Dear George R.R. Martin (if that's your real name),

It is known: You are one sick, sick mofo. With "A Song of Ice and Fire," you have fleshed out and made explicit everything that was probably happening behind the scenes in "Lord of the Rings," the night being dark and full of terrors and all. The things that tweedy, Norse epic poem-lovin' J.R.R. Tolkien probably didn't even think about. The things that probably DID get written about in the early days of BBS slash fiction. Which you yourself were probably writing.

Gotta hand it to you, though, you provide us with badass female characters, an area where Tolkien failed epically, Éowyn excepted. You have rendered a universe of moral ambiguity and shades of grey (and yes, I must use the Anglophilic spelling) rather than Tolkien's black-and-white, good-v-evil Middle Earth. You have no qualms about killing off beloved characters, though you do have a bad habit of resurrecting them as intelligent, ruthless zombies.

I thank you for writing chapters from significant characters' points of view, because they instantly become sympathetic and interesting rather than being lost in the horde. I look forward to the next installment. Will you PLEASE tell us what happened to Rickon? He hasn't been around for several volumes now. And Nymeria must be out there somewhere, too.

So long, and thanks for all the catchphrases,

A reader

P.S. By R'hllor/the Stranger/the Seven/the Old Gods, would someone PLEASE just give Lady Stoneheart copies of "A Clash of Kings," "A Storm of Swords," "A Feast for Crows," and "A Dance with Dragons"? She could focus her vengeance on the right parties if she would just kick back and do some reading instead of relying on ravens and spies to bring her outdated news. ( )

Author as lost his way. Shock style writing and cliff hangers at the end of almost every chapter. The language and absurd sexual exploits and incest are not to my liking. The lack of professionalism and dedication are the icing on this garbage cake. I don't care about any of the characters any more, and have no intention of finishing the series - I don't think Martin does either. I guess the TV series fans will get their way and HBO will do the job that Martin isn't capable of. ( )

Started watching TV series based on this book. Saw a couple of reviews of the text on Amazon and other places. The Kindle 4 books in one seemed a good deal as the sample download (free) from Amazon was nicely written and I thought I could get along with the style.

Using Kindle on the iPad. I would suggest getting the iBook version for iPad - looks more like a book (page numbers at the bottom rather than the annoying Kindle position)

Will get back with more critique when I have read further. ( )

Finished and...Amazing!!! With so many twists and turns, who knows what's going to happen next? Now, when is the next book finally coming out? ( )

I might have loved this book, but found it was like a written version of a soap opera, or the worst type of tv documentary because it moves at glacial speed and is soooo repetitive. Perhaps I’ll try it again in my dotage, when my memory starts to go. ( )