With House of the Dragon now airing on HBO, I suppose it’s past time for me to talk about A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin. I consider this series to be one of those that a reader either loves or hates and there is very little in between. I personally loved it. As a whole, it’s well-written and Martin delivers what is certainly some very bloodstained and vicious entertainment. The world in which the story takes place is rich in detail and thousands of years of history, with each region of the world having their own lore, quirks, and unique little sayings. Even each house within Westeros has distinct details that set them apart from others of the same standing. Martin created an entire universe that doesn’t fit the formulaic fantasy norm. Instead of a high fantasy composed of complex magic and a multitude of humanoid races, Martin did the opposite and A Game of Thrones very much mimics historical fiction but with dragons.

​So, in case you haven’t seen my other blog, I’ll fill you in. Sometime back around the first of the year, I had finished another draft of my work in progress. I took a quick break before what I hoped would be my last draft before sending it off to beta readers. During the process, I had gotten stuck pretty badly and after a lot of thought; I ended up cutting about twelve thousand words or so. The character arcs and the setup for the second book are necessary, but I’m going to have to be more clever about how they end up in the story.
As a way to reignite the fire in me that was dwindling, I had started two new projects. One was simply a mash up of many ideas gathered from various other mediums over the years and the other is a TTRPG adventure. I have since added a third, but I digress. Since May, I was able to power through and finish the draft, but have decided to do some cleanup to the manuscript since removing words made a few foreshadowings null and void.