"You win, or you die."

I have been reading "A Game of Thrones" since the beginning of this month. I'm well over halfway through this book. Holy crap, it's amazing. I like getting books that I'll read over and over again (to me, that's the mark of a good book). I was a little afraid when I bought this that it wouldn't live up to that standard, but it is and then some.

This book is in large part about political games and back-stabbing, shifting alliance and allegiances, family ties, the quest for power, and the cost of power. So far as I have read, it isn't really heavy on the "standard" heavily fantasy stuff like magic and such. Someone who recommended this book to me said if I liked "The Lord of the Rings" then I would like this book. While I do love LotR, I don't see a lot of similarities between the two.

Also, this is no children's tale. There is foul language, sex, murder, and so on. This is definitely fantasy for adults.

I won't give away any spoilers, but where I have read in the past few days, characters are dropping like flies. Also, there was a jaw-dropping revelation about halfway through the book I did not see coming at all. I was amazed...and disgusted. My last status update on FaceBook pretty much sums up my reading to this point:

Characters are dropping like flies, I hate Sansa & Cersei, poor Bran, poor Jon, Tyrion is a tricky little bastard (pun intended), Arya is a girl after my own heart, would someone PLEASE kill Joffrey (pompous ass), and (as I said earlier) EWWW!!!

I think that about covers what I have read so far.

I'm not sure if I have written this elsewhere, but my plan is to have this book finished by month's end. I'm ahead of schedule right now by about a day (after being almost a week behind earlier this month, I've clawed my way back). A couple of girls I went to grade school with have read the book and/or seen the show and we've been talking about it regularly.

I definitely recommend this book (it's the first part of a series by the way).