Lame of Thrones: A Parody

Fans of George R.R. Martin’s blockbuster A Song of Ice and Fire cycle will recognize many of the tropes in this lowbrow pop-literature parody from the Harvard Lampoon editors (Nightlight; The Hunger Pains). The book is rife with dragons, zombie armies, slit throats, and incest. Framed as a last-minute piece of hackery churned out by a wealthy, distracted, deadline-plagued Martin—the author himself pops in while vacationing in Cabo and pounding Bellinis—the story is a frantic mess of extravagantly named characters vying to rule the land of Westopolis from the Pointy Chair. But in satirizing Martin’s penchant for Byzantine plotting (there is a reference to the “Valleys of Infinite Adventure and Endless Plotlines”), the authors have created a book-length non sequitur: given Martin’s complex story, the satire is far more difficult to discern than in Lampoon satires such as Bored of the Rings, whose R-rated antics were designed to puncture Tolkien’s self-seriousness. Here, the authors are mostly content with poorly punned naming (“Queen Mommy Cervix Bangsister”), endless battles, and lavishly detailed scenes of excreta and sex. The result is a convoluted volume of middle school humor. (June)