I am not picking up any Martin book until the series is quite done, and even then I may not end up doing so -- it all depends on what I hear of it. But I would invest less emotionally or of my time in a television series, and so am willing to watch it before reading the book.

However, I am usually very opposed to people watching adaptations before reading the books. The question then becomes whether Martin's writing is so good important stuff is lost in the translation to screen which cannot then be recovered if I choose to read it later.

Any thoughts?


Edit: Thank you for your input. The overwhelming vote seems to be in favour. I decided to give it a shot. It is a bit on the violent side (an extended scene of rape never really my thing), but interesting so far.