I got A Clash Of Kings in the mail today. Much to my (not) surprise, it’s… 1000 pages. I’m looking forward to it, though.
A Storm of Swords is longer. You’ve got that to look forward to. It was so long in fact the UK paperback was split into two parts. I was a little annoyed I had to pay twice for the book. Oh well, totally worth it.
bump de bump
I’m into the third book in the series now and I’m still really interested. I’m not sure if I can keep this up for five (!) books but for now I’m enjoying it. I’m not fond of his random killing of characters I care about, but the characters are consistantly well written and constantly evolving. Definitely some cool stuff, I wish more people I knew would read this.
Mage, I like that major characters are also imperiled. It’s not a series in which you know your protagonists are safe because you like them, and villains can’t die becuase they’re needed; the circumstances are always shifting, changing.
I’ve been a huge fan of the books ever since I gave Game of Thrones a shot back in 2003 or so and have been on board for the lengthy post-Crows wait but am optimistic we should see Dragons in Sep/Oct this year. There’s a great encyclopedia site and community called The Tower of the Hand, and Martin generally makes it so that users can post at his livejournal, so there’s a nice bustling community and official sounding board as well.
Glad you’re digging it, Mage. As someone else mentioned, the only downside to A Song of Ice and Fire is that it ruins most other fantasy books.
Hoping HBO picks up the show for sure.
Definitely. The more I read this series, the better I think it’d work as a TV show. It’s got all the character drama, action, and eroticism that a HBO show demands. As long as they cast the parts right and got the art direction right, it’d be something I’d watch.
Of course, how they’re going to deal with the whole 14-year olds having sex thing is a bit of a question …
Get Roman Polanski to direct?
They plan on casting actors near the appropriate age, but I imagine they’ll have to get creative with Danaerys.
Several friends (outside of GWC) have recommended this to me, I think it could be interesting to read as a book club option.
Yes, please! A Game of Thrones would be fantastic. I pushed it the last few months, but it never quite got there.
I would love it too as I’m currently re-reading the series for the 4th time and even now I’m still finding stuff I missed on previous reads.
I’m having a hard time getting through this book for some reason. I like it a lot but some of it is just emotionally brutal to read. I threw the book at the wall when I got to the part with Lady. 
This entire series has made me cry, laugh & angry more so than most. It is an emotional journey with flawed characters in a brutal circumstance. That seems to remind me of a certain television show I recently enjoyed tremendously!
The entire series is that brutal, it gets much worse than what happens to Lady. Every book in the series so far has made me have to stop reading for a bit multiple times, but that’s why I love series because I get so emotionally involved in the story.
This, this is so true
It’s so hard not get emotionally involved when each chapter is told from a different character’s point of view. I give Martin a lot of credit for giving readers such intimate knowledge of the characters that he actually makes you like characters you originally dislike. I’m really excited to see which characters we’ll be getting POV chapters for in A Dance With Dragons.
Great! Another song to sing on the train and get weird looks.
GRRM recently announced some of the casting decisions they’ve made for the show.
After reading the GWC comments here and looking into the series a bit online, I’d be down for a read of A Game of Thrones. It looks like a story you can really immerse yourself in.
As an aside, Audible.com has the first three books in the series. However, A Game of Thrones is 2 credits, or +$30.00, 72 hours!!) so if we end up going this way I’ll likely paperback it this time.