A Song of Ice and Fire is an extremely refreshing series, after years of reading all kinds of Fantasy. So often, Fantasy authors get stuck trying to recreate the stories of or imitate the greats in the genre, like J.R.R. Tolkien. It is safe to say that Tolkien really established the format for modern-day fantasy, with a fellowship and a quest to defeat a great evil. Terry Hickman and Margaret Weis's Dragonlance series is a prime example of this, because a group of companions meet and travel with great difficulties, to complete a quest (I don't really remember the details of this). There really are only so many recreations of this type of Fantasy that one can read, however, and A Song of Ice and Fire is definitely an entirely different sort of Fantasy. I should mention, on a tangent, that I see the Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Marion Zimmer Bradley's work on The Mists of Avalon as untouchable works, and this paragraph really is just to criticize all that has come after them or tried to imitate. So really A Song of Ice and Fire is joining that group of new and original Fantasy.
A Game of Thrones is a truly remarkable opener of the book series, because it brilliantly sets the stage of what the rest of the series will be like and George R.R. Martin is able to maintain that tone and similar elements of surprise in his other novels. If you were to ask any reader of the series why they liked it so much, they would most likely tell you that it's because no character is purely good or evil, they all do less than desirable things; in other words, the characters are like real people. I think this is one reason why I like the series too, because you can be surprised when a *SPOILER* very central character dies, when an innocent child gets pushed from a tower, or when a thirteen-year-old girl gets sent off to marry a horse lord by her brother. These sorts of events really set the stage for the level of brutality that exists in a Medieval world, which this series is somewhat based on.
Besides the multifaceted characters, brutality, and surprises, another thing the first book sets the stage for is the format. George R.R. Martin formats his books in a way I haven't seen before, by having each chapter based on one character's perspective of a situation. This is a fascinating tool, because it allows you to develop sympathy for even the most hated of characters like Cersei Lannister.
This book also introduces many things that will be learned about in later books, like the zombie-like beings known as the Others, Jon Snow's parentage, and the Targaryen family history. All in all, it really does grip you to read the rest of the series.
A Clash of Kings is a wonderful book *Obviously* because it continues where the last book leaves off. You find out about all the new so-called Kings and Tyrion Lannister plays a pretty important and humorous role as Hand of the King to Joffrey. Additionally, old characters are developed, like Theon Greyjoy, and new and integral characters are introduced like Melisandre and Stannis. We even get our Joan-of-Arc type of character in Brienne of Tarth (who is one of my personal favourites!). Geographically, this book expands the fantasy world, because Daenarys travels through the East in an effort to obtain wealth and armies while Jon Snow moves north of the wall and meets up with some Wildlings. I don't want to delve too deeply into the plots of these books lest I give everything away.
I think that A Storm of Swords just might be my favourite book thus far. There's a kind of creepy and disturbing quality to it because of "the Red Wedding" scene that's so famous. I was initially really sad by what happened to some of the characters in this scene, but I think that what happened is really integral to the series. One of my favourite character's of the series is Sansa Stark, because she is very naive and expects a great marriage, but everything goes to dust very early on in the series for her and she develops into someone with more strength, independence, and reason. It's interesting to see how "the Red Wedding" affects her, because I think it's pretty integral to her development, because of what happens to some of the people there.
I'm not going to talk about A Feast for Crows yet, because I'm still working through it. I can say that it does not disappoint though, because Brienne of Tarth gets a much bigger role in it.
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