A Game of Thrones A Clash of Kings A Storm of Swords A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin After reading the short stories last month and seeing a few reviews of Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire series, I thought I'd give it a chance.

I have not been reading much fiction for the last few years - nothing on the bookstore shelves (the real or the virtual kind) looked appealing. The few books that look promising usually fall flat upon thumbing them open and reading a random page. But this book has been excellent so far. Martin puts together an unsentimental and complex historical fantasy and his writing is nice and direct, and refreshingly free of the kind of formulaic dialog too often used to give fantasy novels a sense of "period". This is no cut and dried, good vs. evil novel, not for the reader looking for some light escapism.