Books A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1)
Books and Publications Average Rating:

Rating: - New to GRRM
I'm not an experienced fantasy reader, even though I'm a big fan of fantasy genre I've only read both Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series and that was a LONG time ago. I was looking for something similar and came upon this great series and I'm sooooo happy that I did.

One of the things that I had a little bit of a problem with at first was keeping up with all of the characters, there are a ton of them. But the epic story telling grabbed a hold of me and I was hooked. It's been a long time since I began to read a book and got completely lost in it. I hope that HBO's mini series lives up to these wonderful books. Completely recommend the books.

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Rating: - Concern
I too must echo many of the concerns I have read regarding "A Song of Ice and Fire." I have to come to really love the characters created in this series and share the concern that we may never see this great story completed. I respect the fact that Mr Martin has many interests but come on - it seems that his site hasn't been updated in a long while and he is busy with many others projects, tours, and other things. At this point I don't know if I should continue reading or simply move on to other great works. PLEASE Mr Martin - focus on completing this series - your fan base AND your characters deserve to this yarn completed!

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Rating: - It's like a kick in the soft spot.
I will start this review off by saying I do not plan on reading any more of this series, not because it is lacking in any meaningful way, but because it is a vast departure from what has come to be expected from the genre. After weaning myself from the barely-there trickle of relevance amid the broken-dam flood of irrelevance in Jordan's Wheel of Time series, this was recommended by a friend in its place.

Where Wheel of Time reads more like what would happen if The Young and the Restless somehow procreated with a few episodes of Dragon Ball Z (the dragging plot tantamount to characters staring at one another and grunting for episodes on end while cookie-cutter protagonists do everything you expect them to and disappoint at the same time), A Game of Thrones promises a series with a gritty disregard for conventional aspects of the genre. In the first half of the book we witness a seven year old thrown from a roof after witnessing two siblings having sex (rendered crippled, like, really crippled, not 'suddenly there was magic healing and everything was okay' crippled), a girl who's barely a teenager sold to and bred by some massive barbarian king (with almost pornographic detail used to describe it each time it happens), and a character who appears to be centric to the story permanently removed from the roster via deheadification.

While none of this appeals to me as a reader, the merits of such an approach should not be overlooked by those who can potentially appreciate it. This fantasy world introduces its more fantastic elements at sparse intervals, rendering it believable and gritty. Protagonists and antagonists alike seem evenly matched (this does not suffer from 'farm boy sent on a quest to save the world from evil' syndrome), and my only gripe with the characters is that the ones I like are either constantly beaten down or killed altogether. After a while, it grows depressing.

The series shows promise in this excellent first installment, but be warned that the experience is not for those expecting something light, happy, and typical. Pick this up if you're ready for brutal believability and realism, not if you want another cliche 'save the world' epic.

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Rating: - Fantastic, well written, enthralling!
This series is the best I've read in a long time. It's very well written, will keep you guessing, and you'll come to care about the characters (even the antagonists!).

George R.R. Martin is brilliant.