Tuesday, April 15, 2014

One Does Not Simply Avoid Popular Media

As usual I'm late to the party.  This time it's the book and T.V. series Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin.

Working in a Library, you get a lot of recommendations from people: "Oh you just have to read this book!", "This show is amazing, you gotta watch it!", "I love this author, have you read anything by them?".

Often times I just say that I'll add it to my list, which at this point is taller than I am, but a lot of things I shrug off for one reason or another.  One of the shows that I was informed several times I just had to watch was Downton Abbey which is a BBC production (Oh BBC, how I love thee, let me count the shows).  It was insanely popular at the Library with the DVDs going out constantly and the reserves on them being several weeks out.

Anyways, I didn't think Downton Abbey would be one that I would ever watch, seeing as how it doesn't have any dragons, aliens, monsters, time lords, high functioning sociopaths, or any of the other things that usually draw me into a T.V. show.  Thanks to a friend though, I ended up watching all three seasons that are currently out on disc, and at the same time watching season four as it was airing on PBS.  I was very surprised at how quickly I became hooked, and now I'm stuck with the rest of the fans waiting almost a whole year for the next season to air.  Perhaps this is why I'm so hesitant to jump on fan bandwagons?

By my reasoning Game of Thrones should have been different.  I love fantasy, it's one of my two favorite genres.  GoT has dragons and swords, royalty and castles, action, adventure, and betrayal!  What more could a girl ask for?  Still for some unknown reason I resisted, even as the books and DVDs went out with patrons week after week.  Once again, a friend has gotten me involved.  It started with the promise to watch the DVDs with a group of people, but it's so hard to get everyone together on a regular basis.  So I picked up the book...and now I'm completely hooked and finding it hard to put it down long enough to get other important things done.  Like schoolwork, exercising, knitting, bathing, sleeping; you get the idea.

I finally starting watching the T.V. series for it yesterday, and it is an amazing story, and whoever is in charge of the gore special effects deserves some sort of award for accuracy, they are stomach churningly realistic.  I'm going to save the final review for when I've finished all the books and caught up with the T.V. series, but initial impressions are that this show is amazing, and will consume many hours of my life in the near future, and as usual...the books are better than the filmed version.