Finished this a while ago and realised I hadn’t written anything down. 12 year old me was an idiot when he shrugged this series off, I missed out on some really good fantasy, I loved this.

I’ve seen the show and this shocked me with just how much more fantasy this book is than I expected. The vague idea of the near cosmic horror level power of some of the things that humans have signed up to is great, and I love that the series seemingly starts because the previous power the men used to keep the rest at bay have all died (well, mostly).

The character work here is brilliant, Arya’s POV was a standout at the start but I found Catlyn’s by far the most engaging throughout the end of the book, shocked at how well Martin can write women given the reputation these books have (and yeah the Dani stuff is way too far).

It’s also great just how monumentally stupid most characters in this are (apart from Tyrion) and how Martin really really cleanly masks that incompetence through the justification the POV characters give themselves, it really lends to the feeling that these characters are real people.

So much more I could say on it, I’m sure I’ll write more thoughts down as I get through the series!