Genre Character of the Week: Ser Duncan the Tall

Having finished A Game of Thrones earlier this week, but not willing to review it until after my next book club meeting, I moved on to the first novella written in the series, which takes place nearly a century earlier and follows the adventures ofSer Duncan the Tall and his squire Egg.

Duncan’s story is very similar to that of the film A Knight’s Tale in which a recently deceased Knight’s squire declares himself a knight and enters into tournaments to seek his fortune.  The novella was published in 1998 while the film (which I also loved) came out in 2001.

Considering that Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire saga is all about the shades of grey in fantasy, this story is pretty much a simple black vs. white story of a young man trying to do good with his life.  I totally loved it and a huge part of that comes down to the earnest, decent character of Dunk (known officially as Ser Duncan the Tall).

Whether you’ve read the main books or not, the novella is a fun, stand-alone story it took me a few hours to read and was totally worth every minute of it.