If you're read any of my other posts on this blog, you know that I am obsessed with this obscure fantasy series by a guy named Mark Anthony (not the singer) called "The Last Rune." I am not unbiased.
But I can't stand Game of Thrones.
I don't know why. Sure, he has a massive cast, and I can't seem to care about any of them, and everyone in the prologue dies, and it's very hetero-European-centric. And it doesn't have a Dark Lord, while Anthony does, and there are certain storytelling conventions that make me think that Anthony was in some ways influenced by Martin (it's plausible - Thrones came out in 1996 and Pale was published in 1998). And we certainly cannot disregard the effect of nostalgia goggles.
So what is so different about the two books?
I have only read the first five chapters of Thrones, so I will limit my text citations of Anthony to the first five chapters of Beyond the Pale.
Let's start with the first line of the prologue.
Thrones: "We should start back," Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them. "The wildlings are dead."
Pale: The derelict school bus blew into town with the last midnight gale of October.
What can we deduce from this? Well, Thrones tells us immediately that there are going to be weird names of pseudo-European fantasyland tradition. Seriously, have you noticed that nearly every fantasy novel has a character named "Gareth"? "Gared" tells me that he is going to do a lot of re-spelling, which is possibly even more annoying than scrabble-bag names.
What else? Starting the story at dusk gives a sense of darkness and foreboding and spooky things; like the start of a horror movie. But WTF is a wildling? That's not explained until the next chapter; instead, the author spends a great deal of time describing the characters' clothes.
Now in Pale, we see we are in the real world with school buses and Octobers. We can see the scene, instead of trying to imagine some dude named Gared in some kind of wood with some other people. The question that keeps you reading, then, is not "What is going on?" but "Why is the school bus blowing into town at midnight?" Obviously, Martin does not have that luxury, but half the time I feel like he does not explain things enough, and the other half I am frustrated by him giving too much detail and name-dropping.
The rest of the prologues are as follows: In Thrones, the viewpoint is actually held by Will, but they all get killed by spooky zombie-things so it doesn't really matter; you never really get a sense of the characters, so you don't really care that they're dead. In Pale, a creepy preacher-like figure oversees a troupe of faerie-like beings raise a tent (for some reason my mental image always looks like that one scene in Dumbo) to host "Brother Cy's Travelling Salvation Show." You can tell no one here is a real viewpoint character; they are kept distant, mysterious, not someone you connect to but someone you wonder at. The prologue is quite different from the rest of the chapters; which is why it is a prologue and not a first chapter where everyone dies. Also, the preacher reappears in chapter two, so he isn't completely forgotten. He's relevant, just not a viewpoint character.
Now for the first line of Chapter One.
Thrones: The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer.
Pale: Sometimes the wind blowing down from the mountains made Travis Wilder feel like anything could happen.
There's no contest here - a description of the weather, or an introduction into the main character's soul. Ugh, okay, I'll try for less bias. Autumn signifies dying things, and adds to the foreboding of the prologue. The chapter also details a seven year old boy witnessing his first execution, and so it can also signify and end to childhood innocence. But that's a cheap metaphor. Wind as a vehicle for infinite possibilities is not something you see every day.
Now, in the first five chapters of Thrones, there are five different viewpoint characters; I believe there are a total of seven in the book. In the first five of Pale, there is one, with a total of two main ones and a few glimpses of others in the climax toward the end.
On page one of Thrones, we are introduced to six characters: Bran, Robb, Mance Rayder, Old Nan, Jon, the man that gets killed. On page two we get Eddard Stark, Theon Greyjoy, Jory Cassel, and Robert. Also, I can't find anywhere that explicitly says that Robb is Bran's brother. Yes, there is a character list in the back, but I'm trying to get into the story, and I'm trying to focus on Bran, and there are all these names distracting me.
Pale does not introduce anyone besides Travis until three pages in, for a total of three: Travis, Moira Larsen, who is not important, and Max, who is. Moira Larsen is introduced as Travis, a saloonkeeper, is worried about being late for work and having to face irate patrons. Max is his one employee. I'm still fuzzy on who half the names in Thrones are.
I think the fundamental difference in the structure of the two books is that Martin takes a broad sweep of his story, introducing the setting and the people, and telling the story after the stage has been set. Anthony introduces Travis, and pulls him into the story once we know him.
Anthony is also quicker on the action. By the end of chapter five, we have already had our first incident, complete with fire and danger and strange beings. Prologue of Thrones does not count as an incident because it doesn't connect to a recurring character. Five chapters in, it looks like some kind of fantasyland family drama. It's a soap opera. The characters are shallow enough.
I have so much more to say on these books. So much that I think I'm going to break it up into multiple posts. Tomorrow: Feasts and castles! After that, I might actually get to the queer theory component.
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