Tower of the Hand ~ An Encyclopedia of Ice and Fire

Sansa, First and Last of Her Name

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Tyrion, First and Last of His Name

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Arya, First and Last of Her Name

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Jon, First and Last of His Name

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Daenerys, First and Last of Her Name

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Bran, First and Last of His Name

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Good Fortune in the Decade to Come

What does the future hold for our favorite books and offshoots? Well, I've looked into the flames and I've seen what is to come in the decade ahead. Like all seers, my interpretations of prophecies range from bold to ridiculous, and all them are likely to be proven very, very wrong. But I've enjoyed this admittedly self-indulgent exercise and I invite you to add your thoughts and predictions, too.

In the beginning. Almost twenty years ago, I was flipping through The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Tenth Annual Collection, edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow, looking for something to read on an upcoming plane trip. The anthology included a list of the top fantasy novels of 1996, in which I saw this blurb about a book I hadn't yet heard of:

The Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin (Bantam Spectra). This acclaimed writer's new novel is a saga written on an epic scale and entirely delicious. It's a fat book, the first in a series, and filled with all the classic fantasy tropes: kings and courtiers, soldiers and sages, magical creatures and a cruel dragon prince—yet Martin manages to give familiar themes and characters vivid new life. I recommend this one even to readers who have sworn off multi-book series fantasy.

Thus I checked out A Game of Thrones from the library and figured this "fat book" would at the very least help me sleep while in mid-flight. I read the first chapter when I got home. Then I read another chapter and another. I was a third of the way into the book when I realized I might actually finish it before I even got to the airport. I made a quick return visit to the library to pick up A Clash of Kings, the second book, which was at the time the only other book in the series. I felt a little silly having these two massive hardcovers making up the bulk of my luggage, but it was so worth it. I carried one of the books everywhere I went during that spring break: on the plane, on the beach, at a spring training game, on a sailboat even.

Those were my very first memories of reading A Song of Ice and Fire. What made you read the books? If you started by watching Game of Thrones first, what drew you to the show?