Hi VMLM - yes, I know what you mean! Sometimes you cant help but wonder if there will only be

Spoiler

and [SPOILER] left before the throne, after everyone else has died off! He is obviously following the old writerly adage - Get Your Characters Into Trouble, and Watch Them Try To Squirm Out!

Ian @ Collectiblecat.com
Online Catalog of Collectible Books

I have heard a lot about A Song Of Ice And Fire series but haven't read it. I am currently reading Lord Of Rings series. If you compare these two series which one would you rate higher?

Personally, I rate LOTR higher than Song of Ice and Fire. But I think it really depends on what you're looking for.

Lotr is highly romantic, linear and morally clear-cut. There's very little intrigue (in fact, no "good" character would knowingly participate in any kind of subterfuge) and hence it's also somewhat predictable. And while it's easy to "feel" for the characters, empathize with them and put yourself in their place, they're not very deep or human. They're all perfect models of goodness (except where they're meant to prove a point) acting out a story the way good people should act.
It's strong point is its evocative power, and the fantastic depth of its story world. I poured over the silmarillion as a kid, trying to fathom Illuvatar's musical creation of the world, the maia, the two lamps and then the two trees, Telperion and Laurelin, later Earendil ascending into the night sky with one of the simaril, to become ever a wandering star. The powerful, dark and overwhelming depiction of balrogs, melkor, sauron and other dark forces... It's a perfect rendition of a mythological history come to life and made... transient, mortal. In that sense it's both beautiful and sad... because you know that all these things are long gone, never to return.
Then there's the languages, the songs, the different cultures, the places, the important and traumatic events, the general rise and fall of history... like a dialectic process of order and destruction... Tolkien obviously spent years and years thinking about his creation, and as a result he has constructed something of an intellectual simulacrum... A sand box wold. Before the creators of GTA or minecraft (or indeed D&D) were even conceived or computer games programmed, Tolkien created an alternate world so richly defined and so powerfully evocative that it was easy to walk right in and imagine yourself in some part of it.
And perhaps at its heart is something deeper, something true. Loss and remembrance of a beautiful past, in the face of a dark world ruled by war and fear... The ongoing struggle to return to something good that we yearn to be a part of, to defeat the evil in the world once and for all. The desire to be good and brave in the face of an overwhelming and encroaching evil, to be relentless despite an ever bleaker hope of success, firm in the faith that there's good waiting on the other side of the darkness.

A Song of Ice and Fire is itself very evocative, but has nowhere near as defined or beautifully crafted a storyworld as LoTR. Its power is mostly in the relationships between the characters, what they do to each other, how they transform as a result and how their power struggle affects the world. One of the main themes, I feel, is how the characters continue to squabble and fight among themselves, even in the face of impending doom (some even regard this "doom" as laughably unbelievable). Characters here are much more morally gray. Indeed they have to be. Anyone foolish enough to believe they can remain morally upright and still play the game of thrones is duly punished on the harshest terms for their mistake. This is a world of backstabbings and intrigue. War is a political thing and being the good guy not only doesn't guarantee your success, any sign of weakness or unpreparedness will result in loss and possibly death. It's a much more dangerous world, a much more intriguing story. For me there's a note of desperation in the utter lack of a light at the end of a dark tunnel... In fact you don't even feel like you're in a tunnel, but just utter darkness.. There's no feel of a possible disentanglement where good has triumphed, just an endless dark morass of political intrigue, death and failure.. Obviously the story promises an end where good wins... but I don't really take that promise at face value.
There's also a muted symbolic background to SoIaF (it starts at the fringes of the story, but becomes ever more prominent)... Fire vs ice; magic and nature creeping back into the world vs the political human world that refuses to accept them; a giant wall built in better times, but now neglected, that is the only thing between us and the darkness that might consume us; awakening of a magical and powerful heritage thought lost and forgotten (but only ignored); good found in the most unlikely of places; transformation from powerless naivete, through traumatic understanding to powerful self-mastery (or death in the attempt)... I've left these things half-understood myself, and I think one of the reasons I'd like to re-read the books is that I'd like to see what more meaning I can find in the books to illuminate these themes and symbols.
I do sort of feel that the best of the books is the first one... but that's just my opinion.

haha

GRRM=GRIM more like.