George RR Martin's tales of the adventures of Dunk and Egg, a hedge knight and his squire, make for some highly enjoyable reading. It is set in the world of Westeros, roughly 100 years before the events of Martin's epic, A Song of Ice and Fire.
The first tale, The Hedge Knight, relates the events of Dunk's rise from inexperienced squire to rubbing shoulders and battling some of the realm's most famous figures in a giant tourney. This is a real page turner, one I devoured in one sitting. Here Martin opens the dam and fully lets flow his enthusiasm for the medieval world of knights and tournaments. Gone are the inherent nastiness and cruelty of the ASOIAF series and instead replaced with a good old storytelling in the vein of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round table. It was great to see this side of Martin, and I highly recommend this who find the grimness of his Song of Ice and Fire series just too much.
The second tale, Sworn Sword, is probably the masterpiece of the three tales. A stunning plot, with realistic and colourful characters, this story just hums along with classic adventure telling as Dunk and Egg try to settle a dispute between two nobles. I loved this story. It will resonate in your brain for some while after, morseo than the first, which flows along at a breakneck pace. Mind, there are various info dumps in certain points, which I found sometimes hindered the pace, but I imagine would be huge cheeseburgers to fans of the history and families of Westeros. Still, one cannot fault Martin for this, as his enthusiasm for his layered Westeros world must be hard to contain. A grand tale.
The last story, The Mystery Knight, is perhaps the one I enjoyed the least. Here, Martin definitely gets bogged down in his exploration of names, houses, and world history to the point where it becomes detrimental to the story. In such a short medium, these vast explanations are probably unnessecary. I also believe Martin uses this tale as a vehicle to give some background on an important character in his latest ASOIAF novel, A Dance With Dragons. Still, it's not a bad read by any means and there are certainly some rousing fights and moments, as well as an introduction to a relatively inconspicous character that eventually I found myself rooting for. Unfortunately, back are the bleakness and oppressive class structure of ASOIAF that are so frustrating. The story seems broken and uneven, especially when compared to the smoothness of the first two tales.
Still, any fan of Martin's Westeros world should rightfully gobble up these tales. Short and sweet, unlike Martin's sprawling epic, they are lighter in tone with an emphasis on the yarns of fairy tale knights of old. Couple that with Martin's genious and his realized world, and I am much looking forward to the compiliation of these ongoing tales in a certain-to-come collection further down the road.
No comments:
Post a Comment