I've decided to start my own blog as a reference point for many of the things I love and want to follow about Mr. George R R Martin and his phenomenal 'A Song of Ice and Fire' book series. I find myself thinking about the story, looking up tidbits of plot information, and debating on the forums so often that I wanted a place to record and journal my findings. And, well lets face it, with probably years more to wait for the next book in the series, I've got plenty of time on my hands to become a true die hard fan!
A little background about me as a Game of Thrones fan:
When the first book came out back in 1996, I didn't know anything about it. Though I was a rabid sci-fi and fantasy book fan, I was in my 'new Mom' phase of life and had very little time for reading new stuff with two kids under the age of three. But only a couple of years later, I was heavily involved with fantasy online gaming (UO and Everquest) and starting to read again and even write some fan fiction while living as a bored military wife overseas. I also started beta testing a fantasy online game called Shadowbane a friend of mine from EQ player driven events suggested. He ultimately became the community manager for the game's development website. I asked him what the vision of the game was and he said it would be heavily political allegiance based, with guilds and sub-guilds pledging fealty under 'banners' much like a feudalism pyramid system.
I had to admit I wasn't real up to date on my feudal government history, and so he asked if I had read the book A Game of Thrones and when I said I hadn't, he said I must go out and buy it immediately, it was the best new fantasy book he'd read in years and the political intrigue and banner/fealty system was what the game-makers were hoping to achieve with Shadowbane. The idea of a feudal system in a game was interesting, and its too bad the game's development stalled for so long under numerous delays. I followed it from 1999 until its release in 2003, but the game was not a success despite staying alive with a small devout following for quite a few years.
The rest, as they say, is history. Once I started reading the series, I was hooked. I lost track of the other books between the second and third, but picked it up again in the fourth, and like many fans, waited many years between A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons for them each to be released.
I still long for a social online game that would implement a guild fealty system that parallels the type of fantasy world Martin has written his series in. In fact, if someone would make an MMORPG about the Song of Ice and Fire series, I'd be a huge huge fan and player! With the recent success of the HBO series first season, I wouldn't think a game title is that far off in the future really. We shall see! It's the HBO series which has really truly rekindled my fire for this epic saga. I intend to review each episode of the first season here, as a creative way to kill time while waiting for season two next year!
That's my story for this blog motivator and I'm sticking to it!
No comments:
Post a Comment