Imagine a medieval world. Knights and great Lords joust, the land has been at peace for ten years. The summers can last years, the winters a lifetime. In the south, the politics being played out makes the Byzantines look tame. In the cold North, the Nights Watch guard a wall hundreds of feet high, made of ice and magic. Winter is cpming, and north of the wall, evil is brewing. In the south, murder, treason, incest, and rebellion play out with old dynastic struggles.
The first book was Game of Thrones, and it introduces much of the story. It gives us charaters to like, such as Ned, Tyrion, Jon, and Dany, and those to hate, Joffrey and Jaime. Wont give too much away, but this book introduces the origins of the civil war that is narrated for the following books, Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and Feast for Crows.
All this time, there is the evil beyond the wall. An ancient enemy, not seen for 8000 years, is marshalling it's forces, to bring the Long Night and end the reign of man in Westeros.
There is also a third storyline, featuring the last remnant of the old royal line in exile, plotting the return to the kingdom stolen from their father.
The fifth book deals with the end of the civil war and the consequences of it.
Martin is an exceptional writer. His characters have full backgrounds, developed histories, and believable. The dialogue is realistic and the imagery is beautiful.
It can get hard to follow, and every now and then he unneccessarily uses archaisms such as two and twenty that, in the modern world, just serves to drag me (at least) away from the story.
But Martin also challenges us. He makes us form opinions about characters, then forces us to to change them. But he has a habbit of killing people I like.
As a series, I rate 9/10. Its good enough that, having read each of these rather large, epic books virtually one after the other, I'm actually reading them all over again. One after the other. Right after finishing the uber-epic fifth novel, A Dance with Dragons.
If you read it, let me know what you think
He didn't die? That came as a shock, but I like how it shows how torture can turn a normal man into a beast. I'm glad that he has progressed from Reek, back into Theon. Now that he is with Staniss, I expect he will have a large part to play