A Game of Thrones Sort of Time

I know, I’ve been remiss in my updating, but hey I’ve had a Master’s Thesis to defend, a business trip to go on, and a weirdly crazy time at work. In short, March has not been my month, but we’re nearing the end now and in some ways I feel let down. I like being busy. It gives me less time to think, and makes me feel more productive. When I have nothing to do I’m at a loss, caught in a sort of gray creeping haze. Instead of a light at the end of the tunnel I see this poison mist, I don’t look forward to it.

In addition to all this ruckus, the HBO show Game of Thrones is coming out with its third season soon, and while I’m not sure when I’ll be able to watch it, I’ve certainly been preparing. I bought the previous two seasons (which were on sale) and started re-watching them. More importantly however I began to re-read/listen to the third book on audiobook.

During the second season I could not believe how much of the books I’d forgotten. Granted I had read them years ago, (before it was cool, I should note) but still. Major plot points had just vanished from my memory, whole characters were mangled in my mind, and I found I couldn’t be as smug as I’d like about knowing more than my boyfriend, I had forgotten so much. This was an unacceptable state of affairs.

Certainly this smugness is part of why I enjoy the show so much. It’s incredibly fun knowing an encyclopedia worth of information about each character while others around me are completely clueless. It’s possible the whole series sort of brings out a gleeful Machiavellian side of me which I never knew I had. In any case I especially love lording my coveted book knowledge above less worthy, more ignorant viewers. (Sarcasm heavy here).

So I’m re-experiencing A Storm of Swords which I remember as being my favorite but am finding now as I re-listen that a lot of my least favorite things happen in it. I can’t talk at all about it because if I do I will inevitably give stuff away, but let’s just say I’m going to have a very hard time this season getting through each episode without Chris killing me. Whenever something bad is going to happen in a movie or show and I know it, I usually put my hand over my eyes or moan or both. It, very reasonably, drives him crazy because then he knows something terrible is about to happen and it spoils it for him. Also it’s distracting and irritating. The thing is, I just can’t help it. I get so invested with what’s going on onscreen that I don’t even realize I’m doing it. I am going to have to sit on my hands and bite my tongue the whole season.

Despite this, I’m enjoying the book more the second time around, I think because since it’s not a surprise– I’m not as disgusted or shocked by what’s happening and I can take it more in stride and enjoy the way Martin sets things up. I’m going to go ahead and listen to the 4th, even though I remember it as my least favorite, and then forge on through the 5th book. I bought A Dance with Dragons right when it came out, but I’m ashamed to say I never finished it. I was horrified at how much I had forgotten of the previous books in the intervening years and decided I needed to re-read some before going on with it. Also I have the hardest time reading actual paper books while I’m in school, at least ones for my own pleasure. I think something pesky like Faulkner interfered with me finishing the 5th book. How dare he. (More sarcasm).

The audiobook itself is read by Roy Dotrice who is EXTREMELY British. This works fine for some characters, but seems just wrong for others. Also sometimes his voices are ridiculous. Tywin Lannister, for instance, is practically unbearable to listen to. Luckily most of his characters are fine, but I will say he’s not my favorite narrator.

It’s nice to be totally submerged in Game of Thrones nerdiness, though I suppose I should crawl out at some point. But I don’t want to.

I do love me some post apocalyptic dystopia: The Pure Trilogy

Audible informed me last week that I might enjoy Pure, though I was doubtful as it described the book as a “graphic horror story”. I didn’t particularly want to deal with brutally horrorific things at the moment, but the description made it sound almost tailor-made to my interests. Dystopian, Post Apocalyptic, a possible government conspiracy and hidden pasts… I decided to give it a shot.

Now, after reading the first book and nearly done with the second, which was just released this past month, I am so glad I did. Though saying the world these books are set in is bleak is an understatement, they’re also beautifully written and wonderfully rich. The language and prose are so impressive I looked the author, Julianna Baggott, up to see what else she had done. I was not surprised to see she has published several books of poetry. Some paragraphs end with lines so poetic that the preceding words transcend into prose poem territory.

The books begin two futures removed from now. All the reader knows is that devastating “detonations” have taken place all over the planet, and the only ones to survive unscathed are a lucky few living in a giant protective dome. There are two worlds in these books, one inside the dome and one outside.

