short period of time before I swipe up a physical book and sniff its pages.
*Yes, I just quoted Gone, kind of.
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