He's planned out only seven books. I couldn't stand the Wheel of Time series because of how it would take 3 books for anything significant to happen.

I just hope Martin doesn't pull a Robert Jordan and stretch out the series way to much. Feast for crows was so disappointing. Still hoping on Dance with Dragons comes out soon before he loses to much of a fanbase and sales are hurt.

Well, I guess I'm glad they split it, otherwise we'd still be waiting for this half. ;)

Feast has a tragic story.

Originally, all of that material was supposed to be part of Dance with Dragons, and those chapters would be interwoven with chapters about the other characters.

Unfortunately, they decided to split the book in two, release half of it as Feast, and the other half as Dance. Feast and Dance will be the only two books in the series that are happening at the same time, which is also confusing.

The moral of the story is: publishers don't like 500,000 word books.

So I'm in the middle of "A Feast for Crows" and this is definitely my least favorite of the series. The characters are just not as interesting and I find myself skipping some of the long paragraph of details in some parts. But the last three were fantastic! This one is good, but just not excellent IMO.

Tyrion is also a favorite of mine.

For me...
Tyrion is the reason I read the series. And Brienne the Beauty, the Hound, and Jaime are my three other favorites. I don't much care for Arya, or Sansa, or Robb or Cat or anything else. Though, I will admit that as the story goes on and the characters evolve, the ones I didn't like at first are so changed and shaped by their environment and what happens to them that I grow to like them.

I'd also like to add that Peter Dinklage will be playing Tyrion in the HBO series. Fantastic and phenomenal casting job right there. Not to mention Sean Bean as Ned. Freaking swoon. I'm a 26 year old male, and I'm so excited at the prospects of this show that I feel like what I imagine a 16 year old girl feels like when going to see her favorite band ever.

I read and enjoyed the first two volumes, but decided to wait until the entire series is done before continuing.

If you enjoy relatively believable fantasy set in a world heavily inspired by our own history, as GRRM has done, I highly recommend Guy Gavriel Kay. He doesn't have the brutality or quite the epic scope of GRRM's series but his prose significantly is better. I'd suggest Tigana (set in a world very much like Renaissance Italy) or The Lions of Al-Rassan (a world very much like Muslim-ruled Spain). And a bonus: you don't have to suffer through a massively long series, as most of his books are stand-alone novels or duologies.

Arya is a fan favorite.

Usually I'm a sucker for the dainty female characters (which I suppose would be Sansa, which I don't like), but it's Arya that I find one of the most interesting characters so far.

Now at 750 pages... almost done!

I'm at 550 pages and I can't put the damn thing down. I think it's starting to cause marital problems.

Exciting news about the pilot: http://grrm.livejournal.com/95840.html

Yep, George is a huge fan of British history, especially the monarchy. There's a lot of war of the roses in there.

Yeah. A Song of Ice and Fire is probably the greatest series I've ever read. Tolkien may have been the one to give us dwarves and elves as we know them in classic fantasy, but GRRM's story has a depth and creativity and darkness to it that is so rare with fantasy.

Truly, a fantastic series.

Not to mention that HBO has expressed interest in a Game of Thrones TV series. Mmm. Peter Dinklage is cast as Tyrion, and latest rumor (which has yet to be disproven) places Sean Bean as Ned.

I absolutely adore these books, but I really wish I hadn't started reading them before the series was finished. GRRM seems to get slower and s-l-o-w-e-r at writing them (for which I don't blame him, but I am impatient) and the wait for the latest is just killing me.

Like Daniel, though, I do like that he's not afraid to kill people off. It does make everything much more interesting.

One thing I like — and at the same time, don't like — is George doesn't seem afraid to kill people off. So I'm never really sure what's going to happen. They might actually die. And events are a little darker than what I'm used to.

The language flows well — it doesn't get in the way, but I also don't find it profoundly beautiful, like I do Steinbeck or Dickens. But that's fine — the strength is in the plot and the characters.

Almost at 200 pages and still really enjoying it!

I tried to read Game of Thrones once, couldn't get into it. I'm not sure why, but I put it down after about 100 pages and never picked it back up again.

I can't remember - aren't those loosely based on the War of the Roses?

I'm about 100 pages in, and so far I'm enjoying it. Definitely getting into the story now — the initial jump in characters/places was a bit confusing at first, but now that it has mostly settled on Winterfell I think I've got everything straight. The characters are believable and I love the detail that goes into the world conception.

I haven't read much in the modern fantasy genre — most of my exposure is to Tolkien & Lewis from back when I was a Christian. So I'm breaking into new ground, and it's enjoyable.

Thanks for recommending it!

Let me know what you think, Daniel.