A Song of Ice and Fire
Contains: A Game of Thrones A Clash of Kings A Storm of Swords A Feast for Crows A Dance with Dragons
Stats for nerds
41recommend
215mentions
188people
2008–2026years
21% recommend75% neutral4% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The popularity of a genre is deeply tied to the historical context of what's going on in the real world. In the 1950s and 1960s you obviously had the Space Race, which itself was a product of the Cold War. Some commments view this as optimism. I disagree. I view it as an expression of patriotism.
I view this patriotism as a crutch in uncertain times. Another example of this is the rise of the superhero genre in the 21st century. Marven was skirting with bankruptcy in the 1990s. A perpetual Spiderman license was sold for a fraction of what it would today. And I think it's no coincidence that the superhero genre ascended post-9/11.
I used to read a lot of fantasy but many years ago I pretty much switched almost entirely to sci-fi. For me the reason was because sci-fi asked questions. I mean there's also space opera and it scratches the same itch as fantasy (IMNHO) but my personal interest in sci-fi is more in the "what if" category.
That's a very broad category that goes all the way from, say, the Iain M. Banks Culture series, which really poses the question of what an ultra-high tech post-scarcity civilization looks like to something like The Handmaid's Tale (yes, that's sci-fi). We've also had some superb sci-fi on the screen in recent years like Severance, Silo and The Expanse.
For me, fantasy is a far more limited genre. Like I'm trying to read Brandon Sanderson recently and while he's a good writer, it's just not hooking me yet in the same way that, say, Revelation Space did. I think the last fantasy series to really hook me was A Song of Ice and Fire. The first three books are some of the finest books ever written.
But as for the decline of starships, I think that the readership has evolved too. More vintage sci-fi simply projected the era of exploration and colonization onto space and it's become pretty clear how unrealistic that is because of the vast distances involved. You have to remember that popular media in the 1960s expected Moon bases and such in the not-too-distant future. Star Trek was really the last gasp of this and, interestingly, Star Trek is fundamentally socialist, which is noteworthy given that it originated in the Cold War.
Star Wars on the other hand was a tale of the resistance to imperialism. George Lucas has said he modeled the resistance on the North Vietnamese. Cyberpunk came about in the 1980s (eg Neuromancer, Blade Runner) that had nothing to do with starships but they really reflected a societal pessimism. Cyberpunk is inherently xenophobic (ie because of fears of the Japanese).
I wonder if the popularity of fantasy is fundamentally escapist and an expression of helplessness. Think about it: fantasy usually revolves around the outsized impact of individual actions, of a hero or heroine.
- I'm thinking less censorship and more understanding of when starting to think about something is appropriate, how to build a healthy worldview, and how to communicate about uncomfortable things. Like, A Song of Ice and Fire is a great world with captivating storytelling where some nasty things happen, and its characters can sometimes be "bad people", and that's part of the story! It's fine that books also portray things that are not just happy endings. GRRM is a good enough writer to make that improve the story.
(The author of Dragonriders of Pern, unfortunately, is not a good enough writer that her addition of certain topics into the books could be said to improve the books. I'll leave you with <https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Tent_Peg_Statement>. It's still a fun series, even if the author is not someone I'd invite for dinner!)
- As a social experiment to reveal how senseless and pointless pop entertainment could be.
(personal rant) I've been in a mild existential crisis since I read Amusing Ourselves to Death. Can one form of entertainment really be more well-regarded than another? Is fine art fundamentally different from pop art? Are there 'finer' pop cultures amongst all pop cultures? I do still think reading The Song of Ice and Fire is more meaningful than scrolling TikTok. The crisis part is that I can't justify this belief with words.
- Hard to choose for myself who made the post.
But some of my favorites are -
1. God: The Failed Hypothesis Book by Victor J. Stenger
2. The God Delusion Book by Richard Dawkins
3. Berlin: The Downfall 1945 Book by Antony Beevor
4. A Song of Ice and Fire Novel series by George R.R. Martin
5. A Short History of Nearly Everything Book by Bill Bryson
6. Billions and Billions Book by Carl Sagan
7. Flowers for Algernon Short story by Daniel Keyes
8. I'm Glad My Mom Died Book by Jennette McCurdy
9. Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--from 9/11 to Abbottabad Book by Peter Bergen
10. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space Book by Carl Sagan
11. The Metamorphosis Novella by Franz Kafka
12. The Selfish Gene Book by Richard Dawkins
Gun to my head, pick one? The God Delusion.
- A song of Ice and Fire is a great book.
That third book was incredible, and I had watched the show!
- Some time ago somebody pointed out to me how the superhero genre really took off after 9/11 and I can't stop thinking about that because I think it says a lot about how people think, what they want and also how consent is manufactured.
9/11 pierced America's sense of safety. Perhaps Pearl Harbor was similar. Historically the Gauls sacking Rome in the 4th Century BCE was probably similar. So people were attracted to media where somebody would save them, protect them.
At a higher level, the superhero genre feeds into pushing an idealism narrative. Idealism here simply means some people are the good guys and other people are the bad guys. Inherently. Compare this to materialism, which is a philosophy that there is a feedback loop between a person and their environment, of each affecting the other. There is no good or evil. People simply respond to their circumstances. A Song of Ice and Fire (the books more than the TV show, particularly the later seasons) is a superb example of materialism in fiction.
So what does the rising popularity of Japanese literature (note: the article is about that and not about anime as I think some who simply read the headline assume) say about society?
I think we have a crisis of despair in society. The cost of living, particularly housing, is out of control. You have a generation who thinks they'll never own a home or ever be able to retire. They don't feel like they have the security to have children. Is it any wonder that escapism thrives when the real world seems so bleak?
I see this as yet another symptom of the crisis in capitalism. Sure there's a fascination with Japanese culture. This isn't new. But why? We're also seeing more Chinese fiction (eg Three Body Problem). It's hard for me not to see this trend as anything other than a failure in our society to provide hope to people whose dreams are very mundane.