The one outside is where the physical horror comes in. When the detonations occurred there was, of course, a massive body count, but the survivors ended up being mutilated and also “fused” to whatever animals or objects they were in contact with at the time of the blasts. People are fused to dogs, to wolves, to each other, to their children, to video game controllers. To anything imaginable. One main character is actually fused to his brother, carrying him in a permanent piggy back ride, his brother’s head floating behind his own and eerily echoing any thoughts he voices aloud.

Our heroine, Pressia, has a doll’s head fused in place of her right hand, making it an eerie blinking plastic fist. Another main character, Bradwell, has birds embedded in his back, their wings constantly flapping underneath his shirt.

Yes this is a bit ridiculous, but the descriptions are so intricate and arresting that you find yourself buying into this world of fused survivors. It’s fascinating to imagine the objects you handle everyday suddenly becoming a permanent part of you. It makes you look at things like computer mice or smart phones askance. I particularly like the “dusts”: humans who fused to sand and rock and rise up out of the earth to kill at any time or place. Their presence adds to the idea that this outside world is perilous beyond belief, and life may be snatched away there at any second.

Inside the dome the reader is introduced to a sterile, 1984-esque dystopia, where there is a clear “pure” class who despise the “wretches” that survive outside. Here our hero is Partridge, son of one of the chief architects of the dome and someone who is struggling with the confinement of society. Baggott is not subtle about the trade offs the pure inside the dome make in order to be safe. Outside life can be snatched away at any time, yes, but you get to live as you wish. Inside everything is strictly controlled even down to teacher’s lectures in class and what christmas presents you are allowed to give.

The books have fun exploring and expanding these worlds, introducing new characters and developing relationships, but always at play is the idea of the grotesque, both mental and physical, and how that concept can be re defined. Our heroes are imperfect, damaged bodies and the “pure” and beautiful world of the dome is twisted and corrupt. While these books are fast paced, fun reading, and many of their themes can easily be identified as typical young adult fare (young romance, action packed conspiracy theories, parental relationships, and coming of age tales all play major parts in the plot), the books seem to be forever pushing at the fringes of these ideas, taking them a step further and exploring them on the specific terms of the world Baggott has created. In case you had not noticed, I tend to read quite a lot of these types of stories, and I think the characters and relationships in these books are the ones I’ve been most invested in in years. Usually the romance element is something either banal and inoffensive, or something saccharine that you actively have to steel yourself against to get through the book. Here though, I found the love stories touching and easy to root for.

The audiobooks themselves are very well done. They’re read in parts by Khristine Hvam, Joshua Swanson, Kevin T. Collins and Casey Holloway. Joshua Swanson is a particular favorite of mine from Percy Jackson books, and everyone else does a fantastic job. The rights to the movies have already been sold to Fox, and I don’t know how I feel about that. These could make great movies, but they’d need to be rated R if done right, and if the studio chooses to market it to 13 year olds… well I don’t know how that will turn out. I would love to see it done in the style of “Spirited Away” as a lot of the strange elements of the world as described by Baggott make me think of Miyazaki anyhow, and that film has a poetic beauty to it that these books also possess. The plot is also smart and fairly nuanced, though not overly complicated, and it would be painful to see it dumbed down or streamlined in order to be shoved down the throats of the masses.

Pressia is smart and quiet and morally as straight as an arrow, something that’s touching in the book’s nuclear wasteland horror show of a setting. She’s humanity at its best, while still being a fleshed out person with flaws and characteristics. She’s not just some sort archetype plunked down into a nuclear winter. Partridge is equally interesting, if a bit more troubling that Pressia. He’s been pampered and it’s a battle for him to tow the line in a real world unsterilized setting, but you find yourself really rooting for him, all while wondering how you would deal if you were in either position.

I’ve been highly recommending things a lot, but these books really struck a chord with me. There is a third and final one due out next year, and I will be eagerly anticipating it. While I feel almost bad writing so many positive reviews here, at the same time it’s really exciting. There are so many well written and entertaining books for teenagers coming out, ones with interesting depths that aren’t just schlock. It’s hopeful, somehow, that such things are being created so regularly, and that they can say so much so well and still be popular.