Amy's bookshelf :: A Clash of Kings in Russian

This is one of the most unusual books in my collection. The Russian title is битва королей (Battle of Kings). It’s A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin translated into Russian. It's a small sized hardcover, approximately 8" x 5 1/4" x 1 1/4", with 764 pages, published in 2001.

I also own copies of Игра престолов (A Game of Thrones) (you can see that book here), and Буря мечей (A Storm of Swords). They are a matching set of three books.

I can't actually read these books. My dad, during the Cold War in the 1960s, took classes in Russian. He tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to teach me some words and the Cyrillic alphabet. I still have his Russian dictionaries and text books.

Here's the first sentence from the back cover of the book:
Перед вами - величественное шестикнижие <<песнь льда и огня>>.
which translates as:
Before you - a majestic Hexateuch << A Song of Ice and Fire >>.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Legends edited by Robert Silverberg

Continuing our tribute to Jim Rigney, better known as Robert Jordan (1948-2007), the Book of the Week is the 1998 first edition of Legends, an original anthology edited by Robert Silverberg. This contains the first appearance of "New Spring," a stand-alone novella by Robert Jordan set before the events of his best-selling Wheel of Time series. "New Spring" was later expanded and published in 2004 as a separate novel, a prequel to the main sequence of The Wheel of Time. It spent five weeks in the top ten of the New York Times bestseller list, but never hit #1 due to poor timing -- it came out during The Da Vinci Code's long run at #1.

Robert Silverberg designed the two Legends anthologies to showcase some of the most popular secondary worlds in modern fantasy. It is a great way to sample The Wheel of Time before deciding whether to dive in to the series' many thousands of pages. Other very successful fantasy worlds for which Legends provides a nice introduction include Stephen King's Dark Tower series, Terry Pratchett's Discworld, and George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire.

If the worlds' leading science fiction and fantasy authors will all refrain from dying this week, next week's Book of the Week will begin a survey of some of the most recent additions to my collection. In honor of the American Library Association' s Banned Books Week, we will begin with a novel that (like A Wrinkle in Time, our BOTW three weeks back) ranks high on the list of most frequently challenged books.

Book Review Teaser :: A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin

Added this week to Fantastic Reviews is Aaron's review of A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin. This book was featured as a previous Book of the Week.

From Aaron's review:
"A Feast for Crows is the long anticipated fourth volume in George R.R. Martin's epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, which depicts the struggle for control of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. The Seven Kingdoms' most powerful "houses" battle each other for domination, largely ignoring the potential threats of supernatural beings from the north and dragons from across the sea. A Song of Ice and Fire is a continuous narrative, and the individual books do not stand alone, so readers new to the series should begin with the first volume, A Game of Thrones, rather than jumping right into A Feast for Crows...."

"A Song of Ice and Fire is an engrossing series sure to entertain any reader of high fantasy, but with a feel of gritty realism that appeals to many who usually don't care for long fantasy series. Thanks to this broad appeal and word-of-mouth from Martin's many devoted fans, sales of A Song of Ice and Fire have increased with every volume, culminating with A Feast for Crows recently opening at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list...."

To read the entire review (warning: there are spoilers):
A Feast for Crows

Book Review Teaser :: A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

Continuing with the A Song of Ice and Fire posts, Aaron has reviewed A Clash of Kings, book two in the series, by George R.R. Martin on Fantastic Reviews. The cover shown is the orginal hardcover. I like this cover much better than the "people-less" cover art on the new editions. (For an example of the new cover art concept, see A Feast for Crows).

From Aaron's review:
"A Clash of Kings is the second volume of George R. R. Martin's highly successful series, A Song of Ice and Fire. A Song of Ice and Fire is a lengthy retelling, with added fantastic elements, of the War of the Roses. So I am told, anyway; I am no British historian...."

"A Clash of Kings picks up soon after A Game of Thrones left off. The threats to the Seven Kingdoms from the supernatural Others in the North and from dragons and nomadic Dothraki warriors across the sea have yet to materialize. As for the internal struggles for control of the Seven Kingdoms, however, the battle has been joined."

