Why is A Song of Ice and Fire so good?

I feel like I could think about this question and could probably take a very long time to get the proper answer.

However, I got a lot of writing to do, so lets get down to it.

Why is A Song Of Ice And Fire (Aka, the Book series of Game of Thrones) So good? What makes it different and stand out from the rest?

First, I can’t discuss it without talking about some spoilers. I’ll say minor spoiler alert. I won’t be going into the huge ones, but I can’t avoid them all together. You have been warned.

First, (and here come one spoiler) Is Geroge RR Martin is not afraid to kill off his characters. And I’m not talking about random  red shirts, I mean main characters. Central, important to the action characters. He’s been called the fiction’s most notorious serial killer and for good reason.

As he’s said in several interviews, he wants readers to be afraid. Because normally in a book, if a wounded hero is surrounded by ten baddies, you know he’s going to be okay. He’s the hero! He’ll either find it in himself to fight, or someone will save him.

Not here. When the big battles come (and they do come) he wants you to be scared of what’s going to happen next. Because no one is safe. A lot of people hate him for this, but I honestly think it makes for exciting reading. The guy is ready to take big risks and they really pay off.

The second thing is his world building. I could talk for days about his world building. It’s massive! GRRM released a book in 2012 just about the history of Ice and Fire. His world is not limited to a few cities and the main characters. He goes into massive details about this huge lands, countless cities and hundreds of years of history.

Kings, rebellions, good times, bad times. It’s insane. I’ve never seen anything else like it. No one else could ever begin to match what he’s doing here.

GRRM has stated there are over 1000 named characters in his books. Not all of them are central, some are only background, or characters we don’t even see at all, but still. This man has been working on this series for over twenty years and it’s clearly been extremely well planned out.

Third, His characters are so intense. He’s stated many times he believes no one is truly good or evil, that we all had shades of grey. And I really agree with this.

In his books, every single character believes he is the hero. “Good”characters sometimes do terrible or evil things. “Evil” characters sometimes do good things. Honestly, you could root for almost any character you want in the series.

There are no clean cut perfect heroes or villains stroking their cat while they mutter to themselves. Everyone is human and everyone is doing what they believe is right and best for themselves and their family.

Fourth, he is in no way predictable. GRRM once said in an interview, as a kid, he’d watch TV shows with his mom. She then would guess who did it or what will happen. And most of the time, he said she was right.

So, when writing this epic fantasy, he threw tropes out the window. One of the best things right now, is all the crazy theories about how it’s going to end. Because no one has any clue! It could go so many different ways and so many different things could happen.

If you’re all caught up, just go to YT and look up Game of Thrones theories. They’re so many, I can’t eve keep up with all of them.

And as a reader (also viewer) who hates being able to guess, I love this. It keeps me on my toes and I’m always constantly guessing. Sometimes we’re right and sometimes we are very wrong.

Now, ASOIAF is not for everyone. There is a lot of violence and nudity in both the books and the TV show. And I mean, a lot. If you can not handle this, it’s not for you.

But, if you can get past this. The story line is rich, incredible and just engrossing. It is crazy good. I am addicted and like many others, will be vastly disappointed when it’s all finally said and done.

And yes, they are huge massive books. Huge. But please, don’t let these scare you away. Give it a read.

Ten out of ten.

Are you a fan? Let me know =)

~Ames