A Song of Fire and Ice

George RR Martin

"I'm not a huge fan of fantasy novels to being with and this seemed like a very fantasy, hardcore fantasy novel. Its 900 pages, four books so far, I mean it would be a lot of work. But, everyone who I talked to and who I trusted in terms of reading books said that this was a series that you had to read. It was a new kind of fantasy series that was just, it broke the mold and was really interesting. So, I picked up the first one and I couldn't down any of them.

So, the books take place in this fantasy world where magic has existed in the past, but it doesn't really exist any more. So, you've basically got a medieval kingdom in you know sort of the European mold. There's some rebels, some free-living people who live way up in the north and there's a wall, a huge wall like the Great Wall of China or something that keeps them from invading the rest of the kingdom.

But, basically 20 years before the novel starts there was a huge civil war and the king was overthrown and a new king was put in place. And at the very beginning of the first book, this king dies under suspicious conditions and basically, five different people claim to be the rightful heir to the thrown. And so there's a huge war that breaks out as a result of that and that's basically the background for the whole series.

It really is about relationships and you know intrigue and people scrambling for power in a vacuum basically. There's a little bit too much sex and violence for my liking, but I'm told that goes along with the fantasy genre. So, I would give this series, five stars out of five stars. They are well written. They're compelling. They keep you on the edge of your seat the entire time. I couldn't put them down, and I wasted four weeks of my life basically reading these books."

© Copyright 2007, 2008 Pacific Book Exchange LLC