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#1) A Game of Thrones

#2) A Storm of Swords

#3) A Clash of Kings

#4) Dance with Dragons

#5) Feast for Crows

There's not much in it between the first three. I do think Feast and Dance aren't quite as great though, splitting the narrators and having them overlap just didn't feel right to me and they're a little slower.

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  • 4 weeks later...

For me, it's this order (at least as I reflect upon it, having read the first four books):

ASOS

AGOT

AFFC

ACOK

I have yet to read ADWD, so the ranking isn't complete. :)

Alright, after having read the last book, here's my top list:

ASOS

AGOT

ADWD

AFFC

ACOK

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I've only read the first three right now. I just started AFFC and I'm over 100 pages in. I'm actually really liking it so far.

As of now:

ASOS

ACOK

AGOT

They are all three amazing, and i'm not knocking AGOT at all, it's just that the series starts out amazing, and takes it to another level of awesome with each book.

I've heard a lot of people say they don't like the Greyjoy chapters in AFFC. I've read one so far and it's actually pretty entertaining how stupid they are in the Iron Islands. Drowning people, really? Aeron is a total buffoon.

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My favorite is "A Feast for Crows", it's his greatest work in literary aspect. It deeply penetrates the mentality of its characters, and it deals with the evils and the consequences of war rather than war itself, and also it chronicles Cersei's downfall and her paranoia, creating the best commentary on the nature of power and tyranny. It also narrates the tragic conclusion to Jaime and Cersei's love. It is the culmination of Martin's best abilities, his biting humor, his determinism and misanthropy. People complain that not much happens in it, and that's actually one of its merits. The less battle, the more contemplation.

I doubt Martin or any other fantasy writer will ever produce a book as great as AFFC. It's a tragedy.

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  1. A Storm of Swords
  2. A Game of Thrones
  3. A Clash of Kings
  4. A Dance With Dragons
  5. A Feast for Crows

I struggled to pick which I liked more, AFFC or ADWD. ADWD was unbearable sometimes with the Dany and Tyrion chapters. However, Theon's chapters were easily the best written not just in the book, but in the entire series. Also the Northern POV chapters were entertaining.

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1. ASoS; The one where most was happening, the most dramatic turns, the best character arcs, best everything.

2. AGoT: Liked this one because it was so centered around Ned and his family (and Dany and Tyrion, I suppose), a very contained story, but still part a the whole.

3. ACoK: Was pretty good, but it feels like it's just a part of ASoS that got cut into two.

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4. AFfC: Hit-and-miss, Cersei and Jaime was a lot fun, Arya as well, Brienne was boring, Aeron was excruciating and Arianne had Darkstar.

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5. ADwD: While Theon was a great read, and arya was kinda fun, Jon was just fucking dreadful, Dany as well. Tyrion was about 25 % funny, and 75 % boring. Quentyn was completly unnecessary and well, it was just for the most part boring.

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My favorites, with some highlights from each book

ASOS (every character has an interesting arc, many interesting deaths, Tyrion's trial, RW, The Wall)

ACOK (Tyrion as Hand, battle of Blackwater, introduction of Stannis)

AGOT (the rising tensions between Starks and Lannister)

ADWD (the arena fight in Meereen, Jon and the Wildlings)

AFFC (The Martell's and Ironborn)

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Storm of Swords

Clash of Kings

Feast For Crows (Initially I felt it was weak, but re reading it I think its because I read it immediately after the high of a Storm of Swords)

Dance of Dragons

Game of Throne (Though I think this would have ranked higher had I not seen the series first.)

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1. A Storm of Swords: Although I have enjoyed all of the books so far, I certainly prefer the writing and plot of the first three. A Storm of Swords is, in my opinion, the epitome of Martin's writing. It is packed with major moments, from the Red Wedding to Tyrion's trial. It also has a great POV lineup; it was the first book to have Jaime chapters, and the last one in which I enjoyed Tyrion's.

2. A Game of Thrones: The first book feels somewhat removed from the rest, almost a prologue to the remainder of the series. However, it features some great backstory, most notably the Tower of Joy flashback. It introduces many of the characters, and although it starts slow, it moves at a better pace than some of the later books, as Martin wisely decided to skip over uneventful journeys and cover more significant occurrences.

3. A Clash of Kings: I'm still not certain that I preferred A Game of Thrones to this, but I do recall that it's storylines were more consistently enjoyable for me. A Clash of Kings, while fascinating when covering The War of the Five Kings, feels somewhat tedious during Dany's exploits in Qarth and some of Jon's earlier chapters. Fortunately, it features some of my favorite chapters in the series, among them the best battle (Blackwater) and my favorite dialogue (Jaime-Catelyn in Riverrun).

4. A Feast for Crows/A Dance With Dragons: I have not yet reread either of these two, so I'm not sure where I would place them other than that they will definitely be the bottom two on my list. I felt that the writing in these two was fairly similar to the other books, with some outstanding examples (Septon Meribald's speech). However, it seems to me that the editing for these two books was almost nonexistent. Constantly repeated phrases, including some absolutely terrible ones such as Dany's "king of the rabbits" bit, and an overly slow pace of plot progression really brought these books down for me. Also, the Ironborn and Dornish are awful.

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1. Storm of Swords

I breezed through it, I think I managed to finish it in three days, the second part was espically gripping.

2. Dance with Dragons

It took me a while to get into it, I think I still had a hangover from Feast. About 160 pages in though I really got hooked and just stormed it.

3. Game of Thrones

This may be higher if I wasn't already aware of the plot, it was watching the HBO series that made me want to read the books. I'd never heard of them until then (Yeah I'm one of those guys)

4. Clash of Kings

I found it got a little dull in the middle when everything was just stagnated waiting for the blackwater to happen.

5. Feast for Crows

It just didnt go anywhere, in all the previous books and in Dance you could kind of see that all the plots were building to something, In Feast that just wasn't the case, only really Cersei had any kind of plot that seemed to be building to something. I got really sick of Brienne just kind of wandering around as well.

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I love them all the same. In terms of the paperbacks i used to think of the two parts of SoS as two different books, and part 1 was so dull, now i realise that all the build up of the first part pays off in the second with the two weddings, Tyrion's trial and Lysa's exit. That is how i look at feast and dance, and all the set up is there and we're going to get a huge pay off with the next two books.

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