"Winter is coming"

A Game of Thrones is the kind of fantasy book I bought after having read the comment of a fellow blogger who admitted being surprised to like it. 

Well, that pretty much sums up my state of mind right now. I wanted epic, and I most certainly found epic. I wanted adventures and intrigues, and here they are. What I did not expect was to actually enjoy the plot and style so much that I ended up reading a page, a sentence every single time I had the (rare) opportunity to. 

What do you know.

This is a grand story on the wars of succession in a fantastic kingdom that could be our very own, right now or centuries ago, it does not really matter. What it comes down to - aside from the fun and the engaging writing - is that history repeats itself, with different "kings", different weapons and pretty much the same strategies whether we look at the big geopolitical picture or...at the companies we work for.

Don't we usually say "you've got to play the game" to stay on top of things?

Well, this is what all the characters strive to do in this fascinating story where lovers, traitors, kings, kids (funny: these two words start with the same letter...and the two roles sometimes also overlap in the story), women, animals, monsters, supernatural forces alike fight for survival as ominous events loom ahead, as "Winter is coming". And all the means are acceptable to make it (Machiavel, are you listening?).

My only regret - which shows, by the way, that I  may not be ready for playing the game, yet - is that the righteous Stark family, my heroes, of course, suffers many cruel blows and seems slowly headed for doom (as I write, I have not finished the book, there are about one hundred pages left but heads have started to fall...). 

I guess I have not learned my lesson. What about you?

Credits: TheDaydreamer