He should be now...he's really good. I never forgot him after the first time I saw him in The Station Agent.

I am almost finished with this book. I have to say, I can't seem to put it down, to my husband's dismay. I am going to have to give it to him when I am finished and will then be a widow for a while. I like Jon Snow and Tyrion is cool, too. I am also curious what will happen with the bastard who makes helms, but I haven't got to the end of the book, yet. Yes, there are so many characters I find myself getting confused. The only real problem I have, though, is figuring out how to pronounce the names of people in my head as I am reading. Consider me obsessed.

You know there are three others after that, and a 5th one being released soon(ish,) right?

Sorry to post again, but Sean Bean as Ned will certainly be apt. My mind pictures Ned much like him and I just now watched the preview.

hey!

Well at least he is still alive (I think.) I finally finished.

I stayed up late finishing last night.

I liked it, but I'm not feeling really enthusiastic about it ... don't get me wrong, it's a really good book! But even understanding that it's the first book of an unfinished series, there are a lot more loose ends than I expected. And there weren't a lot of characters that I connected with, for one reason or another. Nobody that I outright liked, except perhaps Bran and Arya, I'm intrigued by Daenerys, but wanted a different resolution for her, and didn't fully understand her embracing of the Dothraki ways. Actually, most of the what happens to people you get to know really sucked when it comes down to it. I cared more about the direwolves. I'm going to continue on, but I have some borrowed books to read before I get to A Clash of Kings.

I do wonder how they're going to squash this monster down into a miniseries, though.

(I really like George RR Martin's writing ... I loved Tuf Voyaging)

It's not going to be a miniseries, it's a full series--every book gets one whole season of episodes.

Even so, I can't figure out how they will squash this one book down into 6 episodes.

EDIT: the blogosphere seems to indicate ten episodes.

I thought the same thing about Daenerys, wolf. That part did not end at all how I had expected. It was kind of a disappointment, actually. I want to read the next book, because I really like the way he tells a story. I just worry that he is going to break my heart again.

he's not afraid to kill a character (good or bad), that's for sure. but trust me, they just keep getting better, and the world he creates becomes more vivid and huge.

Yeah, I need to get the next book from the library. I read that first one so fast, I lost my momentum.

I don't want to do what I did with the rest of the Dark Tower books and fly through them then end up thinking "what next?"

Unless the author pulls a "King" and paces the releases of the books years apart, you probably won't have that problem. I developed a habit of starting the whole series from the beginning each time a new book was (eventually) published. Maddening.

We're still waiting on the publication of the fifth book.

I'm chugging along through the second book, A Clash of Kings (62% done as of right this minute). More court intrigue and more battling. It's feeling like there's less actual plot advancement than the first book.

So I am in the second book, now.

I feel better knowing that the metalsmith guy wasn't forgotten.