Literary rebuke to George R. R. Martin's A GAME OF THRONES

Found out about this on Westeros. . .

Evangelical Christian author Vox Day wrote a fantasy novel titled A Throne of Bones, which is meant to be a rebuke to GRRM's A Game of Thrones and the rest of A Song of Ice and Fire.

Here's the blurb:

In Selenoth, the race of Man is on the ascendant. The ancient dragons sleep. The ghastly Witchkings are no more; their evil power destroyed by the courage of Men and the fearsome magic of the Elves. The Dwarves have retreated to the kingdoms of the Underdeep, the trolls hide in their mountains, and even the savage orc tribes have learned to dread the iron discipline of Amorr's mighty legions. But after four hundred years of mutual suspicion, the rivalry between two of the Houses Martial that rule the Amorran Senate threatens to turn violent, and unrest sparks rebellion throughout the imperial provinces. In the north, the barbarian reavers who have long plagued the coasts of the White Sea beg for the royal protection of the King of Savondir, as they flee a vicious race of wolf-demons. In the east, the war drums echo throughout the mountains as orcs and goblins gather in great numbers, summoned by their bestial gods.

And when the Most Holy and Sanctified Father is found dead in his bed, leaving the Ivory Throne of the Apostles unclaimed, the temptation to seize the Sacred College and wield Holy Mother Church as a weapon is more than some fallen souls can resist.

MATURE CONTENT WARNING

A Throne of Bones is the first in the Marcher Lord Hinterlands imprint. Hinterlands books may contain vulgarity, profanity, nudity, and/or sexual content, but never for gratuitous purposes. Hinterlands allows us to pursue crossover publishing that will put the word of the gospel before people who would never otherwise pick up a Christian novel. It also allows us to examine mature themes in a realistic manner that some Christians will appreciate. We know that not everyone will want to read these books, so we have set them apart into the Hinterlands imprint.

For more info about this title: Canada, USA, Europe

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The Speculative Faith Blog has an interview with Day, and here are a few golden nuggets of wisdom to whet your appetite for this book:

And to those who will roll their eyes at the idea of “a Christian answer to George Martin” and imagine it is meant in the Stryper sense, let me hasten to disabuse you of that notion. A THRONE OF BONES is neither an homage nor an imitation, it is a challenge. It is intended as a literary rebuke.

So not “answer to” meaning “imitation of,” but “riposte.” How do you feel A Game of Thrones betrayed fantasy in favor of ugliness, hate, and glorification of sinful appetites?

[...]

Now, I very much enjoyed the first three books of A Song of Ice and Fire, but the idea that Martin is, or ever could be, “the American Tolkien” should offend anyone who loves Middle Earth. He would be more accurately described as “an anti-Tolkien” in much the same manner that Philip Pullman is a self-avowed “anti-Lewis”.

Don’t get me wrong. A Game of Thrones is an excellent novel when read in its own context. So are A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. But among their various themes is the subversion and overt mocking of concepts that Tolkien honored, concepts such as honor, courage, commitment, love, loyalty, and family. In Martin’s world, nobility is equated with stupidity; evil and treachery prospers abundantly on every side. While there is something to be said for rejecting the tedious old tropes of good, in the persona of the young farmboy, inevitably saving the world by triumphing over cackling, cartoonish, and cretinous evil, the reaction against the shadow of Tolkien that began with Michael Moorcock has gone much too far into nihilism and moral blindness.

I don’t object to the ugliness, hate, and perversion in A Song of Ice and Fire and other modern epic fantasies. Such things exist in all fallen worlds and must be included for the sake of verisimilitude in any work of sufficient seriousness and scope. Is there not ugliness, hate, and even perversion in the Bible? What I object to is the near-complete absence of beauty, love, and normalcy to oppose them. As I have written in other contexts, I don’t object to modern epic fantasy on moral or religious grounds, but on literary and philosophical grounds. Theories abound as to why the Martin series has declined so dramatically, but the fact that it is written from a nihilistic and overtly anti-heroic perspective may well have contributed to the lower quality of the two more recent books.

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Follow this link to read the entire interview.

A literary rebuke comprised of elves, dwarves, orcs, and goblins. . . GRRM must have shat himself when he found out about this. HBO will probably cancel Game of Thrones after this season, drop Gaiman's American Gods, and give Vox Day millions of dollars to bring this tale to TV screens around the globe. . .