A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

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Submitted by Mr Foster 
(Feb 03, 2010)

all i can say is that george rr martin is up with the absolute best like R Feist,Steven Ericksson,Tad williams, R jordan and yes not a critics favourite but one of mine Terry goodkind (tolkien is nothing compared to this lot) martin is possibly one of the best i have read up to now it excited me all the way through its a lustful dark but still colourful book super fantastic DEFINATLEY No 1 at the moment looking forward to the hbo series due out in 2011 a must read!

all i can say is that george rr martin is up with the absolute best like R Feist,Steven Ericksson,Tad williams, R jordan and yes not a critics favourite but one of mine Terry goodkind (tolkien is nothing compared to this lot) martin is possibly one of the best i have read up to now it excited me all the way through its a lustful dark but still colourful book super fantastic DEFINATLEY No 1 at the moment looking forward to the hbo series due out in 2011 a must read!

I SO very much have to agree with the very first poster. I too thought the first book was very good indeed. It definitely warranted reading of the second, or so I thought. The only thing is, that by the time I reached the middle to last part of the second I was beginning to become disenchanted.

While for the most part well-written, it was getting pretty boring and implausible in that although (of course) you know you are reading a fictional series, you still expect it to have somewhat of a basis in reality, and to be honest, it seemed very unrealistic to me that almost every single good guy, good / better characters in the book get killed, die, have the most unfortunate series of events befall them (yes, even for a work of fiction) while the 'bad' guys just meander about getting new characters to be bad to.

Despite all this, I also picked up the third book, thinking that the author may have just wanted to drag out the series for more money and that the second book was just an older but okay-tasting snack to tide you over until a nice meal is in front of you. With this in mind, the third book was even worse! Did anyone ever tell this guy that good guys can win, at least every once in a while? Did anyone ever tell him that not everyone is evil and that evil characters should not ALWAYS win ... I mean at least not in a book that is meant to keep this reader interested.

Finally, as the saying goes: Fool me once, shame on you; foll me twice ... yup! You got it! I picked up the fourth book and here is where I had to draw the line. It became unbearable to just re-read the same things without ever really moving forward or moving toward a satisfactory feeling of having been at least a little fulfilled. Then, the biggest slap was the closing statements by the author (and I paraphrase): "Hey fools, wait a minute. I know some of you may be saying “Wait a minute, wait a damn minute - I just read four immensely idiotic books and the author is milking them and yet ... where is this chracater, or this one, or that other one? WHAT HAPPENED??? That can’t be all of it. . . . Well, no. There’s more to come. Another book as big as this one ..." I felt like taking a plane to George RR Martin's hometown and playing with his TV in that I would turn it off before any program or movie he was watching could end, so he too would be wondering "hey, what the heck just happened"?

Needless to say, not one more penny from me nor another hour wasted on this series. In fact, I found this webpage by doing a serch for "a song of fire and ice stupid".

Save yourself the effort.

When I picked up and read A Game of Thrones for the first time (a recommendation from my brother) I was completely drawn in. The characters are well developed, and the story line is interesting. I liked it so much, I stuck it through the second book, A Clash of Kings. I even made it halfway through the third book. If you are like me, please don't let yourself be sucked in. Just don't even pick up the first book! Although Martin has a well described world and great characters, A) there is no true discernible plot, and B) He kills off all the good characters! I kept reading, hoping for some gratification, and none came. More good guys died. Bad guys continued to live and win. I can take a beloved character dying, but killing off every good character is infuriating and cliche. No one wants to see the bad guys win, especially when you take such care to write true good characters and true evil. And as for the realism you will hear from some reviewers, it's a load of BS. The characters Martin writes are nowhere near realistic, and to top it all off, he hates women, and writes them all in as fools and whores. The only "realism" praise comes from evil winning EVERY time. If you can call that realism. Do yourself a favor, just don't read it.

It is clear that George R. R. Martin's ASoIaF series has a unique place in the fantasy literature, be it the moral greyness of the setting, the many points of view, the realism, or the sympathy it can provide in the reader for several characters which are antagonistic to each other. The writing is very fluent, descriptions are not boring, and the pages seem to turn by themselves, as you cannot lay the book aside even for ten seconds to answer a question from your friends. These positive attributes raise the series to a very high status among hundreds of fantasy novels and series that don't distinguish themselves. While all this is true, there are several aspects of the book that I did not like. I wish to discuss these shortly.
First of all, there are "good" characters in this book, and "evil" ones. Yes, we develop a sympathy for these characters as we read along and get a chance to look from their points of view, and see their reasons for doing the things they did, but this does not make them any less cruel or less egoistic. Almost every reader will favor House Stark above others, and hate House Lannister as much as they like House Stark. Though there are likeable properties of for example Jaime, another Lannister character, Cersei proves to be impossible to be liked. Many readers' positive observations from these series include the sympathy one can have for single characters which plot against eachother, but I couldn't find this sympathy in me for several, like for Tywin or Cersei Lannister, or the Mountain or Vargo Hoat. The latter two seem so cruel that they are almost implausible. Cersei Lannister's vanity is almost as disgusting. The point I am trying to make is: This book DOES depict the ancient battle of good and evil, in the form of Stark and Lannister. The good and evil is just not magical and ancient, that is all it distinguishes it from other fantasy series.
Second point, some of the women characters, like Catelyn and Sansa Stark, or Cersei Lannister, show so stupid behavior, that they become implausible. One almost has the feeling that George R. R. Martin wanted to show us that even the few women who played central roles in this story of blood and war had no business being there. They mostly don't understand things, make unlogical moves, are vain, and cost lives of others. I'm still waiting for a woman character that will spark the sympathy in me. Arya Stark doesn't count, since he could just be a boy as well. Just change the name and the minor details to fit.
Third, this story doesn't seem to go anywhere. I am reading the fourth book by now, and nothing happens anymore, that is interesting. It's like everything is over, everyone fought and had losses, no one really got what they wanted, though the things are in favor of the bad guys. The suspense of the first three books is gone, leaving its place to long descriptions of several small old places in the continent of westeros, as relatively unimportant characters go from place to place while nothing important happens to them. The whole thing has come to a halt, and I can't imagine anything interesting happening anymore. Almost every travesty we have seen, the crown has changed twice, the hand I don't know how many times. Even the Iron Men capturing the Iron Throne would only make me yawn I think. The focus should have been on new interesting characters and or new accomplishments of them which the reader can sympathize with. For example Beric Dondarrion and his pack, Asha Greyjoy, Bran becoming a shapechanger, or Arya becoming and assassin. There are so many interesting plots, but George Martin chooses to dwell on Cersei's plots and Brienne's travels. Both uninteresting characters.
One last point: George Martin disappoints the reader too easily. He just gives a nice little victory, then he kills the most liked character and rips the heart out of the reader. During the first three books I did not know if I liked the series or hated it. No matter what everyone says, no reader likes so much injustice being done to his heroes. When you finish every book you lay it down and are filled with anger and dissatisfaction so large it eats you up. I don't know if this is positive or negative, it certainly makes you want to see the bad guys tortured and killed, and makes you emotionally very strongly involved in the happenings. But from some point on it you avoid to develop emotional bonds to the protagonists, because you are afraid they could die any second. And you expect to happen bad things every time so you don't get crushed when it does. This does take much of the surprise element and the thrill away. Maybe that is why the plot has become less interesting for me.