I dunno if anyone is familiar with George R. R. Martin's fantasy saga. I never heard of it either till some friend told me about it. I'm pretty wary of any fantasy books. The only fantasy I've ever read was Lord of The Rings and even with that I feel nerdy as hell. I like the Song of Ice & Fire series. It's a lot more complex in story and characters than stuff like Lord of The Rings. It's not your simple good vs. evil type. It seems that in the world of A Song of Ice & Fire, that the lines between good and evil are constantly crossed. You can't really think of any of the characters are pure good or pure evil. The chapters are also each shown from one characters point of view. So, while one chapter will be following this one character, the next chapter could possibly be thousands of miles away from where the last chapter took place. I like it, but sometimes it bothers me 'cause I REALLY wanna find out what happens to a certain character, but first I gotta read through all the other characters. However, that does help in making the book more suspenseful. I'd recommend it to any fantasy lover out there. Just a word of caution, there's a whole lot of death throughout the books.

It's a lot more complex in story and characters than stuff like Lord of The Rings.

all i have to say is .... * cough?!*

If you thought that was complex you should read the Silmarillion

I have read the Silmarillion though...

Don't let Tolkein or Martin represent all Fantasy writers! Anne MacCaffery's Pern books are actually fantasy. So are a lot of books that claim to be SciFi -- depends on the amount of science involved, and there's no hard and fast definition. Lackey writes at very different levels in her Valdemar books -- Arrows of the Queen is for teenagers. The Storms trilogy is very complex and touches on a lot of themes. Bujold MacMaster's Charion series says a lot about religion and sainthood, without preaching. Harry Potter is fantasy. Guy Gavrial Kaye is another great author. Plots aren't quite as layered, but they characters are incredibly well done. Very human. Hubby likes Micheal Moorecock -- very dark and weird. Silmarillion, which I haven't read, is supposedly more of a history book than a novel. So, head over to the Fantasy section and grab a handful of authors. Cricket

sci fi for me would be Niven, Pournelle, Asimov and the like. if it doesnt include hard science, its fantasy no matter how cleverly disguised.

another good sci fi writer is Orson Scott Card. I love his Ender series. He has also done fantasy. But the Ender series is definetly sci fi.

Originally posted by stardust another good sci fi writer is Orson Scott Card. I love his Ender series. He has also done fantasy. But the Ender series is definetly sci fi.

grin .. where's the science? people travel between stars, somehow slipping through a hole in relativity theory .. how? there is instant communication to those traveling ships via the ansible technology ... but how does THAT work, exactly? etc etc ... sorry stardust, Ender's Game etc are works of fantasy. they're based in scientific worlds (no unicorns or elves here!) but they're not science fiction. ...and if we're talking OSC, anyone read Treason?

Hard science? Well, add Heinlein (or at least a lot of his stuff, esp the junior stuff) to the list with Asimov and Pournelle and Niven. Also Hal Clement -- Mission of Gravity and the sequel, and Ice World. The science is at the core. The enemy is the environment. Charles Sheffield, although he mixes science with black-box. Tom Easton. Rajna Varja (spelling?).

Originally posted by lyon grin .. where's the science? people travel between stars, somehow slipping through a hole in relativity theory .. how? there is instant communication to those traveling ships via the ansible technology ... but how does THAT work, exactly? etc etc ... ...and if we're talking OSC, anyone read Treason?

Okay Lyon, good point. Fantasy it is. But tell me, what is Treason about.

just digging this thread up say how much I love these books, even if I suspect they will never be finished.... and..how much I'm looking fwds to HBO's adaptation next year, it looks promising.

HBO's doing it? That could be well worth seeing! I loved the first 3 books, but I confess that "A Feast for Crows" didn't do so much for me -my favourite character, Tyrian, wasn't in it at all -which annoyed me- and so many years had gone by since book 3, I had forgotten a lot of the plot (and I didn't have the time to re-read books 1-3 again to get it all straight), even though book 3 had certainly weeded out a number of characters!

Arthur C. Clarke had some 'rules' about the magic/science subjects. The overlap is why I have no problem having both magic and superscience in the original fiction I write -or anyone's else's Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three "laws" of prediction: 1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong. 2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Originally posted by lborgia88 HBO's doing it? That could be well worth seeing! I loved the first 3 books, but I confess that "A Feast for Crows" didn't do so much for me -my favourite character, Tyrian, wasn't in it at all -which annoyed me- and so many years had gone by since book 3, I had forgotten a lot of the plot (and I didn't have the time to re-read books 1-3 again to get it all straight), even though book 3 had certainly weeded out a number of characters!

I felt the same about AFFC and HBO going it, Ive liked quite a bit of what we get to see by HBO over here. This blog is good and it has the very short trailer released so far.... trailer

I see that Sean Bean is playing Eddard Stark! I've always liked him. Too bad the trailer's not longer, but what's there looks good.