Winter Is HERE, B*tches!

So a few weeks ago, I was on book tour, and as such, extremely Broken Of Brain. It was in such a state that I was all, "LOL TWITTER! IMMA START RECAPPING GAME OF THRONES THIS SEASON! YA KNOW, FOR THE SHIGGLES!"

And because the people who follow me on Twitter are an enabling bunch of bastards, they were all, "YES, RACHEL, DO THAT."


Sadly, none of them are bastards who look like this. As least as far as I know.

So here we are. And before I get down the the actual recappin', I thought I'd do a bit on, you know, who I am and why the f*ck I'm doing this.

1) WHO ARE YOU?

In case you're NOT here from my Real Life Author Blog, my name is Rachel Hawkins, and I write the Hex Hall series. They're for kids, and as such are sadly lacking in dragons and boobies. Perhaps I shall rectify that one day.


I do own this book after all.

I am also a raging fangirl for the ASoIaF books/TV show. So much so that a few weeks ago, when my latest book was on the USA Today best seller list, my agent emailed me and was like, "Yay you! Also, you're right next to George R.R. Martin, which is the only bit you will care about, I know."


YES! YES! ACHIEVEMENT BE ON TOP OF GEORGE R.R. MARTIN UNLOCKED! Wait. Not...not like that.


2) WHY THE F*CK ARE YOU DOING THIS?

Back in 2005, I had a lot going on. I'd just started a new job, I was going to grad school, and I'd made a human being. It was that last thing that led me to A Song of Ice and Fire. See, maternity leave is a weird time in a woman's life. It's fun and amazing and bonding with your Brand New Behbeh is GREAT, but it's also...well, boring as f*ck. You're home all day, and this tiny new person is adorable, but doesn't talk, and actually sleeps a fair amount of the time, and while yes you COULD do things like laundry or cleaning, you, again, just made a human being and evacuated him via your Lady Parts, and therefore feel that you are now above such things as chores.

Anyway, it was in this state of sleep deprivation/stultifying boredom that I first came across A Game of Thrones.


This was the cover on the copy I bought. It's...yeah.

I'd read about it on a blog...somewhere (see above RE: sleep deprivation) and was super intrigued until I realized it was an epic fantasy novel. And then I felt a deep sense of blaaaaah, because at the time, I was not a fan of the fantasy novel. Even though I am married to a man who has THIS framed in his office:


And yet I still have sex with him.

In my mind, fantasy novels were, well, kind of boring. Good and evil were black and white, Sexy-Tiems were non-existant, and they were full of names like Tr'loath of Mierne, and I was NOT DOWN WITH THEM AT ALL.


Oh God, Tr'loath, just f*ck right off.

But I liked this chick's blog, and I usually agreed with her on books and movies and stuff, and I was sufficiently curious/psychotic from lack of sleep. So the next time I went to the bookstore (probably attempting to find a book called How to Get Your Baby To Become a Toddler Overnight So He Will, Like, Eat Real Food and Talk and Sleep and Shit Like That), I decided to grab a copy.

I started A Game of Thrones that afternoon, and that was that. I mean, yes, at first I was all, "WTF? Zombies? And now there are wolves? WHO THE F*CK ARE THESE PEOPLE? WHY ARE THERE SO MANY OF THEM? Wait, now we're across an ocean, and there's a purple eyed chick with a name I can't pronounce?"

But once Bran Stark went out the window, I was IN IT, YOU GUYS. And then I basically shoved the first three books in my face in a period of about two months. There was sex and violence and moral ambiguity AND Ice Zombies and dragons. What was not to love? The only thing that sucked was that here I was, passionately in love with these books, and NO ONE ELSE I KNEW had read them. Or WOULD read them. And that was sad-making, as one of my favorite things in this world is to nerd out RE: books.

Anyway, all of this is to say that I AM one of those obnoxious people who loved the books before the show came out, but it is so, so awesome that now SO MANY PEOPLE are in love with this world, too, and now we can all geek out TOGETHER.

And thus endeth my "[In The End Not So Brief] Tale of How I Came to Love George R.R. Martin."


But not in the carnal sense, despite my joy at being on top of him. ON A LIST, PEOPLE, JEEZ.

3)HOW IS THIS GONNA WORK?

This blog is, um, still a work in progress. Mostly I will talk silly shizz about the show. However, I HAVE read all 5 books, and I'm, you know, an author OF books. So while I'll try VERY HARD not to get too spoily, I can't promise that this will be a 100% Spoiler Free Zone. A lot of my feelings about certain characters are shaped by stuff that happens in later books (ex: Jon Snow is one of my faaaaavorites because of stuff that happens in books 3&5, and I hated Theon SO HARD from Book 2-Book 4, only to come down off that a bit in Book 5. Soooo....)


This is still a punchable face, though. Let's be real.

But as a writer, I definitely wanna talk a bit about the transition from books to show, especially since this is the first time I've had books I ADORED transferred to another medium. (NO, HARRY POTTER DOESN'T COUNT BECAUSE I DIDN'T LOVE THOSE BOOKS LIKE I LOVE THESE I AM SORRY PLEASE DON'T TAKE MY YA AUTHOR CARD AWAY.)

So. We good? In that case, ONTO THE DRAGONS, BOOBIES, AND ICE ZOMBIES (aka, the name of my sweet prog rock band.)


We shall travel the land in this.