– Customer review on 17/12/2011

...like the way your favourite characters are brutally killed off and the story veers off past their barely cold remains...
...or the way that Martin switches your point of view full 360 degrees and the villain of the piece you've been hoping gets his or her come-uppance for two lengthy tomes, you now find yourself plotting with and rooting for.
...let me not forget (or forgive) the fact that key chapters of the story, which you're desperate to see unfolding, happen 'off-camera' as it were and you only find out about the dramatic events in a short third-hand and maybe untrustworthy report.
If I'd been writing these books House Stark would have been triumphant long before we reached book 4 but Martin's genius is that he tramples on and overturns all the clichés of the fantasy genre and still leaves you hungry for more. 5 stars dammit!