I suppose this could be classified as books as well, but since I'm caught up with the series and just started reading the books last month...

Anyone else watching this absolutely insane show? I have to watch every episode twice, just to keep up with the characters and all the plot twists. Tyrion Lannister and Arya Stark are my two favorite characters at this moment. Though I adore Rob Stark as well.

We have read all the books here. Hubby got me to do them.

You will find if you read them, that starting at book 4 the series starts to erode into morbid violent endless graphic descriptions of endless physical deaths, and suffering.

The volume 5, which came out in July 2011, was dismal and awful. You can read hundreds of low 1 star reviews of it at Amazon. It took me months to read A Dance with Dragons, and I will not go further. The first 3 books were compelling and interesting, but "something" has happened to the author --who some believe used a ghost writer, or Martin has changed somehow-- and the series is totally reversed its potential.
A Dance with Dragons has some very nasty storylines concerning women... many of the reviews focus on this misogynist bent, and one of the characters is so awful, I had to skip over it. (a maniac who tortures women and kills them)
Even Tyrion suffered this fate--his character lost its magic.

We have purchased the DVDs and I stopped watching 1/2 way thru episode 2... as the story has tarnished for me considerably after book 5.

Sorry to be a downer, just as warning to you. Enjoy the first 3 books, they are worth reading.

I just realized there books! I cant wait to find them. Love this silly series.

Well, silly is an odd term to use for this series.

Morbid is more like it. After book 4 EVERY character is dead or maimed. Years passed before book 5 came out, and since everyone was GONE, the plethora of superficial useless drivel
was all that was left. A Dance with Dragons is almost devoid of
dragons. Maybe 10 pages from the 900+ boring drivel.

Jon Snow who started off with great potential, becomes a boring mess too. All the peasants and their farms are destroyed, almost all the major characters brutally dead... it became extremely morbid.
Bursting eyeballs, flayed women, sadistic sex, lots of pus, vomiting, and dysentery endlessly. Whew.... no more for me! Book 4 is a teaser for Book 5....so if you don't like book 4 much don't bother with Book 5. I kept thinking "it" would get better, and really it just gets worse and worse.

I haven't read the books, don't think I'm going to after those reviews. lol
I have been watching the series and now that season two is just beginning, I might go back and watch season one again just to 'catch' up.

You know George R.R. Martin, wrote the screenplays for the TV show Beauty and the Beast.

His first 3 books are quite interesting and draw you into that
world easily. They are all huge long reads.

Then in book 4 something changes for him....he begins to dwell
entirely on morbid aspects. Book 5 just alienated his fans.
You should read the reviews at Amazon! It is not just me at all.

I don't know why authors with large fan bases do this. He is not unique you know. Pat Cornwell, lost her fans too over the last 5 books, with negative reviews approaching 50% ... It was so bad at one point Amazon was removing them left and right.
Elizabeth George alienated her fan base a few years ago, and the hue and cry when she killed off Helen in the Lyndley/Havers
series, resulted in her web forum for fans, being closed! Her subsequent books have not been received well either.
James Patterson alienated his fans of Alex Cross... to the extent that he put on a TV ad for the most recent book saying..."if you don't read this book of Alex Cross, I will be forced to kill him off". Imagine a TV threat to fans like this?

Well, what George R.R. Martin did is just like what is happening with some other authors. The fans are NOT HAPPY waiting over 6 years for Book 5 and getting what it contained! NOTHING at all for the series, and gruesome and boring instead!. I had a feeling about the ending of Book 4... I read that on vacation and was so angry...then. The cliff hanger is just TERRIBLE and I won't spoil it in case some do get that far reading. Book 4= A Feast for Crows ... and there are plenty of deaths for the crows to feast on in that book! It reads like a psychopathic frenzy.

I will say the photography of the TV show is very nice. It is just how I pictured it from reading. But I wonder what will become of it once the characters are all killed off--- about 90% of all the characters meet with terrible ends. What started off as adult fantasy, becomes excessively violent and out of control.

ok, perhaps I wont read the books. I think I will just stick to the movies.

The first 3 books are pretty good. Only with hindsight, if you
do read them, don't expect much after that. Once you get into the series, you really want MORE, and the more is not forthcoming at all. I will say that the sexual situations in the first 3 books are more normal and less titillating than the TV show.
The cruel and raunchy stuff is really unpleasant in book 5. I really didn't get the impression of alot of "sex" from the first 3 books. But I did get that big impression of eroticism etc from the TV show. Perhaps that is the intent to snag more viewers? The TV show likes the nudity factor too!
For example, in the books, Dany's encounters with her chieftain husband are VERY different than portrayed on the TV show. (including the "honeymoon")

The books are very very long... lots of reading too. Almost 1000 pages each. So they can be engrossing and interesting. It is just a bummer that the cliffhangers become very numerous and have no resolution really.

I've become very disappointed in my other favorite authors.
(Oh, and I forgot Anne Rice-- her later books are off my list too). This series really made me angry because so many others I've liked over the years have stalled out or had major difficulties. I read the reviews at Amazon sometimes, and I am not the only one having these feelings... there are many other readers chafing at some authors. But Dance with Dragon has almost 400 negative reviews now! That is the most I've seen except for Pat Cornwell.