George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones 5-Book Boxed Set (Song of Ice and Fire Series)

These books are an excellent buy and quite durable for the price. This version of paperback is printed in the larger style, roughly ten inches in height and six inches in width. I prefer this style of book over the much smaller, cheaper, and hard-on-the-eyes mass market paperback. Plus, these books look much better in your bookshelf. Larger print, higher quality paper, and no need for a magnifying glass :) George R. R. Martin has quickly become my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE fantasy writer. This is quite the statement, especially when you consider that I have read Tolkien many, many times and love his stuff. I love Martin for several reasons but I will only name a few. First of all, he writes from many different character point of views. This is important because one character's interpretation of events may not necessarily be accurate or even shared by another character witnessing the same events. This brings added depth to a story in that you cannot believe everything you read. Secondly, he writes his stories with plenty of gray, which gives his world added reality within the fantasy genre. This is what I mean: his stories are NOT black and white, good versus evil, right versus wrong. Every "good" character in his stories have a dark side and every "bad" character possess redeeming qualities. This is true to our everyday lives and adds so much depth to the story that you will struggle to put the books down. Lastly, Martin does an amazing job at building epic twists and uppercutting his readers. I say uppercut because no main character is safe! Do not get attached to your favorite character(s) because Martin has no problem with killing them off in order to progress the story. If you love fantasy and history, please read this story. It's a long read and to this day, unfinished. However, you will love how Martin builds deep characters, intricately detailed kingdoms, epic plot twists, and toes the line with social norms and taboo pursuits.

An amazing book series for an amazing price. I always see them for hundreds of dollars, but the price I got these for was worth it. The quality is great, not too big and not too small. The casing is perfect for travels or when packing up, and the individual books are great for just taking out on a hike to read at stops, or on road trips.

"Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice." “Fire and Ice” Robert Frost, 1920 George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is the story that we need to heed right now. Yes, this is a series with all of the trappings of high fantasy: including knights, fair maidens, sorcerers, giants, and dragons. But unlike most works of the genre, the tropes don’t allow a satisfying escape from the frustrations of the modern world. Instead, they help readers explore character motivations, cultural norms, and political predicaments that speak to our own experiences in life. Martin is well read in history, and many details in his books are inspired by real events and peoples from the Middle Ages. Despite his attention to detail, reenactment is not what motivates him to tell his tale. When discussing his priorities as an author, Martin has repeatedly paraphrased Faulkner, saying: “the only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.” Indeed, the characters of the story are often challenged by wrenching moral dilemmas, and the choices they make have powerful consequences for their lives and the lives of others. The historical details are a means to teach us about ourselves, and about humanity at large. Accordingly, the conflicts of the story are not just internal. War and political skirmishes feature prominently in A Song of Ice and Fire, as they have in human history. Martin has cited Robert Frost’s poem “Fire and Ice” as an inspiration for his series, and its vision of destruction at the hands of human passion and cruelty epitomizes the challenges faced by the people of Westeros and Essos. Martin himself is a conscientious objector who considers most of the wars of history to have been unnecessary and disastrous ventures. His pacifism is not absolute (he has stated that some wars are necessary, such as World War II), but he nevertheless thinks it is important to consider very carefully the costs of war, without minimizing the spectacular power that military pageantry can have on a people. The titular “ice” and “fire” subtly evoke our collective capacity for rage and desolation, but more obviously they serve as the framing supernatural conceits of the series. Like in many horror stories, the people of Martin’s otherwise realistic setting are caught unawares as inexplicable forces awaken to encroach upon their safety and normalcy. Unlike most horror stories, though, this supernatural presence enters in the midst of heated squabbles, betrayals, atrocities, revolutions, and escalating warfare across the human world. The question that the series lays down is: can we ultimately look beyond our deep grievances and band together against the forces that threaten us all, before it is too late? The central threat is introduced at the very beginning of the story: a mysterious race of beings slowly moving from the permanently frozen lands of the North into Westeros and beyond. Unlike the buggers of Ender’s Game, these are not misunderstood victims of a prejudiced perspective; these are inscrutable, cruel beings capable of extinguishing all life and warmth from the earth. Yet for most of the chapters of Martin’s novels, “the Others” remain but an ominous suggestion, blithely dismissed as a story until it is too late. As this doom approaches, supernatural forces are stirred throughout the lands, allowing certain individuals to foresee future events, to inhabit the bodies of other beasts, to raise the dead, and (representing fire) to awaken living dragons. The people of Westeros and Essos react to these phenomena much as we would react to them: with disbelief, horror, or with religious awe. Yet these spectacular forces do not help any characters in their quest to save themselves from the coming apocalypse—in many cases, they introduce more problems for those who wield them than they do solutions. What can ultimately save the human race from complete obliteration is not any mystical power or prophecy, but a moral vision to unite disparate peoples against the forces that threaten stability from within and without, and the courage to act upon that vision. This is the central human challenge. Given the enormity of this challenge, the scope of the story is necessarily massive. Martin has an extraordinary gift for portraying how factions converge and clash, and how societal and ecological factors shift and interact over time to create a roiling stew of chaotic cultural systems. But, importantly, the feel of “A Song of Ice and Fire” is intimate rather than omniscient. Each chapter provides events from only one character’s perspective, in a tightly limited third person style. From each point of view, internal thoughts are explored, as are memories, dreams, and visions. Martin uses this grand mosaic of subjective snapshots to establish how well-meaning people can end up committing terrible deeds (knowingly or not), how information is easily distorted, ignored, or used to feed competing moral narratives; how the present is haunted by the past; and how the personal realm feeds the political. The ruminative, reflective approach lends a sense of tragedy to the cataclysmic events of the story, rather than simple sensational drama. And, of course, the richly realized lived experiences of these characters often challenge the cliches of epic fantasy and hero narratives. Such subversions are not for the sake of postmodern cynicism, however, but instead to highlight what Martin thinks we humans should be lauding as heroic in a world as epically complicated as our own. The struggles of life can be bleak, confusing, and seemingly without end. Those who persevere in the face of crushing adversity or numb uncertainty are not always rewarded for their actions, but their efforts are important all the same. A Song of Ice & Fire is a poignant hymn of praise to the brave souls who have looked past their everyday human struggles of pride or power and fought for something far more precious. Life. Hope. Stability. A viable future for the coming generations. Also: love. And compassion. And kindness. The TV adaptation never really gets into that.

