Game of Thrones First Impressions...

       From the very begining, George R. R. Martin plunges you head first into a rich, fantasy world. Martin does an excellent job of using his words to describe the beautiful and often times, dangerous, lands which the main charcters travel. The characters, by the way are well developed and I found that it wasn't long before images began to form in my head, like a movie that was being played out in front of me, and where the only way to find out what happened next was to read further instead of just sit and watch. I will admit, at first, I  was uneasy to start reading fantasy books similar to the Lord of the Rings series. While I have read the Lord of the Rings books before, I was all too aware of the aweful trend fantasy writers falll into. By this, I mean their insitance on names that are absolutely impossible to pronounce. I mean, who can pronounce the name "Kijjiitwaskialti Forgaburn" correctly every time they happen upon it. Furthermore, who wants to???!!! Such names have, at least for me brought a sense of unease when it came to fantasy books. The Lord of the Rings books were fine because they, while being perhaps the best fantasy series of all time, had easy to pronounce names. Now, when I satarted Game of Thrones, I hand not heard much beyond the fact that it rivaled the Lord of the Rings series and has been hailed by many as surpassing it; being named the single best fantasy series of all time...When I began to read Game of Thrones, needless to say, I was relieved to find that the names were easy to pronounce, at least, I think they are.