The Power of Words II

Here's a quote for you...

"Two seats away, the king had been drinking heavily all night. His broad face was flushed behind his great black beard. He made many a toast, laughed out loudly at every jest, and attacked each dish like a starving man, but beside him, the queen seemed as cold as an ice sculpture."

Game of Thrones Update

I find it interesting. Martin uses the names of his characters as the titles for his chapters. So, he will do the back-story of one caharacter, then go off and talk about other characters in other chapters. Eventually he will come back to all of his characters using their names as the titles again. So, there may be ten chapters with "Bob" as the title...it's kind of weird I think, but its different. I haven't seen any other author do this. Very cool...

UPDATE:

Just started Leon Uris's Mila 18  and Michael Citeon's Timeline. So far enjoying both. Really liking Martin's Game of Thrones...

The Power of Words

I was reading and remembered a quote that George R. R. Martin uses. It describes the scenery that is around a character, Catelyn, at the beginning of the chapter with the same name. The quote demonstrates well how with the right words, images can instantly form in the readers mind about exactly what something looks like. The quote is as follows:

"The godswood there was a garden, bright and airy, where tall red woods spread dappled shadows across tinkling streams, birds sang from hidden nests, and the air was spicy with the scent of flowers."

Now, if that doesn't bring images to your mind, I'm not honestly sure what will...

Game of Thrones First Impressions...

       From the very begining, George R. R. Martin plunges you head first into a rich, fantasy world. Martin does an excellent job of using his words to describe the beautiful and often times, dangerous, lands which the main charcters travel. The characters, by the way are well developed and I found that it wasn't long before images began to form in my head, like a movie that was being played out in front of me, and where the only way to find out what happened next was to read further instead of just sit and watch. I will admit, at first, I  was uneasy to start reading fantasy books similar to the Lord of the Rings series. While I have read the Lord of the Rings books before, I was all too aware of the aweful trend fantasy writers falll into. By this, I mean their insitance on names that are absolutely impossible to pronounce. I mean, who can pronounce the name "Kijjiitwaskialti Forgaburn" correctly every time they happen upon it. Furthermore, who wants to???!!! Such names have, at least for me brought a sense of unease when it came to fantasy books. The Lord of the Rings books were fine because they, while being perhaps the best fantasy series of all time, had easy to pronounce names. Now, when I satarted Game of Thrones, I hand not heard much beyond the fact that it rivaled the Lord of the Rings series and has been hailed by many as surpassing it; being named the single best fantasy series of all time...When I began to read Game of Thrones, needless to say, I was relieved to find that the names were easy to pronounce, at least, I think they are.

What is Viking Death Metal???

Well, I'm so glad you asked!
Viking Death Metal melds lyrical conent revolving around Norse Mythology with the extreme metal genre Death Metal, or most commonly, Melodic Death Metal. Death Metal employs deep gowls from the vocalist, while the guitars play fast, drop-tuned, scales. The drums normally play fast double bass lines with heavy emphasis on the china crash cymbal and the ride cymbal and ride bell.
Death metal varies greatly. the most common sub-genre is Melodic Death Metal, or commonly called Melo-Death.
The most common bands in Viking Metal are Amon Amarth and Ensiferum. Amon Amarth tend to stick with slower, and heavier sounding beat with long, slow vocal growls, where as Ensiferum uses fast thrash metal speeds with low and high screams. Both stand out as exceptional bands that put a great twist to the dulled down Death Metal genre.