A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

[Jeff]

Just because plenty seem to be reading/read recently. Careful with the spoilers!

[Wes]

In reading A Song of Ice and Fire, it is easy to get bogged down in all the details, or miss subtleties of the plot because you forgot about a connection between two characters that was hinted a hundred pages ago. This problem is exacerbated if you go for a length of time between reading books in the series.

There are two great references for the books: www.westeros.org and www.towerofthehand.com. I particularly recommend Tower of the Hand because many of the summaries, articles, and essays include a "scope" feature that limits spoilers. (So you can say, for example, "I haven't read past Book 2" and the site won't show you any plot developments beyond that point.) Of course no system is spoiler-perfect, so use it at your own risk, but with some care this can be an awesome tool.

[Jeff]

I love Westeros.org, though I admit it was full of spoilers. That said, I was using it to design a Game of Thrones prequel RPG, set 10 years before the series (as many of my players hadn't read beyond book one)

[Sean]

I'm going to read this one - embarrassed to say that I haven't yet, as it seems to be essential geek lit.

[Jason]

I'm currently on the 2nd book in this series, but I'd like to follow along in the discussion. I'll keep it spoiler free!

[Ludesfactor]

Not readily finding my copy of Dune, I may instead reread this ...

[Sean]

Hard call Ben - both seem like geek favorites. I've read Dune, but not this one - so I recommend you read this one, so we can discuss it!! ;)

[Dawn]

How do you keep it spoiler free? I liked when... that guy did, ya know, did that thing... really well written! ;P

[Jeff]

Dune is definitely more stand alone -- the later books are separated by significant time (often generations.. it's definitely a galactic timescale). AGoT has the issue you may find yourself reading all the (available) books once you start -- there's much more benefit to following the character development in-depth, something that suffers from time away. I myself will be reading Dune, and probably popping in here every once in awhile to read chapters of my favorite characters.

[Jeff]

For reading it, I suggest someone who's done it before split it into sections (read up to the nth Brandon chapter, then discuss that part), and possibly a first impressions of the first few chapters as well?

[David]

I'm in the same boat as Ben. I want to read both. For now, I'm going to read Dune. But I intend to start on AGoT soon thereafter.