Given the publishing timelines of the books, and the overwhelming popularity and general cultural sensation of Harry Potter and the Miserable Adolescence, it is perhaps inevitable that comparisons come up. And of course, J.K. Rowling won the coveted Big Dork scifi book prize over Martin, which only serves to increase the likelihood that readers and pundits draw comparisons between the two series.
And given that near inevitability, it is all the more nearly inevitable that I will weigh in with great wisdom and insight.
First, let's start with the 2001 Hugo award. "Eat your heart out, Rowling. Maybe you have billions of dollars and my Hugo, but you don't have readers like these." Readers like what, sir? Twelve year olds? I'm pretty sure Rowling's got twelve year olds. Older? Younger? She's got 'em. Pathologically concerned with the outcome of the series? Got 'em. So readers like what, exactly?
At least one of the Martin books has a pull-quote in the leading fluff pages of critical babbling that explicitly says the series is "better than Harry Potter." This is obviously a stupid thing to say without defining the terms: better at what?
Both are multi-generational sweeping epics. Martin's is considerably vaster in scope and considerably more complex in terms of parallel narratives, questions of morality, etc. Rowling's is more complex on an emotional level as it focuses so consistently and deeply on the trials, suffering, and development of one primary character.
Is Martin's writing "better"? It's more elevated in tone and more structurally sophisticated than that of Rowling, to be sure. There are moments of laugh-out-loud humor, of poignant loss. There are moments of sheer tedium, when we're told of the outfits the character deemed appropriate for wearing to court, or the history of some local non-existent figure of legend, or the lyrics to some moronic song that a traveling bard offers up.
(In that sense, George R. R. truly is the "American Tolkein"; he may not describe the generations of Proudfeet, nor every succulent detail of Bilbo's parting breakfast smorgasbord, but he doesn't hold back with the utterly irrelevant, pardon-me-while-I-skim-this-horsecrap detail. I don't hold it against him; some of Bach's de capo arias have this quality as well, but Bach's accomplishments remain nevertheless staggering.)
Martin presents a world perhaps more like the one humans actually inhabit, apart from the dragons and the like. People act out of self-interest, nobility is a crutch, and the only honest, loyal people are the broken ones. The world is gritty and unforgiving and, above all, perilous. There's something beautiful and dazzling about the interweaving narrative threads, about the sheer scope of it all. Characters like Tyrion, Jaime, and Arya are quite a lot of fun, as well. And anybody can be taken from you, at any time. It's stark. Refreshingly so.
Yet, Rowling's world, while simpler and more fanciful, is not without grit. Rowling waits a long while before she takes somebody from us that we really care about, so when it happens, it hurts all the more. Martin focuses on the bleakness, the fickleness of fate. Rowling focuses on the loss and its consequences. Which is more interesting?
So, to return to the original question ("better at what?"): Martin excels at scope, grandeur, concurrency, weaving, twisting, turning. Yet his characters all feel a little too simple, too straightforward. Rowling, on the other other, develops a few characters with great care and great patience, and the development of tween years through adolescence feels, to me, familiar and fundamentally true. As much as I enjoy Martin's work (thus far), I find it impossible to care about any of the characters to the extent that I cared about Harry and co.
Which is your preference? Both will suck you in. They're both quite good and quite enjoyable, and both have plenty of flaws. So what do you want from a book series? They are both good enough at what they do that one can almost forget that they're fantasies. The fanciful aspects are just facts of the world the characters inhabit, but the choices and development of the characters are what matter.
For my money, I'll take Rowling. I am a human, and Rowling writes about humans and their pains. But it's understandable that one could conclude differently.
Now, all that said, let's consider one fatal flaw in Martin's writing: the sex.
The sex scenes peppering Martin's books are unfortunate. Truly unfortunate. They read like Penthouse Forum letters. They read like what a hormone-addled, pimply, thirteen year-old boy would imagine sex to be. The epic nature of them, the female submission to the man's sheer man-ness, all of it: embarrassingly ridiculous. That they focus purely on the animal act, utterly devoid of love, could arguably be said to fit with the bleak nature of the series. Whatever the case, as flaws go, the sex flaw is tragic: Martin directs this vast array of characters and narratives with virtuosic ability, but repeatedly exposes the weakest elements of his writing in these superfluous scenes that could be better expressed through implication.
(Arguably one such scene is not superfluous: that of Khal Drogo and Dany in their yes/no dialog. Yet that scene is one of the most absurd and poorly conceived in the entire series. I can believe in his dragons, his wights, his Others, his Lord of Light. I cannot believe in his concept of sexual intercourse.)
It is possible that my reaction reflects some latent puritanical impulse of which I've been thus far unaware. It is possible that my own concept of these topics is shriveled and puny, that these sexual scenarios I find comical are to most people utterly pedestrian. It is possible that Martin is the greatest lover in the history of the universe. All these and more are possible, but the books would still be better without these scenes. These things are better left unsaid. To make them concrete is to make them ridiculous, disappointing, cheap, useless. Don't you know that, George?
Rowling had the good sense to avoid this topic. (Can you imagine the parental outcry if she hadn't? That would've been fun to see.) She touched on some adolescent physical stuff, but only just. She wisely focused on the more relevant aspect of romance (though Martin's sexcapades could hardly be described thus) through the obsessive lens of adolescence. Her characters desire each other with crippling hormonal longing, and it drives them crazy, but they long to be loved rather than to merely possess or grapple. This aspect of the great sex game is actually worth reading about, because it's actually, you know, interesting. It's the great mystery that occupies so much of our time (until suddenly it doesn't). It can't be solved with simple measures. The aspects with which Martin concerns himself can be solved with a good wank.
In conclusion: I admire Martin's accomplishment, and I admire Rowling's. Both are great fun, particularly if you approach them first and foremost as such; that way, you can be pleasantly surprised at the emotional depth as the series carry on. Yet Rowling's is the more meaningful achievement, in my view. Rowling wrote for twelve year-olds, but achieved something moving and significant. Martin strives for something significant, but unfortunately at times writes like a twelve year-old.
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