I don't don't get Sky Atlantic and I can't be bothered trying to get the series in other ways - so I went for the the "read the book and catch up" option.
So I've spent the last two weeks making my way through the first four books (books 3 and 4 being book 3 part 1 and part 2).
The first book is
almost word for word the first series. There are a very few minor differences and there's a bit more back story to the entire warg thing being fed in, but it's really, really tiny.
It#s great to read after watching the show because all the characters are known to you and they're in your head.
Book two starts to split away from the main TV series a little. Again, it's not very much, but there's more of the "magic" and "prophecy" stuff. The political machinations are slightly different, with more characters than in the TV series playing parts. The battle at King's Landing is also quite different.
Essentially though, the book ends where the series does with the characters in the same places and in the same situations - they've just been through a little more. It's good to get a bit more background on them, and some idea of what's going on in their heads and stuff. It's a bit Harry Potter 7 though with lots of meandering aimlessly in woods. camping, packing up, meandering again. I found it a lot more of a chore to read than the first one.
I bought book 3 as a single book (so parts 1 and 2 both combined) on the Kindle and finished it last night.
Because I'd already read what happened on the latest episode, I discussed the series with a guy at work. There are a lot of changes and differences between the book and the show. I don't know yet (until I get through more books), how much of an impact it will eventually have on the story in the show and how much it will diverge. I suspect that with George Martin heavily on board with the show, that he'll make sure that they still work. It will probably just end up with a few chapters of a later book vanishing.
Oddly, Monday's episode was well over halfway through the two books. So they've covered more than a book this series. Again, lots of tramping through woods, sleeping, 20 pages of text for four bits of useful dialogue, pages at times of poems and at one point, three pages of introductions of the people meeting in a large group :roll:
If I was reading it without having seen the TV series, I'd have found it much harder to work through the books. They're adequately written, but it's more the scale and brutality of the tale that is important rather than Martin's writing ability. It works much better as a TV show than a book to be honest - but the books are still well worth reading, the story is utterly, utterly fantastic. I'm certainly not one of these "I'm better than you for having read the books" people. The books really aren't that special and the TV show so good, it really doesn't make a difference - I just want to bury myself in the plot ASAP
There's some fantastic stuff to come for those watching the show, and the last few chapters of the third book (part 2
) answer so much and offer some stuff that'll be fantastic. Can't wait to get the next book downloaded when I finish work today and nommed through as soon as I can. I reckon I'll have them all ingested in just over a week and then I'll be very sad
:lol:
