具體描述
內容簡介
A NEW ORIGINAL SERIES, NOW ON HBO.
Here is the first volume in George R. R. Martin's magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, George R. R. Martin’s stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.
A GAME OF THRONES
Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.
Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones. 作者簡介
George R. R. Martin's bestselling A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series has earned him the title of 'the American Tolkien'. The first book of the series has been made into a HBO TV adaptation, A Game of Thrones. He is the author of eight novels, several collections of short stories and numerous screenplays for television drama and feature films. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
喬治·雷濛德·理查德·馬丁(Geoger Raymond Richard Martin)歐美奇幻小說大師。1948年9月20日齣生於美國新澤西州的貝約恩,在伊利諾伊州伊凡斯頓的西北大學就讀,主修新聞寫作,1971年取得碩士學位。馬丁的作品主要以人物為關注點,描寫細膩豐富,突破瞭幻想文學界固有的創作模式,多次引領閱讀潮流。代錶作有十大浪漫太空歌劇之一的《光逝》、由雨果奬獲奬名篇擴展而成的《風港》、在雜誌讀者群中深受愛戴的《圖夫航行記》,以及當代正統奇幻的第一經典《冰與火之歌》等。由於馬丁的輝煌成就,他被譽為美國的托爾金和新世紀的海明威。從1989年開始,馬丁淡齣文學界,轉而投身演藝界發展,其中包括《美女與野獸》的編劇和The Twilight Zone的劇本編輯。1996年他纔重返文壇而開始奇幻文學的創作,處女作便是《權力的遊戲》(The Game Of Throne),即為《冰與火之歌》(The Song Of Fire And Ice)的首部麯。雖然封筆幾近10年,但大師風範猶在,《權力的遊戲》甫齣便拿下瞭British Fantasy Society、 世界奇幻奬和星雲奬年度最佳幻想作品提名,即使是由其中抽取章節編成的Blood of the Dragon也獲得多個最佳中篇奬,在科幻奇幻界引起極大的反響。在非官方的不記名奇幻作品投票中,《冰與火之歌》儼然已經可以和《魔戒》平起平坐,作者網站的訪問量也是和斯蒂芬·金、J.K.羅琳等不相上下,其受歡迎的程度可見一斑。他的讀者群早已是遠遠的超越奇幻科幻愛好者的範圍,而受到更為廣泛的關注。
權力的遊戲已在HBO播齣。喬治·馬丁被時代雜誌評選為2011年影響世界的一百人。 精彩書評
“Grabs hold and won’t let go. It’s brilliant.”
—Robert Jordan
“Reminiscent of T. H. White’s The Once and Future King, this novel is an absorbing combination of the mythic, the sweepingly historical, and the intensely personal.”
—Chicago Sun-Times 精彩書摘
The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer. They set forth at daybreak to see a man beheaded, twenty in all, and Bran rode among them, nervous with excitement. This was the first time he had been deemed old enough to go with his lord father and his brothers to see the king's justice done. It was the ninth year of summer, and the seventh of Bran's life.
The man had been taken outside a small holdfast in the hills. Robb thought he was a wildling, his sword sworn to Mance Rayder, the King-beyond-the-Wall. It made Bran's skin prickle to think of it. He remembered the hearth tales Old Nan told them. The wildlings were cruel men, she said, slavers and slayers and thieves. They consorted with giants and ghouls, stole girl children in the dead of night, and drank blood from polished horns. And their women lay with the Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children.
But the man they found bound hand and foot to the holdfast wall awaiting the king's justice was old and scrawny, not much taller than Robb. He had lost both ears and a finger to frostbite, and he dressed all in black, the same as a brother of the Night's Watch, except that his furs were ragged and greasy.
The breath of man and horse mingled, steaming, in the cold morning air as his lord father had the man cut down from the wall and dragged before them. Robb and Jon sat tall and still on their horses, with Bran between them on his pony, trying to seem older than seven, trying to pretend that he'd seen all this before. A faint wind blew through the holdfast gate. Over their heads flapped the banner of the Starks of Winterfell: a grey direwolf racing across an ice-white field.
Bran's father sat solemnly on his horse, long brown hair stirring in the wind. His closely trimmed beard was shot with white, making him look older than his thirty-five years. He had a grim cast to his grey eyes this day, and he seemed not at all the man who would sit before the fire in the evening and talk softly of the age of heroes and the children of the forest. He had taken off Father's face, Bran thought, and donned the face of Lord Stark of Winterfell.
There were questions asked and answers given there in the chill of morning, but afterward Bran could not recall much of what had been said. Finally his lord father gave a command, and two of his guardsmen dragged the ragged man to the ironwood stump in the center of the square. They forced his head down onto the hard black wood. Lord Eddard Stark dismounted and his ward Theon Greyjoy brought forth the sword. "Ice," that sword was called. It was as wide across as a man's hand, and taller even than Robb. The blade was Valyrian steel, spell-forged and dark as smoke. Nothing held an edge like Valyrian steel.
His father peeled off his gloves and handed them to Jory Cassel, the captain of his household guard. He took hold of Ice with both hands and said, "In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, the First of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, by the word of Eddard of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, I do sentence you to die." He lifted the great sword high above his head.
Bran's bastard brother Jon Snow moved closer. "Keep the pony well in hand," he whispered. "And don't look away. Father will know if you do."
Bran kept his pony well in hand, and did not look away.
His father took off the man's head with a single sure stroke. Blood sprayed out across the snow, as red as summerwine. One of the horses reared and had to be restrained to keep from bolting. Bran could not take his eyes off the blood. The snows around the stump drank it eagerly, reddening as he watched.
The head bounced off a thick root and rolled. It came up near Greyjoy's feet. Theon was a lean, dark youth of nineteen who found everything amusing. He laughed, put his boot on the head,and kicked it away.
"Ass," Jon muttered, low enough so Greyjoy did not hear. He put a hand on Bran's shoulder, and Bran looked over at his bastard brother.
"You did well," Jon told him solemnly. Jon was fourteen, an old hand at justice.
It seemed colder on the long ride back to Winterfell, though the wind had died by then and the sun was higher in the sky. Bran rode with his brothers, well ahead of the main party, his pony struggling hard to keep up with their horses.
"The deserter died bravely," Robb said. He was big and broad and growing every day, with his mother's coloring, the fair skin, red-brown hair, and blue eyes of the Tullys of Riverrun. "He had courage, at the least."
"No," Jon Snow said quietly. "It was not courage. This one was dead of fear. You could see it in his eyes, Stark." Jon's eyes were a grey so dark they seemed almost black, but there was little they did not see. He was of an age with Robb, but they did not look alike. Jon was slender where Robb was muscular, dark where Robb was fair, graceful and quick where his half brother was strong and fast.
Robb was not impressed. "The Others take his eyes," he swore. "He died well. Race you to the bridge?"
"Done," Jon said, kicking his horse forward. Robb cursed and followed, and they galloped off down the trail, Robb laughing and hooting, Jon silent and intent. The hooves of their horses kicked up showers of snow as they went.
Bran did not try to follow. His pony could not keep up. He had seen the ragged man's eyes, and he was thinking of them now. After a while, the sound of Robb's laughter receded, and the woods grew silent again.
That was when Jon reappeared on the crest of the hill before them. He waved and shouted down at them. "Father, Bran, come quickly, see what Robb has found!" Then he was gone again.
Jory rode up beside them. "Trouble, my lord?"
"Beyond a doubt," his lord father said. "Come, let us see what mischief my sons have rooted out now." He sent his horse into a trot. Jory and Bran and the rest came after.
They found Robb on the riverbank north of the bridge, with Jon still mounted beside him. The late summer snows had been heavy this moonturn. Robb stood knee-deep in white, his hood pulled back so the sun shone in his hair. He was cradling something in his arm, while the boys talked in hushed, excited voices.
The riders picked their way carefully through the drifts, groping for solid footing on the hidden, uneven ground. Jory Cassel and Theon Greyjoy were the first to reach the boys. Greyjoy was laughing and joking as he rode. Bran heard the breath go out of him. "Gods!" he exclaimed, struggling to keep control of his horse as he reached for his sword.
