Rating: 
Summary: Fantasy? Whose?
Review: I will not contest that the writing is excellent, it is. I will not tell you that I didnt spend many nights unable or unwilling to put the book down way past a sane hour for sleep, I did. And yet, when I finished this book, I felt the fool for having wasted so much time with it.I think it comes down to what you want from your fantasy. I want characters I can love and believe in and who I know will somehow, no matter how grievious hard their path may be, manage to survive and make things right. Martin doesnt care about characters here. He cares about plot, and the realistic, organic, authentic world he believes he is creating--which smacks of arrogance to me. He creates characters that you can esteem, but he has no especial regard for them. And while his plot may entertain us, because he has no love for the people who occupy his world, he cannot hope to satisfy us. Martin's book/world is not a decent, honorable place, nor is it a place where decent honorable people can hope to survive. Time after time he seemed most interested in proving Dark Helmet's (from "Space Balls") hypothesis that Evil will always defeat Good, because Good is dumb. Unfortunately for me that kind of world doesnt fulfill my requirements of a fantasy. I am not asking for Pollyanna, but I expect, wholeheartedly and unquestioningly, that fantasy literature will be Comedy as defined by Aristotle--meaning that at the end the good guys win, and not tragedy where they do not. This book, I suppose, in the end, is a tragedy, and although I have often wept for "friends" I have "lost" in fantasy novels, I stayed the course (in those books) because I believed that their sacrifice would pay off. I do not have that hope here. Martin's writing is excellent, and the plot fascinating, but what is a fantasy without people you can root for and love? Martin has created compelling characters here, but he never breathed the breath of love into them, and so, if he, as their creator cant love them, at the end of the book I am left with the question, why should we?
Rating: 
Summary: After sitting through 8 books of Jordan...I found this!
Review: I came off of rereading Jordan's books for the second time, and was certain that I'd never read another fantasy book (when WILL that thing END?) for as long as I lived. But this one was recommended to me by a friend with the words "You've never read anything like it. I swear." Well, he was right, because I hadn't. It moves at a good pace - instead of three chapters saying "The river was blue, they crossed it at 8 pm, nothing happened, but let me tell you ALL about it..." there was the amazing sentence "They crossed the river" - and the characters speak like normal people, with no thee's and thou's used improperly, with the kind of bawdy language one doesn't usually see a fantasy novel. You know, the actual words used by people who lived during the time of serfs. The classes are well defined, not by skill or wealth like most books, but by birth, and the place of women in the old society is well represented, no matter how much power they hold behind the scenes. While the book does borrow heavily from a few English and Scottish legends...well, who doesn't? Definitely a good read, and mercifully short! Check out the second book, as well.
Rating:
Summary: A Game Of Thrones
Review: I really don't read books like A Game Of Thrones often. Ithink it is because I cant find a book as good as it. I might be alittle too young for some of the ummm things in it (11 years old) But I loved the plot and char. I was up till late at night reading A Game Of Thrones. It did take me a long week to read the book. But it was very exciting and I think YOU should read it! It was a very complicated plot. I had to go to the back of the book a lot so I could remember who was who.
Rating:
Summary: A Game Of Thrones
Review: I really don't read books like A Game Of Thrones often. I think it is because I cant find a book as good as it. I might be a little too young for some of the ummm things in it. But I loved the plot and char. I was up till late at night reading A Game Of Thrones. It did take me a long week to read the book. But it was very exciting and I think YOU should read it! It was a very complicated plot. I had to go to the back of the book a lot so I could remember who was who. The book ended in the middle of a war between two houses so now I HAVE to get the next book!
Rating: 
Summary: A Game of Chapters
Review: I'll admit that Martin can weave a tale.. But 'twas like standing next to a drunken man forgetting which story he was telling.. "Jon Snow was sent to the wall..." Gulp. "Where was I... A Lady Stark was a woman, a fine one.." Gulp "Lannister, ah, yes, was small fellow, midgets tend to be that way." Gulp... Add ten or more characters all main characters. He should have taken a few, like Jon Snow and told a tale and not a bit of this and a bit of that. With the future girth of his books to come I certainly appreciate books like Reichert's The Legend of Nightfall... One book can tell it all. Although a don't like her epic work either...
Rating:
Summary: This Book Is Awesome!
Review: I literally picked this book up at the bookstore based entirely on its cool cover. But the cover does not lie. This book has it all. Lots of action, great characters, mystery, intrigue. You name it, it's got it. Definitely one of the best in the genre.
Rating:
Summary: A Warning and then Praise
Review: WARNING: This book is not for the easily offended. It is very probably not for young children, unless very mature. It contains realistic acts of violence, murder, explicit sexuality, vulgar language, greed, cowardice, deceit, and _politics_. It is often grim and dark, with good characters hurt and wicked characters rewarded. And, indeed, most of the characters are rather more grey than black and white in their goodness and wickedness. This novel is also the first of six books in an epic fantasy series, by necessity all interwoven together, and so it does not tell a complete story on its own. It also uses a narrative technique where many characters have POV chapters, and these chapters can be widely separated, sometimes even cutting into the middle of the current action and leaving one hanging for half-a-dozen (or more) intervening POV chapters of other characters. If any of these things make you run for cover, you can now pass this novel by safe in the knowledge that it does not suit your tastes. With that aside: _A Game of Thrones_ is one of the most brilliant fantasy novels written in the last five decades. Bold and forceful, unblinking in the face of doing terrible and unexpected things to characters, Mr. Martin has shown that epic fantasy is more than just magic and monsters. This is a story about the complex interactions between people, and the things they do for vengeance, for love, for power. The characters are perfectly drawn, because they are human - some are brilliant, some are ignorant, many are "normal", and _all_ make mistakes. The magnificent sweep of events, the fateful choices that lead to glory or to death (or both at once), the precious peace in the eye of the storm - it's all there, laid out as true to reality as one can imagine.
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Summary: Buy this book...don't wait....you won't be sorry
Review: This book came highly recommended by two series fantasy readers that I know (All there fantasy books are hardcover, and they read everything and hate a good amount of the stuff) Anyway, I hadn't read too many good fantasy series lately. So was I ever amazed and hooked to George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series What I love: Things happen (no stringing one thing out over a handful of books, He starts and finishes major plot lines within a book as well as major plots that are always suprising and fresh). I was in awe to experience the grand ideas and feel the excitement with each chapter (and book). Another thing I liked the women aren't these annoying little pests or male clones in female bodies. Female characters are actually realistic and enjoyable to read about.
Rating:
Summary: Martin and Jordan incomparable.
Review: I bought this book when there was a bit of a drought of good fantasy novels on the market, or at least there seemed to be. Martin sets an excellent scene in this first of the series and then proceed's to leave me wondering if i ever read a better Science Fiction novel. I have read very good novels in the past where the story is split by the concurrent goings on of several characters only to feel that i want to skip a chapter to move to the more exciting goings on of another character. This was not the case with this one. I eagerly await his second. Tell truth i already read it, and am eagerly awaiting the third :_)
Rating:
Summary: Modern Masterpiece of Fantasy
Review: Why you should read this book: 1. You've read "Lord of the Rings" and feel unhappy because you think you'll never read a book as good as this again. - You're wrong 2. You always wondered what it was like to live in the middle-ages. 3. You're tired of characters that are less intelligent than yourself and want to be challanged while reading. 4. You're tired of semiocre writes living by semiocre books with semiocre characters doing semiocre deeds. 5. You know that "receiving" means "giving" - and that applies for good books too. I just feel sorry for everyone that has not read this one.
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