A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1)

Rating:
Summary: Everyone loves this book - except me!
Review: The beginning of the book is fantastic. But, I soon found I was bogged down in one more novel with far too many characters, shifts in viewpoint, and unnecessary plot elements. The beginning sets you up to expect more magic than the rest of the book delivers.

Rating:
Summary: Thrilling!
Review: I can think of no better word.Unlike anything I have ever read, Martin twists intrigue and characterization in a tasty little pretzel, without a single mention of "enigmatic" wizards, stupid gemstones or goofy magic swords.His greatest accomplishment was telling a story of war and domination from three different viewpoints(Dany,the Starks, and Tyrion Lannister), showing how each side has its own virtues and vices, and no one is squeaky clean good or scum licking evil.It had been a long time since I read enthralling fantasy, and it made me realize what the wonderfully skillful yet long-winded Jordan lacks.A masterful book of intrigue, sex, romance, war, and everything else that makes a book one of the best in it's genre.

Rating:
Summary: Martin breaks the fantasy genre mold with incredible results
Review: A Game of Thrones is possibly the best first book in a multi-volume fatasy series ever... without wizards, elves, dwarves*, use of magic, orcs, dragons, dark lords breaking free of their prisons and only the briefest mention of anything supernatural or fantastical! I wouldn't have believed it if I had not read it - and I probably wouldn't have read it had I known. I just wouldn't have believed it was fantasy literature! George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" dislodges the great Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" in my "top three" of fantasy, joining J. R. R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" and Tad Williams' "Memory, Sorrow and Thorn". Tad Williams captured Tolkien's "magic" and child-like sense of wonder beautifully without being derivitive (ala Terry Brooks' wonderful but imitative "methadone for fantasy junkies" Shannara series). Martin breaks the fantasy literature mold by recreating the genre with a tale cloaked in a grown-up sense of wonder. Jordan and Williams both personally recommend this great work. *Dwarves, no. Dwarf, yes, in the real world definition!

Rating:
Summary: A work of pure delight!
Review: I can not possibly state how much I have enjoyed this piece of fanatasy. I read a tremendous amount of science fiction/fantasy/sword and sorcery and I am not afraid to state this probably one of the top three books I have ever read. Some of my fellow reviewers will state all of the weaknesses in the plot and characterization but I do not feel a story should be read with that in mind. I read to be gathered up in the lives of the characters for awhile. Mr Martin has done a wonderful job of making me feel that there is some life left in the art of story telling. To date I have loaned out my copy to nine freinds and they have ALL subsequently raced out and purchased their own.

Rating:
Summary: No fantasy author plays intrigue better than Martin
Review: I must admit I read fantasy novels to escape. If I wished to read literature I would pick up Dickens or Hardy. However, I may now add George Martin(more particularly A Game of Thrones) to that list. This book was truly surprising in its scope and depth of plot since most fantasy authors(such as Jordan, Eddings) use their wonderful characters to achieve such success. Not Martin. Although he does have extraodrinary and powerful characters, they are not the focal point of the novel. The intrigue and overall plot carry this book into the realm of true literature.

Rating:
Summary: It's on my top ten list.
Review: "Thrones" might even be on my "Top 3 Best Books" of all times list -- any genre -- any year. Just reviewing everyone's comments here only confirms what I've been thinking this week while falling in love with Ned, Jon, Robb, and yes, even Tyrion. How thrilling to see humans rise with honor above the realities of their lives. And they couldn't rise quite so high without the evil machinations of others -- and this story has real evil and avarice abounding; the lust for power that has perverted man since the dawn of time. But wait--what's this? good and evil? a good bad person? and bad good person? You bet. It's rich, complex, unpredictable. I am so eager to find our what's happened to my news friends. Thanks, George, for this gift to the world.

Rating:
Summary: A Very Good Book. Six more months?
Review: This is the only fantasy book I have read that had me going to the book store and bugging the staff about the sequal. Although I am primarily a moralist and somewhat prudish, the gratuitous sex (some of its needed for plot development, but be reasonable) didn't even deter me from finishing the book in a week end. The characters are compelling and the plots are interesting. There is definite room for a sequal, and it seems as if the Tullocks will be caught between the hammer and anvil duo of Robb Stark and the Khaleesa and her dragons. My only disappointment is that the characters on the wall are left hanging like a broken, flapping appendage at the end of the novel. I do not have nearly as much suspense concerning what is occuring at the wall as I do concerning what is going on down south.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding fantasy book!
Review: This is the best fantasy book I've read. I was mesmerized, start to finish. Be prepared to be unproductive for a while - it is fairly long, smaller print, takes a while to read - and nothing else gets done until you've finished it! I'm dying because the sequel isn't out until JUNE!!

Rating:
Summary: In a nutshell: MAGICAL
Review: Now, since I've read The Lord of the Rings, Tehanu and Stone of Tears, I never thought I could again read such fine high fantasy. But George R. R. Martin knocked all other books, even those three aforementioned, right off my piedestal. The extraordinary charachters, teeming with life, who, true to life's uncertainties, get killed off whereas in other books they would by themselves carry the plot further on, a story in which magic is a ssecretive as it should be and no one is dancing around hefting fireballs at every villager in sight (for a break from usual Dragonlance-like stuff), and a tempo of wild horses which nails you to the bed/chair/bus/office... Yes, George R. R. Martin is the only one worthy of carrying the title 'the next Tolkien' - for he is the one who best shows that fantasy has matured. Oh, so matured.

Rating:
Summary: Fantasy Novel of the Year???? Absolutely!!!!!!!
Review: Move over Tad Williams - Tolkien has a new heir to the Throne. This book has DEPTH. Not since Tolkien's Middle Earth has a world been so fully realized. Here is a story that lingers, haunting the reader long after the last page is turned.