Jory's sword was already out. "Robb, get away from it!" he called as his horse reared under him.
Robb grinned and looked up from the bundle in his arms. "She can't hurt you," he said. "She's dead, Jory."
Bran was afire with curiosity by then. He would have spurred the pony faster, but his father made them dismount beside the bridge and approach on foot. Bran jumped off and ran.
By then Jon, Jory, and Theon Greyjoy had all dismounted as well. "What in the seven hells is it?" Greyjoy was saying.
"A wolf," Robb told him.
"A freak," Greyjoy said. "Look at the size of it."
Bran's heart was thumping in his chest as he pushed through a waist-high drift to his brothers' side.
Half-buried in blood stained snow, a huge dark shape slumped in death. Ice had formed in its shaggy grey fur, and the faint smell of corruption clung to it like a woman's perfume. Bran glimpsed blind eyes crawling with maggots, a wide mouth full of yellowed teeth. But it was the size of it that made him gasp. It was bigger than his pony, twice the size of the largest hound in his father's kennel.
"It's no freak," Jon said calmly. "That's a direwolf. They grow larger than the other kind."
Theon Greyjoy said, "There's not been a direwolf sighted south of the Wall in two hundred years."
"I see one now," Jon replied.
Bran tore his eyes away from the monster. That was when he noticed the bundle in Robb's arms. He gave a cry of delight and moved closer. The pup was a tiny ball of grey-black fur, its eyes still closed. It nuzzled blindly against Robb's chest as he cradled it, searching for milk among his leathers, making a sad little whimpery sound. Bran reached out hesitantly. "Go on,"Robb told him. "You can touch him."
Bran gave the pup a quick nervous stroke, then turned as Jon said, "Here you go." His half brother put a second pup into his arms. "There are five of them." Bran sat down in the snow and hugged the wolf pup to his face. Its fur was soft and warm against his cheek.
"Direwolves loose in the realm, after so many years," muttered Hullen, the master of horse. "I like it not."
"It is a sign," Jory said.
Father frowned. "This is only a dead animal, Jory," he said. Yet he seemed troubled. Snow crunched under his boots as he moved around the body. "Do we know what killed her?"
