A Song of Ice and Fire, George R R Martin

Technically this is a reread, but an interesting one given the HBO series which I have been watching.  I already rate Mr Martin highly, but I had a perspective on the series that I wanted to communicate.

There might be some element of a spoiler here so if you are not a fan, or have already read these damned entertaining reads stop now.OK, as follows.....

Rereading I noticed that the story really begins when all of the following conditions are true: Westeros is thrown into political turmoil after Robert gets done in, murdered by a pig; There is in addition a vague ill defined threat from the North;  On the warmer continent the heir of the previous king to Robert gathers in strength and influence; and of course Winter is Coming particularly poignant to a Canadian.

I then read the next four books in the series and lo and behold, these conditions do not change.  At the end of a dance with Dragons we have political turmoil in Westeros; an ill defined threat from the North; A Targaryean gathering influence and strength where it is a lot warmer; and Winter, well it's coming.  People have died.  Plot lines have been started, followed, resolved (normally by decapitation) and new ones started.  There has been an enormous amount of action.  Great and important events have unfolded and the reality is that nothing has changed.  Nothing.

I actually think this is brilliant though, because at the same time as reading them, and thinking along these lines I noticed that unlike most fantasy literature, in which things tend to get resolved, tied up, answered, this work is more like the world in which we live.  In our world we have earth shattering events, we have people dying, we have disease, war, death and love and often, when you look at the world now it does not look so different to the world of last century.  We have most of the same problems, and oh yes, Climate Change is Coming.