This is a great bang-for-your-buck purchase. New books in a store are around $10 each, and even on here expect to pay around $5-7 each for something used. So this is perfect for what I wanted. Which was EVERYTHING. I just finished the fifth book about a week ago, and I can’t wait to continue with this series. Maybe I came a little late to the party, but at least I showed up, poisoned a bastard king, jousted on a pretty pig, and went on an adventure by ship. I probably couldn’t say anything that hasn’t been said about this series before. It’s dense like a brownie baked with too much butter and eggs. But not the densest out there, I might add. I had my trepidations on starting this series after I was told—by countless people—that it was dense, hard to read, hard to get into, difficult to understand, filled with extraneous details of unimportance, etc. But when I actually read it, I found that to be a gross exaggeration. The series hasn’t been hard for me to read at all. All of the books held and captivated by interest, from book one to book five. So if you can get pas that dense cloud that hands over it, just like a dense and fudgy brownie, you will find it delicious. This series is what renewed my enjoyment of the fantasy novel. I was really big into that genre when I was younger, then sort of got more into contemporary writers who had the subject matter to match. If you can get passed the density of it, but if you’re already an actual reader and not a first timer, this shouldn’t be an issue. It’s richly filtered with people both fascinating and horrible, beautiful and ugly. No one is black and white, and no one is safe from death (sobbing ensues at the thought of Ned). Your favorite character will go through some s***, let me tell you. I will say the degree of rape is weird to me. I can’t help but think there’s got to be some sort of… interest or fascination Martin has with it. You can’t be a woman in this series without being (almost) raped, stupid, or crazy. By the completion of the fifth book, Arya remains the only one that I can think of. HOWEVER. This series is great. Full of everything you could hope for in an epic, and then much more.

I bought this set when I was housebound with a broken leg, and it made my confinement almost enjoyable. This is the first time I’ve read anything by George R.R. Martin, and I am impressed. He writes on a level that can be understood by mass-market readers and teenagers, but his descriptive writing is so superb that high-level readers don’t feel that they are being cheated. (I don't recommend these books for young teenagers because of the sex and blood and gore.) His plots are a little loose, and sometimes I’m not sure he has one. Sometimes it is frustrating that there are so many stories to follow that by the time I got back to a character, I would have to totally refresh my memory as to how the person got there in the first place. His main characters are very well developed, and you either love them or hate them. Martin isn’t afraid to kill off his characters, even the good guys who could easily become favorites. I am disappointed that he begins the series with the Starks, and after the reader starts to care about them, he then proceeds to kill them off. One of my favorite characters is Tyrion, the wise-cracking dwarf son of House Lannister; another is the little tomboy survivor, Arya Stark. Some unusual features: I can’t remember when, if ever, I read a fiction book of any genre that had two people with the same first name in it other than maybe a senior and a junior. Martin realistically names family members after other family members, and throws in unrelated families with members of the same first name, just as you would find in any society. I like this, but it can get confusing. Illegitimate offspring are marked as "bastard" by naming them after natural features in the areas from which they come: Snow, Rivers, Storm, Sand, just to name a few, rather than carrying their unmarried mother’s name. I find this to be an interesting concept, discriminatory, but interesting. As much as I like this series, the reason I can’t give it an overall five-star rating is Daenerys. Daenerys is so foreign to the rest of the story that it doesn’t feel like it belongs in this series of books. I am sure that it will all be tied together in the end if he writes more, but I had to totally shift gears and make myself read the chapters about Daenerys. She was my excuse to stop reading and go to bed. I don't dislike Daenerys, but. I think she and her dragons would have been better-served by keeping them in Westeros. I didn’t like the concept of one huge document and no links, but at the price I paid, I guess I can’t complain too loudly. I have an older model Kindle Fire, and the download nearly killed it. After that, I was afraid to bring up my email or the web while this book was in my device. I was also afraid to return the book to the Cloud and download it for the same reason. I can’t enlarge the maps nor navigate between them and the text, so was a little difficult for me to keep up with the Northern houses, the Southern houses and the houses in between, much less understand the geographic relationship between these houses, the Wall, and why the heck Daenerys was a half a world away. However, I didn’t count off for this because I was forewarned before I bought all 5 of these books in one huge doc. The savings were worth the sacrifice of other features, I guess..

