Stubborn Ears

Apparently, I have stubborn inner ears. For a few days at the beginning of our cruise the old tubes refused to believe that our cruise ship was a moving vessel, and made me feel a bit off when presented with compelling evidence that it was. After the first couple days it seemed to smooth out. But now I am experiencing the same thing in reverse - my ears seem to think the house is rolling a bit. Nice.

In other news, I am less than thrilled with my friend Steve. We both enjoy fantasy fiction - I dragged him to the opening-day midnight screening of Fellowship of the Ring - and we've been doing the "you have got to read this" book swap bit since then. He got me started on Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, which is interesting, if a little adjective rich for my tastes - but that series is nine or ten books long, with no sign of wrapping up. I could be waiting for that last overly-descriptive sentence for a long time.

So when Steve handed me another one (accompanied by the "you will really like this") I was dubious. Then his wife jumped in and said it was really good - that piqued my curiousity - I can count on one hand the number of females I know that read fantasy fiction, so a recommendation from that quarter was pretty unexpected. I checked the cover, and the inside cover, for references to sequels, prequels, or companion books - "the next book in the Epic Saga of blah blah blah..." - and didn't see anything. So I figured, hey, how refreshing - a stand-alone fantasy novel. Ok, I'll read it.

Turns out to be a good read, lots of intrigue, great characters, plot twists, swordfights, the whole bit. But last night I realized I was thirty pages from the end, with five or six dangling plotlines. Curses! There's no way he can wrap all this up into one little package that quickly... Sure enough, today's amazon.com search revealed it is the first book in a (planned) series of six. Six! And only three have been written! And now I'm emotionally invested, and have to know what happens. Sigh. Now I'm married to yet another unfinished book series, along with the aforementioned Wheel of Time series and the Harry Potter books. And I have to tell you, it's painful for me to wait that extra year for the paperback edition - I mean, I want to know how things turn out, but I don't want to know for twenty-five bucks. This is going to cost you, Steve. No free homebrew for you.

Anyway, the book is George R. R. Martin's "A Game Of Thrones." It's pretty dense, with a large cast of characters, but it's really well written. The author is not afraid to kill off main characters, and he doesn't seem interested in following your standard Tolkien-issue fantasy themes - no "unwilling hero against the odds" kind of stuff to be sure. I also found the almost-total absence of magic to be a nice touch. Anyway, if you enjoy fantasy fiction it wouldn't kill you to check this one out. But you have been warned - it's an Epic Saga that's only halfway to it's endpoint.