I am reading the Songs of Fire and Ice novels by George R. R. Martin. It's taking a while -- not because they are hard to read but because of the sheer girth of the books. I'm about a quarter of the way through A Storm of Swords and have finished the other books in the series. It's taken months, but I don't mind. Like many who have been hooked by this writer's prose, I can't wait for the next brick of text.

If I could write like this guy I'd pump out the pages too. Writers learning their craft would do worse than stuffing themselves with these novels. Soap opera? Oh yes. High fantasy soap opera but so much beyond the daytime tripe that floods TV's airways that I hesitate to use the term. These books are what Jordan's Wheel of Time should have been. Weigh in, those of you who have read this stuff. I think the series the best I've read since Tolkien. How about you?

I tried more than once to sink my teeth into the "Songs of Fire and Ice" but could not.

My favourites among soap opera fantasy series have been:

- The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson
- The Twelve Houses novels by Sharon Shinn
- The DragonCrown quartet by Michael Stackpole
- The Valdemar novels of Mercedes Lackey