Binding: Mass Market Paperback
List price: $7.99 USD
Amazon price: $7.99 USD

We find ourselves in The Seven Kingdoms, a realm in the past ravaged by war and conflict, but that has settled in a brittle peace for the past twenty years since Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon in a coup seized power from the last Targaryen king, the mad King Raegar. When King Robert asks his old friend Eddard to become his Hand, or councilor, a secret scheme for power risks seeing the light of day but other events have already been set in motion, events that will determine the fates of many more. This is the background for an epic fantasy set in a world where winter lasts for years and now the autumn leaves are beginning to fall. A land where creatures formerly only known through myth and nannies' tales are moving beyond the great ice wall, built to shield civilization from the unspeakable terrors of the ancient world and the wilds, a game of thrones is set and ruled by determination to death and by means of anything conceivable.

A Game of Thrones is in my opinion and without any doubt likely the best fantasy ever written. Being a low fantasy set in a world where key characters and their plots decide the fate of the many, the employment of deception rules, the noble but naive chivalry of the few is crushed in the face of cruel determination and where lust is chiefly a means of power and magic is the stuff of myth and legend, conflict and characters are nothing but real.

If you love fantasy and fiction but you're tired of fantasy that doesn't surprise, that follows the same old recipes, delivers the same old hero vs the world story, A Game of Thrones is the book for you, it will keep you hooked for many days on end!

Amazon.com Book Review

Readers of epic fantasy series are: (1) patient--they are left in suspense between each volume, (2) persistent--they reread or at least review the previous book(s) when a new installment comes out, (3) strong--these 700-page doorstoppers are heavy, and (4) mentally agile--they follow a host of characters through a myriad of subplots. In A Game of Thrones, the first book of a projected six, George R.R. Martin rewards readers with a vividly real world, well-drawn characters, complex but coherent plotting, and beautifully constructed prose, which Locus called "well above the norms of the genre."

Martin's Seven Kingdoms resemble England during the Wars of the Roses, with the Stark and Lannister families standing in for the Yorks and Lancasters. The story of these two families and their struggle to control the Iron Throne dominates the foreground; in the background is a huge, ancient wall marking the northern border, beyond which barbarians, ice vampires, and direwolves menace the south as years-long winter advances. Abroad, a dragon princess lives among horse nomads and dreams of fiery reconquest.