Blurb: (From Book 1) Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall. To the south, the king’s powers are failing—his most trusted adviser dead under mysterious circumstances and his enemies emerging from the shadows of the throne. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the frozen land they were born to. Now Lord Eddard Stark is reluctantly summoned to serve as the king’s new Hand, an appointment that threatens to sunder not only his family but the kingdom itself.
Sweeping from a harsh land of cold to a summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, A Game of Thrones tells a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens. Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; a child is lost in the twilight between life and death; and a determined woman undertakes a treacherous journey to protect all she holds dear. Amid plots and counter-plots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, allies and enemies, the fate of the Starks hangs perilously in the balance, as each side endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.
Review: A beautiful twisted masterpiece. This series deserves its fame, with it doing a fantastic job of multiple point of view writing, where each character is individually so well written. The world building and story match the level of the writing, and made it a great candidate for the transition to screen.
It is incredibly rare to have as many plot points as this series. I don't think I've ever seen it outside of web novels that have much less of a length constraint. The sheer amount of political intrigue is just immense, and yet it is a joy to read and never made me feel overwhelmed. The author does a truly amazing job of balancing all of this, while simultaneously capturing the emotions of characters and making them more than a pawn on the board. It is a terrible shame that this work will probably never finish, but I would still strongly recommend this series to anyone in the market for something long. There are very good reasons this series is so famous! Recommend!
I also credit this series heavily, albeit less than LOTR, with advancing the representation of fantasy books in media. For that I am incredibly grateful, as despite the terrible ending of the TV show, more fantasy based TV shows are appearing and will appear thanks to this work.