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Jan 24, 2012

Keely rated it:

There are plenty of fantasy authors who claim to be doing something different with the genre. Ironically, they often write the most predictable books of all, as evidenced by Goodkind and Paolini. Though I'm not sure why they protest so much; predictability is rarely a death sentence in genre fantasy.

The archetypal story of the hero, the villain, the great love, and a world to be saved never seems to get old--and there's nothing wrong with this story when it's told well. At the best, More...

335 comments like (187 people liked it)

Sep 20, 2011

Shannon rated it:

I really feel the necessity of a bit of personal backstory here, before I start the review. Back in 1996 when this book first came out, and I was about 14 or 16 years old, I saw the hardcover on a sale table for about $5 and couldn't resist a bargain (still can't, though I'm more cautious these days). So I started reading this book with the vague idea that it was a flop, and that may not have helped, but I got through 100 pages of it before feeling so crapped off with it that I shoved it in my c More...

172 comments like (199 people liked it)

Feb 03, 2012

Anila rated it:

WARNING: If you enjoyed this book, even a little bit, you may not want to read this review. It will probably make you angry. Heaven knows that the book made me furious, and I intend to turn every bit of that wrath back on it.
Instead, I suggest you read karen's review, Aerin's review, Joyzi's review, or any other of the gushing four and five-star reviews here. If video reviews are more your style, I suggest Melina Pendulum's vlog about this book.
Realistically, I know a lot of you a More...

229 comments like (43 people liked it)

Jan 13, 2012

Ceridwen rated it:

An open letter to George R R Martin:

Dear Mr. Martin,

While I love killer zombies and nobles stabbing peasants in the throat, I think your world doesn't make any sense. If there really were an environment that had ten years of winter and ten of summer, there's no ruddy way that a culture from that environment would engage in war in the manner they do in this book. Or they would totally die off and be replaced by a culture comprised of people who weren't a bunch of short-si More...

36 comments like (43 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Jesse rated it:

I know no one reading this knows me much (well some of you may) but I DON'T reread books. I usually read a book once and its quite well locked into my brain. As much as I've enjoyed many books I've read, they just don't require a second read for me. I read them, now its time to move on. "A Game of Thrones" is different. I loved this book and its characters so much, and crave the world and narrative so much that I couldn't wait for Martin to get the newest installment out. So I st More...

12 comments like (104 people liked it)

Nov 16, 2011

Aerin rated it:

I gave up on epic fantasy a long, lonnnnnnnnng time ago. In those dark days when I was too old for children's books, contemptuously uninterested in the YA available at the time (mostly "horror" novels featuring haunted prom dresses or whatever, or after-school-special books about capital-I Issues like drugs or teen pregnancy), and completely unsure how to navigate the treacherous waters of the Adult Fiction section of the library, I turned to fantasy for comfort. I loved fantasy! I' More...

20 comments like (39 people liked it)

Dec 05, 2011

Brad rated it:

I am finished. My real review will be coming soon (and here it is), but here's the last installment of my reading journal for those who are still interested. This star rating reflects my feelings about the last quarter of the book and may not be my final rating for the book in its entirety. Since I am writing about the book as I go, there will necessarily be spoilers, so don't continue if you want to avoid them.

My Game of Thrones Journal: volume iv

Arya -- I sure hope Syr More...

8 comments like (21 people liked it)

Sep 07, 2011

Mariel rated it:

My brown eyes that hover below the average height of eye to eyeness because of my midgety 5'5 frame struggled in valiant honour inside my pasty white face, despite the ten years of Florida summers, to soak up the cheese whiz blanketed pages with the driest crust of bread of the whole rest of the book. So tasteless this crust was that a Gulag inmate would have turned it down. "No, thank you but the cheese formed with the bread into a kind of glue that got caught in my throat and I couldn't b More...

20 comments like (34 people liked it)

Jun 16, 2011

Hazel rated it:

I'm somewhat disappointed by this. I found it fun and entertaining for the first couple of hundred pages. It was interesting and engaging, and I could see why it's being filmed. But as the book progressed my enjoyment waned. It may be mostly me.

First, I've come to fantasy from science fiction, and expect writers to be logical and consistent in their world-building. I love Martin's idea of a climate where winter can last for years and summer can last for years, but he doesn't seem to ha More...

22 comments like (47 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Allen rated it:

A friend and I were talking about Tolkien one night after a sesh of Call of Cthulhu and he came at me with the insane standpoint that George RR Martin's breed of fantasy is superior, though indebted to, Prof. Tolkien. I immediately informed my friend that he was once again proving the ineptitude of his intellect. Tolkien is the father of modern fantasy and the ultimate writer within the genre. This is not opinion but fact.
That said I was intrigued and promised said friend to look into thi More...

