The Game Of Thrones

I have only nice things to say about the series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin. I am currently most of the way through the 4th and most recent book in the series, A Feast For Crows. I am a fan of fantasy to begin with: Yes, I am the dork who's been through the Lord Of The Rings extended edition on DVD 20 or more times. As you would expect, this series is marketed to the modern fantasy reader by equating it to Tolkein, and yes, this is medieval high fantasy, complete with dragons and wights and magic, but it is also an entirely different animal. It's lurid, gory, mystical, spiritual, huge in scope, and completely enthralling.

Four books in, the character arcs have had time to mature: some of these characters are little kids at the beginning, but time is passing so they're slowly becoming adults during a protracted civil war over the course of years. Martin is a gifted storyteller, and is able to move his nicely three dimentional characters through the bloody wartorn landscape of his well imagined world at their own leisure. He deals with it by jump cutting, and also by shifting perspective at chapter length, so the story is told as a series of vignettes.

Very ingeniously created, very human stories, great characters...

I am so looking forward to this as a tv series