To read the entire review (warning: there are spoilers):
A Clash of Kings

Aaron's Book of the Week :: A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

The Book of the Week is a signed copy of the first edition of A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. A Game of Thrones is the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, the fourth volume of which - last week's Book of the Week, A Feast for Crows - hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list a week ago.

One of the peculiarities of collecting books is that authors' most successful books are often not the ones in which collectors are interested. Because A Feast for Crows is selling so well, it will never be a rare book, for there are too many copies of it in circulation. However, the success of the later books in the Song of Ice and Fire series has caused the original edition of A Game of Thrones, which did not sell very well when released, to become a highly prized collector's item, only nine years after it was published.

Incidentally, the cover depicts the throne of the imaginary kingdom various characters vie to control in A Song of Ice and Fire. Called the "Iron Throne," it was constructed by an earlier ruler out of the swords of his vanquished enemies. This makes it a rather hazardous and uncomfortable place to sit, a nice visual representation of the Shakespeare line, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."

Amy's bookshelf :: A Game of Thrones in Russian

This is one of the oddest books in my collection. Игра престолов, A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, translated into Russian. It's a small sized hardcover with 766 pages. It was published in 2001. I think the cover is interesting. I don't read Russian, although I do know a few Russian words.

I also own Russian copies of A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. They are a matching set of books. Why I bid for these on eBay, I'm not quite sure. I have no plans to learn Russian. But I think they are interesting conversation pieces that look good on a bookshelf.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin

The Book of the Week is A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin. (Pocket #1 was scheduled to be the Book of the Week, but we're postponing that in favor of a different sort of #1.) This is the first American edition, signed and inscribed to me when Martin was at the Tattered Cover last week.

George R.R. Martin has paid his dues since he began publishing in 1971. In the 1970s and early 1980s he wrote a variety of different types of fiction, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mainstream, all of which was beautifully written and won him critical acclaim and many awards, but none of which met with much commercial success. To make ends meet, he went to Hollywood in the mid-80s and spent ten years writing for television - if any of you remember a strange show called Beauty and the Beast, Martin was responsible for making that series much better than it had any right to be.

In 1996 he returned to writing novels with an epic fantasy series called A Song of Ice and Fire. Once again, however, his work was slow to find the right audience. The first volume of the series, A Game of Thrones (next week's Book of the Week), did not sell well and Martin did a disheartening signing tour, including one stop where he addressed a group of only four people, all of whom got up and left when he started to talk. When he toured for the second book in the series, he took a detour to meet with my science fiction & fantasy book group. Only a half-dozen of us were able to be there, since it was in the middle of a workday, yet Martin was very pleasant and friendly to those of us who made it.

After a slow start, each book in the Song of Ice and Fire series has been progressively more successful, due largely to word-of-mouth among Martin's devoted fans. A Feast for Crows, the fourth book in the series, was just released on November 8. Yesterday, it went to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Congratulations to George R.R. Martin on his long-overdue success.

Book Review Teaser :: A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin

George R. R. Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire is setting the standard for epic fantasy. Earlier this month the fourth book, A Feast for Crows, was published in hardcover. The previous books are A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords. If you like fantasy and you are not yet acquainted with this series of novels, as Aaron said in his review of A Storm of Swords on Fantastic Reviews, "get your tail to the book store."

From Aaron Hughes' review of A Storm of Swords:
"This is the third volume of Martin's highly successful series, A Song of Ice and Fire. The series is epic fiction on a grand scale. A Storm of Swords jumps between no fewer than ten different viewpoint characters, twelve if you count the prologue and epilogue...."

"We knew from A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings that Martin has succeeded in creating a fascinating world peopled with believable characters entangled in a powerful epic story. This is no small feat, but it is another matter again to draw together the disparate elements of such an epic tale into a satisfying resolution. I am delighted to report that A Storm of Swords strongly evidences that Martin is up to that challenge."

To read the entire review (warning: there are spoilers):
A Storm of Swords