Hello from Maryland, USA.
6 weeks ago I knew Game of Thrones was a popular TV series based on some novels by a guy named George RR Martin. But I never watched the show, hadn't read the books, and couldn't have named a single Stark or Lannister if somebody held a gun to my head.
I was looking for something to read one day so I decided to see what all this Game of Thrones hype was about. I was hooked early on and reading ASOIAF has pretty much been my life for the past 20-something days. Yes, I finished all five books in under a month! Whether you want to chalk that up to my lack of having a life or the addictability (new word?) of the books is entirely up to you.
I went mostly internet free while I was reading because the stupid internet would have cut into my precious reading time and I wanted to avoid even the temptation to seek out spoilers. But I had a few questions when I finished the series. The google machine kept sending me here so I figured I might as well sign up.
Now I sped through the books in a 'page turner' sort of way. I'm definitely going to have to re-read them one day. I can't even tell you how many times I was like "Well, I'll just read one more chapter before I go to sleep" only to end up staying awake for a few more hours reading several more chapters. Just being a here a day or so has already shown me that I missed a ton of details in my haste to see what would happen next.
How long this new Game of Thrones kick will last is anybody's guess, but this is definitely my thing at the moment.
OK, now with all the boring stuff out of the way....
You'll have to bear with me here because I've waited almost a month to spit all this stuff out.