Benioff: He’s one of us

Found an interesting interview with David Benioff over at Powell’s Books. Most of the interview is about his recent book City of Thieves. However it does reveal how he was first introduced to Martin’s series and his initial thoughts on the books.

I was a huge fantasy fan when I was a kid. I was a Tolkien obsessive and read all of his books, including the commentary of The Silmarillion. But I’ve been away from fantasy since I was 14 or 15, since my Dungeons & Dragons days were over. A year or two ago, someone sent me these books by George R. R. Martin [the Song of Ice and Fire series]. There are four books and some of them are 1100 pages long. I had no interest in reading them. They had these cheesy fantasy covers, and that’s just not something I’m into anymore. But I started the first one and, lo’ and behold, 80 pages in, I got hooked and ended up reading all four books, all 4000 pages. I liked it so much that we’re trying to do it as an HBO series now. In terms of just pure entertainment, I haven’t had as much fun reading since I was a kid until I read those books.

Winter Is Coming: It is cool to see that Benioff was a fantasy geek growing up. Also it is interesting he mentions that he was hooked on the series at 80 pages in, which just so happens to be around the time the infamous “the things I do for love” line is uttered. Let us hope that HBO gets as hooked by that moment when they see it as Benioff was when he first read it.

• Published on 12/03/2008 at 5:37 PM CDT
• Last updated on 12/03/2008 at 5:37 PM CDT