What are we going to do until Game of Thrones 4 begins next year?
These are the first three volumes of Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles. The bookends were a present from our sister. They look like Drogon and Rhaegal.
We’ve already gone through The Fall and Orphan Black (Both terrific). We got a year’s worth of eyeball-rolling exercises from Da Vinci’s Demonz (All Starz series should end in Z). We watched as much Hannibal as we could stand, then we started wishing Mads Mikkelsen’s Hannibal would eat the Will Graham character (tormented genius: baduy). Why are there so many serial killer shows on TV right now, is everyone finally sick of vampires and zombies? Fortunately for our pop culture consumption there are the final episodes of Breaking Bad later in the year, and the new episodes of Arrested Development.
Then we remembered the Lymond Chronicles, the historical adventure series by Dorothy Dunnett. Our friends have been after us to read the damn books for—eek!—20 years. We picked up the first volume but were too distracted to sink into its dense prose.
But now that we have ripped through A Song of Ice and Fire, we’re ready. Dunnett may have been an influence on Martin—the title of the first Lymond book, published in 1961, is The Game of Kings. At lunch we were telling Tina that one of our favorite Thrones characters spent a year in chains, taunting his captors; she pointed out that Dunnett’s hero Francis Crawford of Lymond was a galley slave for two years. Lymond is Scottish; Winterfell seems to be Scotland, and the Red Wedding is based on an actual event in Scottish history. (We’re reading a book on the Venetian empire—their sigil was a lion, their colors were red and gold, and they paid their debts. They certainly collected.)
Another thing the two authors have in common: the anxious fandom. Dorothy Dunnett’s readers worried about her health and whether she would get around to finishing the books. They were more polite than GRRM fans, though, and it was the pre-Internet era.
This weekend we’re starting on the Lymond Chronicles. You can buy the books online, or scour the bargain book bins.
How could we possibly pass up a book with the line:
“Drama entered, mincing like a cat.”
And when we’re finished with the six books in the Lymond Chronicles, The House of Niccolo!
Visit the Dorothy Dunnett Society.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
June 20th, 2013 at 07:25
Have you already read Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings? It’s the first book in a planned 10-novel series and it’s already as long as A Storm of Swords.
Now that’s going to be a *huge* series…
June 20th, 2013 at 09:37
I seem to have had a surfeit of GRRM lately, as after gobbling ASIF’s five books, I turned to Tales of Dunk and Egg, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Less grim, and is a sort of prequel for ASIF. Another potential TV series perhaps? Or maybe a movie. That is, if GRRM actually gets around to finishing it. Bitin din e.
Anyway, after season 3 of the tv series, my thoughts turned to James Clavell’s Shogun, a novel that was adapted into a TV miniseries, and made quite a splash back in the 80s.
Probably because GoT and Shogun both have decapitations, lots of swordplay, and memorable characters, not to mention the deadly politics that people in power (in this milieu) play.
June 20th, 2013 at 13:41
Shogun! My go-to book. The one I always try to get my friends to read. I sometimes wish HBO would make another series out of it (and the entire Asian Saga for that matter).
@Jessica, those bookends are epic!
June 20th, 2013 at 16:54
Speaking of bargain book bins, NBS and Chapters and Pages have sales in the activity area of Market Market until the 22nd.
I got through the first four Outlander books (the fantasy/science fiction/romance/history novel series, which one depends on who you ask), but by the fifth thousand-pager where Claire and Jamie get into the American Revolutionary War I had had enough. The spinoffs with Lord John, the gay 18th century British military officer (weren’t they all?) were much lighter, though.
June 20th, 2013 at 18:24
TLC is now in my to read list. Thank you for sharing :-)
June 21st, 2013 at 01:46
Just finished three seasons of “An Idiot Abroad”, hilarious! Though Warwick Davis’ grin still stirs childhood terrors of the Leprechaun. :D
Been planning to start the “Malazan Book of the Fallen” series by Steven Erikson. With stats like these:
10 – books
10,891 – pages
3,300,026 – words
I think I pretty much got it covered till April 2014.
:D