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Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/ “In the game of thrones, even the humblest pieces can have wills of their own.” When I first heard about the Song of Ice and Fire series I assumed it was for supernerds who reside in their mother’s basements and only dare to venture into the daylight in order to L.A.R.P. on the weekends (my apologies to all basement-dwelling-L.A.R.P.E.R.S. for the previous comment). When rumors of the books becoming a series on HBO star...
It's never master prose, but the first three of these novels--eh, particularly the first two--are just so thorough and imaginative that I devoured them, and book three...and, more slowly, book four...and then sort of skipped through book five with the despondent sense that Martin may never finish this series. Honestly, all I want is for Arya to become the Number One Badass Ever and I will be happy. Be warned when you start this series: You'll get invested in the handful of characters you start w...
Right up front — no spoilers, here or bite-sized impressions…This morning, I laid down the last volume of George R.R. Martin’s great opus, A Song of Fire and Ice. After reading the first volume, ushered in (for me at least…) through the graces of HBO’s series, A Game of Thrones, I decided to read the series in hardbound version (probably to add some help for my tired, old eyes, as newsprint covered with small point sized type is not something I can easily settle into). And settle in, I did. My w...
First let me say I know that there are many people who adore this series, and I respect that. For your own peace of mind, and mine, maybe stop reading now. For I did not find A Song of Ice and Fire all that I was lead to expect it to be.Disclaimer: The following review is highly subjective and contains spoilerFor the first two hundred something pages of "A Game of Thrones", I was thrilled enough to buy the boxed set. If I hadn't, book three, "A Storm of Swords", would have been the last for me,
I'm going to start my review of this 5000+ page, still-in-progress monster by saying something that will probably piss off a lot of fantasy fans. High fantasy, as a literary genre, badly needs to be reconstituted. For over 50 years now people who write in this vein have been held in the thrall of writers like Tolkein and C. S. Lewis, writers who for all their imaginative prowess, were far too obsessed with cheap religious parables (Aslan=Jesus, etc.) and linguistic dicking around (made up langua...
Great story cycles usually come in threes (“The Lord of the Rings,” “Griffin and Sabine,” “The Hunger Games”). I wish George R. R. Martin, the author of “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, had confined himself to a trilogy, too. Okay, maybe five books, at the most. Instead, I’m afraid this series which started out so well is going to turn into one of those interminable, overly-ambitious epics that collapse into a big, sprawling mess before finally limping to a conclusion. (Remember the “Earth’s Chi...
This leather-cloth-bound box set is without a doubt the most beautiful thing on my bookshelf. The blurb does not lie - size of these books is extremely convenient and very easy to handle while you read. Paper is super thin, so even though books are long they are not heavy. An edition worth of such masterpiece as is A Song of Ice and Fire. I truly hope that Bantam Books will print books #6 and #7 when they are released in the same format so I can add them to this collection.
The five stars are for the series. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Only wishing were the story complete. But don't let that deter you from venturing in. It's a rich world, five thousand pages of fantastic imagination, detailed enough to immerse yourself in completely.G.R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire is everything that readers - especially those in the fantasy genre - crave for. It's remarkably easy to read, despite its copious length and a mindbogglingly complex plot structure. Martin's language
Wikipedia:A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of epic fantasy novels by the American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. He began the first volume of the series, A Game of Thrones, in 1991, and it was published in 1996. Martin, who initially envisioned the series as a trilogy, has published five out of a planned seven volumes. The fifth and most recent volume of the series, A Dance with Dragons, was published in 2011 and took Martin six years to write. He is currently writing the sixth...
Like most I know, I discovered this series when the HBO television adaption aired on Sky in 2011 and was instantly gripped. Since then I have read all of the books back-to-back and wow... they are AMAZING!I am NOT a typical fantasy fan... in fact the idea of goblins and wizards going off on some good vs evil quest of grand proportions does NOTHING for me. But this is no typical fantasy novel. The story spans several view-points from across the fictional lands of Westeros and beyond. It is a stor...
I've been contemplating my response to this series; it's complicated. On the one hand, since receiving the 1st of the series, I've read all 5 published books. On the other hand, I am continually disappointed in the books.I have not yet seen the vision behind this series; although each POV chapter can "hook" you, I don't believe the author has a clear vision of where he wants his characters to be. There are some truly horrible characters in this series: folks I have absolutely no connection to; f...
From a distance the Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire series looked hypermarketed, blockbusterish, clichéd. No. Real quality. Well, the books are blockbusterish in some ways - the pseudo-medieval setting, padded out with extended descriptions of secondary people, events and situations. But the series has attracted readers far beyond fans of this genre, due to the rich characterisations, plot, and imaginative depth, garnished here and there by passages of very good writing. It is further enhan...
I'm torn on this. I'd like to do 3.5 stars. On one hand, Martin really does have an amazing ability to tell stories. His writing is often very prose-like and reads very easily. He's excellent with details and creating characters that are very believable and easy to get attached to. His characters are very human: some good, some bad, all flawed but very well developed and with motivations. He also tends to kill off many, many characters that by traditional storytelling standards you'd never actua...
There were so many things wrong with this series. The prose was sub-par,and there were too many characters to remember, let alone care about. The scenes in the slave cities felt tedious and unnecessary.It seemed like GRRM dangled us with no true purpose, cutting us off from an interesting storyline and then forcing us to slog through a dull one. One of my greatest gripes were the cliffhangers. I like to see my characters react to a powerful event- I want to hear what they're saying and thinking....
Okay, this book series is serioulsy the BEST! I'll try to make a "crossword" for the reasons why I loved this series :)A~ Amazing Plot! Always kept me in agony, and it never got boring!S~ Stunning worldbuilding. Martin creates cultures, religions, languages, traditions, and he makes us understand all these, whithout even get boring. We all know that many times, worldbuilding seems like a history lesson in some books. But in ASOIAF, we get to understand everything, through the plotline. You can a...
A great fantasy series that will take over your life. The detail and extent to which Martin has gone to create this world will enthrall you on every possible level. Be prepared to shed many tears for fictional characters and become obsessed with the world of Westeros.
I hopefully won't spoil anything for anyone that even bothers to read these reviews, I'm just writing for my own satisfaction and to get my own thoughts of these books out of my head really.I admit I was drawn into these because of the tv series however despite that I've grown fonder of the books, you can't really put the tv series and books into the same category. The books are so in depth to almost, and I say ALMOST, rival Tolkein (note the R R in both Tolkein and Martin, coincidence?) the pol...
Modern classic. I can only recommend to buy the whole bundle as you shall read them all. Once you start reading you can't stop. When you read the last volume you will cry out for more. Parallel you will watch GoT. This is an absolute must read!
I could not put these books down. Though 600-700 (or many more) pages each they are absolutely great. I highly recommend them to anyone who likes the time of kings and knights plus enjoys a fantasy twist. Each book had a "stunner" moment and you wonder how the series can go on, yet it does & does so wonderfully. George RR Martin created a cast of characters that are compelling and he expands upon them in different books so the stories are told from, & about, multiple angles and people. Truly a m...
5 ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS on GoT, now that I have finished A Dance with Dragons.10.) I finally forded the Trident, crossed the Dothraki Sea, braved the Brazen Beasts, sang "The Rains of Castamere," and made it safely home to write this review beside the hearth fire, although chances are that in my coffee is an exotic poison. 9.) Reading a series like this or LoTR makes me think that we must be created in the image of a creative God. If one human can create a world so rich and diverse with nothing bu...