Yeah but a friend of mine started reading them recently too, and I don't want to feel like i'm in a competition with him. Especially since I might lose as he started way before me.

Alternately... wait until he finishes a book, then borrow it from him.

Lol. That's not a bad idea actually. Still, I feel it kinda beats the point now that I've already seen the first season of the series. If I read the books now I'll just feel like I'm spoilering myself. If it were fluffy shit like I dunno Twilight I wouldn't mind blasting through it for the heck of it, but I'm pretty sure the books we're talking about are pretty big and a little harder to digest than that crap.

I wouldn't call the books deep, just epically violent and unpredictable. Like the series. Ah well, you should definitely read the series eventually.

Not deep? The things that are planted in book 1 so subtly you don't even realise they're winding through all of the other books are incredible. Admittedly I've had my eyes opened to them a lot; I've only read the series once through myself so far but the guy who recommended them to me has read them multiple times and studied them in-depth (he's just done his masters in English Lit so he can't help it ). Entirely agree with the violent unpredictability! It's one thing I love. There's a picture around somewhere of someone saying "Oh my god, I can't believe J. K. Rowling killed x!" and George Martin grinning and saying "awww... she's so cute..." because he has so few qualms about killing off major characters.

You should definitely read the books Ox, even if you read one at a time (i.e. in between seasons or so). The new season is due in April. The series does work incredibly well and covers all the important points but because the books are so in-depth and only get bigger, we are already hearing of some things that will get changed. For example at the end of the next season is an absolutely massive river battle, but it isn't going to be done as it is in the books, simply because it would require a film-sized budget and probably more than one episode to itself. Some of the political stuff has been changed around as well, it's hard to keep track of in the books who everyone is and the latest book has an 80 page appendix just to help with that, so having a characther on screen for just 5 minutes to play out a plot point isn't work it. But as George Martin is working so closely with them I'm confident that even in later seasons it won't detract from the overall web of conspiracies and political machinations.

Oh also you'll probably forget most of the stuff that happens anyway by the time each season is released. I only read them all within the past 12 months and by the time I watched the series I'd forgotten some of the smaller things that occured.

Went to the library and had a book from game of thrones in my hand.
However i ended up picking 3 books from the sword of truth. Actually a prologue and the first 2 books.

Just did a small search: turns out i'll have to read 12 ... crap .
On a positive note: the other series (song of..) doesn't seem finished yet, i prefer reading a story till it's end.

Nope got another few books yet, it was planned to be 7 books but he might make it to 8 now coz the last couple of books were technically one book. So yes, there are at least 2 more to go and I believe it took him 3 or 4 years to write this last one

it took him like 6 years to write the last one. Bastard.

BTW... ummm... just so you know... Sword of Truth WAS done... but then the guy came out with another, which is the first in another story arc, so Sword of Truth isn't done either.

What .. 12 or so books and then start another series? Sheesh.

yea, pretty much. I mean, it's still the same characters and crap, but the last story arc is definitely complete, so it must be a new one. Shiny may know... she may have read the first book in the new arc. I know she bought the book, but can't recall if she's read it yet.

Nope - honestly by the end of the series I got so tired of it - this last book my best friend got and read and she said it sucked monkey balls, so I haven't bothered with it yet if ever. I am sure I will end up reading it because I hate like not having finished a series that I spent however long reading 12 books on, but ugg...