8 comments like (95 people liked it)

Aug 28, 2011

K.D. rated it:

I did not mean to read this book. My copy was just given to me by a friend as gift for my 47th birthday last month. I think I am too old for fantasy. Life in itself has too much of it and I don't think I need to read more. I enjoyed a couple of Tolkien's works last year and that friend knew that I also shared her love for Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's and I thought that was the reason why she gave me this book. I am past the halftime of my life so what I am trying to do now is to read the books in More...

21 comments like (27 people liked it)

May 13, 2011

Becky rated it:

Before I read this book, I had read some reviews which had me wondering if this one would be something I'd like, reviews from people whose opinions I trust. I am willing to read anything though, so the book stayed on my "TBR Someday" mental list... Until I decided to read it along with some friends. Friends who then got me so excited to read this that all of my reservations were hanging by a thread and blowing in the breeze.

And I can honestly say that not only did this boo More...

20 comments like (44 people liked it)

Sep 27, 2011

The Flooze (Michelle M.) rated it:

**4.5**

I got the first book of A Song of Ice and Fire for free at last year’s New York Comic Con. I’d heard wonderful things about the series, yet I held off on reading it.

I’m not one for traditional fantasy. Swords and sorcery call to mind my experiences with Tolkien: the exhaustive descriptions of landscapes, the sweeping battle scenes filled with incomprehensible strategic maneuvers, the jumping around between characters and places that had me constantly flipping to t More...

24 comments like (14 people liked it)

Sep 29, 2011

Ryan rated it:

In A Game of Thrones, Martin's dwarf, Tyrion Lannister, explains that "most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it."

True, I think. Isn't that why we read fantasy novels about gallant knights that die fighting bravely against the undead? Sure, they die, but they die bravely. When other soldiers die serving their lord, they die loyally. Regardless, the Dark Lord will eventually implode and flowers will bloom, unlike in reality.

Of all the characters in fan More...

3 comments like (19 people liked it)

Mar 25, 2008

Tom rated it:

I want to give A game of Thrones five stars, but alas, I cannot. It is a fantastic epic tale with engaging heroes, and nasty villains that one would enjoy to slap silly. I found myself emotionally invested in the fate of the Stark family. Unfortunately, the book contains some glaring problems.

First, Martin throws sex into the book willy-nilly. It's like a horny twelve year old got his typewriter and went to town. It would be one thing if the sex were provocative and, well sexy, b More...

13 comments like (79 people liked it)

Aug 19, 2011

Lucy rated it:

Long winded doesn't even begin to describe George R. R. Martin's writing style. Nothing I can say about this book will be a revelation to anyone who has read it. It should have been at least 25% slimmer. I fear the book itself would've been a thousand or more words shorter had just the term 'bastard' been omitted. I'm not sure why out of marriage births were enforced and reinforced so often. Did Martin not trust his audience to grasp how awful it was to be a bastard the first fifty, sixty, seven More...

15 comments like (23 people liked it)

Jun 05, 2011

Martha rated it:

I am on page 470, and although it pains me to put a book down unfinished, it is simply time to for me quit.

A Song of Ice and Fire is the Grey's Anatomy of fantasy. It isn't perfect in the beginning (it's pretty flawed, actually), but you think "That's okay, the premise is good! It will improve!" And then before you know it, everyone is having everyone else's baby and murdering their mother (who is also their sister, and a schizophrenic) and traveling around on horseback set More...

17 comments like (53 people liked it)

Dec 05, 2011

Maria rated it:

I like A Game of Thrones.

*****

Bran thought about it. ‘Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?’
‘That is the only time a man can be brave,’ his father told him.

DISHEARTENING.

A Game of Thrones just got personal. I was warned that GRRM has a habit of killing off characters, may they be decent or not. But oh, was I enraged when he did kill one of the main leads and another one worth pitting with the lords and knights fighting for power. It doesn’t make any f More...

7 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jun 28, 2011

Lisa Kay rated it:

Warning: Don’t expect Donna Reed to show up in this one.

★★★★★ I loved it, I hated it, I couldn’t put it down, I vowed never to pick it up and read another chapter. Yeah. I went on an emotional roller-coaster ride with this fantasy Machiavellian soap-opera. It grabbed a hold of me and wouldn’t let go, even when I pleaded for mercy. I can’t image what those poor people, who don’t read, are doing while they wait for the next installment of this series to come out on HBO.

More...

45 comments like (30 people liked it)

Aug 03, 2011

Brad rated it:

I am nearly half way through now, so I thought it was time to put up the second installment of my reading journal. My star rating is always where I at in the book at the time of writing. It's going to fluctuate. Since I am writing about the book as I go, there will necessarily be spoilers, so don't continue if you want to avoid them.

My Game of Thrones Journal: volume ii

Tyrion--I really enjoyed his discussion with the Lord Commander, and Mormont’s request for more troops More...