"There's something in the throat," Robb told him, proud to have found the answer before his father even asked. "There, just under the jaw."
His father knelt and groped under the beast's head with his hand. He gave a yank and held it up for all to see. A foot of shattered antler, tines snapped off, all wet with blood.
A sudden silence descended over the party. The men looked at the antler uneasily, and no one dared to speak. Even Bran could sense their fear, though he did not understand.
His father tossed the antler to the side and cleansed his hands in the snow. "I'm surprised she ...
凜鼕將至:鐵王座的陰謀與榮耀 聚焦維斯特洛大陸的權力核心,一場關於忠誠、背叛與生存的史詩序章 本書帶領讀者深入維斯特洛七大王國的宏大棋局,聚焦於那些為瞭爭奪至高無上的權力——鐵王座——而不擇手段的傢族、個人和他們糾纏不清的命運。這是一部關於政治權謀、傢族榮耀與人性掙紮的宏大敘事,其深度和廣度令人嘆為觀止。 故事的開端,平靜的錶象下暗流湧動。權力核心的真空,如同飢餓的野獸,等待著被填補。凜鼕的預言如同陰影籠罩著整個大陸,而眼前的權力鬥爭卻讓人們對即將到來的威脅視而不見。 北境的堅守與南方的奢靡 故事的主綫圍繞著幾個關鍵的貴族傢庭展開。 首先是史塔剋傢族,他們是北境的守護者,以榮譽和堅韌著稱。他們居住在遙遠的臨鼕城,恪守著古老的誓言:“凜鼕將至”。當國王的使者踏入他們的領地,請求他們承擔王室重任時,這不僅是榮耀,更是將史塔剋傢族拖入南方泥潭的開始。傢族的掌權者,一位正直而堅定的領主,必須在維護傢族的榮譽與處理復雜宮廷政治之間做齣艱難抉擇。他不得不將自己最親近的兒子送往君臨,這步棋注定將牽動整個大陸的命運。 在君臨這座充斥著謊言與欲望的都城,坦格利安王朝的殘餘勢力仍在暗中積蓄力量。遠在狹海對岸,一位被放逐的年輕龍裔,懷揣著復興傢族昔日輝煌的夢想,正試圖集結盟友,準備跨越海洋,奪迴本應屬於她的王位。她的齣現,為本已混亂的局勢增添瞭異域的色彩和遠古的力量——龍的傳說,再次成為人們低語的話題。 陰謀的漩渦與宮廷的毒蛇 君臨城內,權力遊戲的參與者們各懷鬼胎。禦前大臣(國王之手)的職位,看似榮耀,實則危機四伏。現任的執行者,一位以智慧和手腕著稱的貴族,他深知宮廷的危險,卻也難以抗拒權力的誘惑。他必須應對來自四麵八方的挑戰:傢族間的古老仇恨、新貴族的野心勃勃,以及王室成員之間錯綜復雜的關係。 在這個世界裏,忠誠是一種奢侈品。背叛如同空氣般無處不在。我們看到曾經親密的盟友,轉瞬間成為最緻命的敵人;血緣關係,也無法阻擋權力帶來的誘惑和腐蝕。陰謀的編織者們,用金錢、美色和承諾,構建起一張巨大的網,等待著獵物落入其中。 牆外的世界與遠古的威脅 然而,維斯特洛大陸的紛爭並非全部。在大陸的北端,矗立著一道巨大的、由冰雪構成的屏障——長城。這道屏障不僅是地理上的界限,更是文明與蠻荒的界限。駐守在那裏的“守夜人”組織,是抵禦長城之外,那些被遺忘的、真正的威脅的第一道防綫。 長城之外的黑暗中,蟄伏著一種遠超人類政治鬥爭的恐怖力量——異鬼。他們是傳說中的存在,是嚴酷鼕天的化身。隨著時間的推移,越來越多的跡象錶明,這支冰冷的軍隊正在蘇醒,他們的逼近,讓七大王國的權力爭奪顯得如此微不足道和短視。書中的一些角色,他們目睹瞭這些黑暗的徵兆,試圖嚮南方的貴族們發齣警告,但他們的聲音,往往被權力的喧囂所淹沒。 傢族的興衰與人性的試煉 本書精妙之處在於對個體命運的刻畫。每一位齣場的人物,無論地位高低,都麵臨著生存的抉擇。 一個被剝奪瞭繼承權,卻天賦異稟的年輕貴族,如何在傢族的羞辱中尋找自我救贖的道路? 一個身世神秘的流亡公主,如何學習在殘酷的世界中生存,並逐漸展現齣她與生俱來的領導纔能? 那些在權力鬥爭中被利用、被拋棄的普通士兵和平民,他們的痛苦和掙紮構成瞭這部史詩堅實的底層基礎。 我們目睹瞭騎士精神在現實麵前的脆弱,也看到瞭即便是最卑微的人,也能迸發齣驚人的勇氣和智慧。愛與恨,榮耀與恥辱,在這裏被提升到近乎神話的層麵進行審視。 這是一部關於“代價”的史詩。每一次勝利的取得,都伴隨著沉重的犧牲;每一個登上高位的野心傢,都必須麵對良心與王座之間的拷問。維斯特洛大陸正處於一個曆史的十字路口,舊有的秩序正在崩塌,新的秩序尚未建立。 讀者將在這部史詩的開篇中,見證一場精心策劃的政治陰謀如何演變成一場無法收拾的全麵危機,並深刻體會到,當“凜鼕將至”時,所有的權謀和恩怨都可能瞬間化為烏有,唯有真正的生存智慧和團結,纔能讓人熬過漫長的黑夜。 這是一個充滿魔法、曆史厚重感和復雜人性的世界,等待著你親自去探索其錯綜復雜的脈絡。