Great reads

I really wish they would call these "A Song of Ice and Fire" but besides that, I cannot say too much bad about these books. For the readers of this review. I am not going to go into much if any book detail, I am simply going to explain who might like the books and why you might want to read them, along with some of the challenges. Firstly these are long books, everyone of them. They are not for somebody looking for a 250 page novella or novel, and they are not great stand-alone books. As a series they introduce, and remove, dozens of characters and plot lines. It is actually kind of amazing at how Martin was able to weave so much of this together. If you read the first book, you will undoubtedly need to read the second which leads to the 3rd and so on, they are that good. To go with the length, the pacing needs to also be talked about. I feel that the books are pretty well paced. They are not overflowing with boundless amounts of action, but there is enough to keep you interested if that is what you are looking for. Political intrigue runs deep and takes up huge chunks of the story line, which is really what makes things so interesting. The plans behind plans, behind plans, behind plans are what these books are really about. Yes the action is there and pretty realistic most of the time, but the politics and social and cultural world that Martin has created is what sucks you in. This is truly a fully-fleshed series, that although it has some cookie-cutter pieces (middle-aged, swords and dragons, magic) it really does not depend on that nor does it really use that as its identity. The identity of this book is real human emotions based on real human decisions and the realities of the world we live in and that Martin created. He did not have to dream up some mythical world that, by its sheer existence is awe-inspiring. He did it by just simply showing what humans are capable of in a pretty familiar setting that just works with the books. One major challenge is keeping certain characters straight. You start to kind of realize who the major players are, but more than once I would almost need a memory jog on who somebody was or why they were significant to the story. It can be overcome, but there are many many many characters, some minor, some like a medium-minor, some important, and others very key to the story. If you keeps these straight though, it is worth it. He has some magic but it is more of an undertone really, and has not played much of a part through the 1st 5 books. It is there and may eventually play a bigger role, but up to now it has been minor in most cases (few exceptions). I would recommend this book to somebody who really wants to dive into something deep and immerse themselves in the world Martin created. It will suck up many hours of your time and you will hate that you have to wait for the final 2 books, but when it is all said and done you will be happy you read them. I loved reading these in the winter, especially scenes beyond the wall and in Winterfell. That almost made me lose myself in the story more to be physically surrounded by snow and reading about it in the book. As an aside I think the tv show is very good as well and really does a pretty good job of capturing most elements of the book. I would say though, that even if you watch the show before reading the books, you will still get a great experience from each book.

I have been watching "Game of Thrones" for a couple of years and I find the HBO added sex repelling but the GOT story compelling. Unfortunately there are so many characters that my husband and I have trouble following all the plot lines. I have over 2000 Kindle books in my archives and most of them were free. As I have said before, you get what you pay for, and most of them weren't worth the effort it took to download them. So I decided to splurge and get this set of books to see if I could figure out what is happening in the Game Of Thrones. I read these books daily, often into the early morning, and it took me three weeks to get through them all. I had read criticism of book four, that readers were unhappy with the introduction of new characters that did not move the story along, so I skipped it and read book five. Then after my mind had rested a few days (and I was going through GOT withdrawal) I went back and read book four and found it to be very good and found it added a lot to the story. I had missed some of the GOT episodes from last year and was catching up on them to get ready for the new season. Now the show makes so much more sense. There were things that the HBO series has to leave out that are emphasized in the books that really add depth to the story. For example, in the book Dany is constantly reminded of the prediction the maige made that she would never have children so the slaves she has freed that call her Mother are her children that she could never have. This makes the story so much more poingnant and helps explain why she is so determined to free all the slaves. I love being able to share these little tidbits with my husband. Sometimes I can even explain the family relationships and why certain groups hate each other! Wow! A wonderful companion book is one that was free on Kindle about a month ago. "Winning the Game of Thrones: The Host of Characters and Their Agendas" by Vallerie Estelle Frankel is very helpful in understanding the Song of Ice and Fire books. She goes into mythology and some history to help explain how Mr. Martin has developed his series. She also explains how he has incorporated bits of his favorite books and homages to his favorite authors into the series. George R. R. Martin has created a masterpiece. I can hardly wait for the rest of the series and will snatch them up the minute they are published. The books are so much better than the TV show and the TV show is pretty darn good. The books would definitely be R rated, have lots of sex, some creepy sex and a little down right perversion, but they are still less shocking than the HBO series. Maybe it because I can't picture some of the stuff like the TV show can actually portray. When I read someone's head is chopped off I don't actually see the blood spatter and squirt. The TV series just skims the top of the story in the books, condenses characters, changes time lines somewhat, and leaves some parts of the books out all together. To get the whole story of the game of thrones you need to read the books.