12 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

John rated it:

This may be the best Fantasy I've read since J.R.R. Tolkien. I highly recommend it to any fans of the Lord of the Rings series who have been disappointed by the other supposed epics that have shown up since. Martin has created a sprawling world, full of intrigue and potential, and sowed it with characters who can carry out interesting conflicts within it. His prose is far more readable than the average Fantasy writer, capable of beautiful phrases and sweeping passages, but also excellent at carr More...

2 comments like (24 people liked it)

Jun 27, 2011

Jessi rated it:

First things first. Someone needs to get Jessi a Direwolf,Stat.

I mean come on.Look at the face.
Anyway back to the book, maybe this should be five stars, I really loved it, but I started this book because I started watching and LOVING HBO's Game of Thrones and I am not sure which I love more. The show or the book?

The book is great fantasy it is set in a world where seasons can lasts years and winters have killed entire generations, I found this facinating but t More...

10 comments like (30 people liked it)

Jun 04, 2007

Siria rated it:

I've not read any high fantasy in a long, long time, but I decided to pick this up purely because so many people on my flist were raving about the series. I can definitely see why it's a best-seller. It's long, with solid prose and a plot which is complex, but not overly so; the pacing is good, and the action is mostly organic, not engineered. Martin's characterisation is probably his best point. He has a vast array of characters, and switches POV between seven or eight different characters thro More...

8 comments like (14 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Kelly rated it:

Ed Note the 2nd: Okay, so on the fifth or so re-reading, I can now laugh at George's conceits as well as get lost in his incredibly rich world and get thrills from it. I've grown out of my pure emotional attachment to the books, and I certainly see more flaws than I did, but it doesn't detract from the reading experience. Its fantasy. Go with it.

Ed Note: In the vain hope that Martin isn't lying to us and the next book really is coming out fairly soon I'm going to re-read these books More...

25 comments like (15 people liked it)

Mar 14, 2011

Amelia rated it:

Rubbish! It is amazing with the detail and complexity of plot...but don't expect a damn thing to be resolved after you slave your way through all 807 thin assed pages of miniscule print!

I'm still deciding if I care enough to read the next. If I do, it will be Arya that leads me on.

43 comments like (22 people liked it)

Jul 27, 2011

Kelly rated it:

No one is more shocked than yours truly for falling head over heels for Game of Thrones. My first foray into the world of epic fantasy (I guess that’s the genre) was with the Hobbit. Yeah, it was so not the book for me, much to the chagrin of my Shire-loving family. Love the movies though. Then I ventured once again into epic fantasy territory with The Sword of Truth series. Let’s just say, we amicably parted ways after book 1. So as you can see, I’m just not into milady, m’lord, swords and d More...

6 comments like (9 people liked it)

Apr 25, 2011

Ben rated it:

I know I keep telling this story over and over, and I feel like I've been talking about those books I consider "formative" to my interest in fantasy and science fiction rather a lot lately—probably because I've been re-reading some of them. So apologies if the anecdotes have become tiresome. Nevertheless, it is necessary in this case for the wavey lines of flashback to cascade down your computer screen, for A Song of Ice and Fire played such a big role in kindling my love for fantasy t More...

8 comments like (13 people liked it)

Oct 17, 2011

Joyzi rated it:

Yay! Finally, I finished this monstrous book. Seriously reading it feels like it was even longer than the HBO series which has ten episodes. Anyway I really like this book and I think presently I am very obsessed with it. I am even considering to have it as my top 1 favorite book of all time and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins needs to step down and give that spot to Game of Thrones. However, I think I just need to finish reading the other books to make it more fair to the other books that I ha More...

23 comments like (12 people liked it)

Aug 23, 2011

Monique rated it:

I have had my share of fantasy readings prior to picking up “A Game of Thrones” by George R.R. Martin – I have read J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy trilogy, “The Lord of the Rings”; its prequel, “The Hobbit”; the comprehensive backgrounder to the trilogy, “The Silmarillion”, and; “The Children of Hurin”, as well. Some years back, I also read, with no small influence from my husband (the fantasy “purist”, he likes to be called) the first two books in Terry Brooks' Shannara series, “The Sword of Sh More...

18 comments like (12 people liked it)

Aug 03, 2011

pinknantucket rated it:

Hmm..."A Game of Thrones"... the book I read to see if it was really true. A Game of Thrones first came to my notice via the attentions of a Twitter spambot, who tweeted what seemed to be extracts from a racy fantasy novel ("The dragon does not beg, slut!") in between links to porn and new iPads or whatever. A fellow tweeter put one of the quotes into Google and discovered the quotes were from an actual book! And not just any book, an IMMENSELY POPULAR book beloved by fans wo More...

8 comments like (11 people liked it)