Defenestrating Thoughts from the Bivouac

Last week I finished A Storm of Swords, the third book in George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire. Like the previous two books in the series, this book has plenty of murder, betrayal, and intrigue. Again there is very little resolution to the plot; every time a main character is killed, it seems like two more jump out to prominence.

A friend of mine told me the other day that these books are going to be turned into a series on HBO. Each book will take place over a season of shows, so there should be plenty of time to tell the story. My worry with this and all book-to-screen conversions is that they are either horrible or awesome. In this case, the book spends a lot of time with the characters thinking, so either the TV show either needs to have narration from the characters point of view or maybe have the characters thoughts voiced for the viewer (like J.D. on Scrubs, but sinister).

Also, I really like how each chapter of the book is told from a different character perspective and I think it would be cool if the TV episodes retain that type of point of view. Given the great things I’ve heard about HBO dramas like Rome and Deadwood, I think that this series should be pretty good. Of course, since I don’t have HBO, I’ll have to wait to buy the DVDs.

Again, I’d recommend the book. This one seems to have a bit of a slower pace in the second half of the book, while some important portions seem rushed. Also, some of the subplots in this installment seem a little unnecessary and the series continues to be a bit depressing as the main characters keep dying. Maybe I’ll try to read something a little uplifting before finishing the next book in the series. :-)