Review A Game of Thrones Season One

Ive made no bones about my contention that a Game of Thrones jumped the shark with book four, A Feast for Crows. However, the first three books were still very good, and so I was intrigued when HBO decided to pull out all stops and make a TV series out of it.

If you grew up in Asia, youre very familiar with full-length books turned into tv series. You end up with 72-episode TV with every detail in the books depicted, though sometimes with quite poor special effects. (This was in the 1980s) Well, the HBO series A Game of Thrones Season One is high budget and extremely high quality. I cant say that every detail in the books are in there, but definitely every important detail in the book is there. I was very impressed that the entire first book was covered in effectively 10 hours of video, with all of the blood, gore, sex, and violence from the novels carried over. Its quite clear that at no point did the producers/writers say to themselves: "This is too bloody/sexy for TV."

I look forward to future installments of the series. Though Im not moved enough to sign up for a cable subscription and/or Tivo, Im more than happy to keep checking out the DVDs from the library in order to watch the series. Im also curious to see if the writers for the TV show manage to work themselves out of the inanity that the books have degenerated into. I fantasize that by the fourth of fifth season, they would manage to wrap up the story lines into a neat package and not have any seasons where nothing happens, unlike the books.

Recommended.

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