Even though I don’t get HBO, I’m very happy that Game of Thrones is being made into an extended series. I first discovered the George Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice series (of which Game of Thrones is the first volume) five or six years ago when I read a review of the then newly arrived fourth volume, A Feast For Crows, in the Los Angeles Times. I was inspired to read the first one and eventually all the volumes available.

Martin has been promising the fifth volume for years now. Once, when it was rumored that it would finally be released, I re-read the first four books so that I wouldn’t be completely lost when I read the new one (which is supposed to be titled A Dance of Dragons), on account of the series being notably complex in terms of plot and characters.

Part of the reason I’m excited about the series is that maybe Martin’s publisher will tie him down in front of his computer or typewriter or pen and paper until he finishes the damn fifth volume. Unless he speeds up, my grandchildren will have to read the projected final volume to my tombstone.

It is a very gritty series, with characters you love dying and characters you hate being revealed to be more three dimensional and harder to hate (you eventually get to see the good side of a character who in the first tome, pushes a child out of tower window to plunge to his – not death, but a long coma and paralysis from the waist down). The writing style is not necessarily notable, but it is efficient and enjoyable. Like much of the best sci-fi and fantasy writing, it stays out of the way and services the plot, setting, and characters.