Free Winning the Game of Thrones: The Host of Characters and their Agendas by Valerie Frankel Page A

are celebrated for their politics and complexity. For those interested in political machinations (along with quite a bit of nudity) the Kushiel’s Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey guides readers through a fantastical Europe as a courtesan struggles to save the realm from its own clash of kings. For historical novels reimagining the great epics, Parke Godwin has done excellent takes on Robin Hood, King Arthur, and so forth, set in historical England. The Secret Texts  by Holly Lisle introduces feuding houses in which even the worst villains have their moral complexity. Like Martin, Lisle breaks every rule of prophecy and fantasy conventions. The Sevenwaters Trilogy  and The Bridei Chronicles by Juliet Marillier are delightful fantasy series with an incredibly Celtic feel and much historical research…it all depends which aspects of Game of Thrones appeal the most.
    Many other series are delightfully Tolkienesque though with mixed males and females and without the dull bits (heresy though it seems to say so). These include the following:
v   Sara Douglass, The Wayfarer Redemption
v   Guy Gavriel Kay, The Fionavar Tapestry
v   Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory, The Obsidian Trilogy
v   Patrick Rothfuss,  The Kingkiller Chronicles
v   Brandon Sanderson, The Mistborn Trilogy
v   Tad Williams,  Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn  
    Readers might also consider classic epics like The Tain , The Mabinogion , and King Arthur , all of which inspired parts of Martin’s work.
     

    What Are the Major Book and Show Differences?
    Most shows take significant liberties with the books they’re based on. Unusually, Game of Thrones changes almost nothing – scenes may be shortened, but often they’re repeated word for word, especially the best lines. The websites that describe changes between the two are mostly stuck pointing out that Sansa meets Lady Olenna Tyrell in the gardens, not her chambers, and has a shorter scene in which she secretly confides her fear of Joffrey, rather than an hour-long one. A few scenes are added, but generally character moments that don’t alter the plot. Characters’ backstories, like Sam’s rejection as his father threatens to hunt him in the woods, are also identical.
    A few specific differences involve character substitutions. Arya is supposed to be cupbearer to Roose Bolton (the Stark bannerman of uncertain loyalty) not Tywin Lannister. Jaime isn’t captured and behanded by Bolton men but by the Brave Companions, a group of sellswords his father had hired, who then began running amok. Shae is the maid of a minor character who is not Sansa. There are many more Frey characters everywhere, wed to Lannisters and King’s Landing characters as well as negotiating with Robb. Gendry inherits the plotline of the book’s acknowledged Baratheon bastard, Edric Storm, as Melisandre seeks king’s sons to burn. Stannis’s wife and daughter (and the daughter’s friend Patchface the fool) are seen often in the books, wandering about Dragonstone. Olenna seems to be negotiating in place of her pompous son. Sansa is proposed as a marriage candidate to Ser Loras’s older brother, heir to Highgarden, not Loras. Each of these changes was made to simplify the overwhelming and confusing cast of characters, at least a bit. Family trees are trimmed, parts are combined, and so forth, but these differences are decidedly minor.
    Many characters are introduced a book or two late, beginning their storylines only when necessary (Selyse and Shireen, Meera and Jojen, Thoros of Myr, and the Boltons fit this pattern). Thus minor characters and events shown, from Karstark’s treason to Sam’s finding a dragonglass horn on the Fist of the First Men will likely be needed farther along.
    In probably the largest change, the show replaces Robb’s sweet and passive bride Jeyne Westerling – whose father is a Lannister bannerman – with the capable and headstrong healer Talisa from Volantis. As she