For the past three weeks, I've been able to do little else but read the first four volumes of George R. R. Martin's bestseller, A Song of Ice and Fire. For an entertaining pageturner, there's so much morbid cynicism and so little gratification that it pretty much reconfigures what's typically thought of as a diverting crowd-pleaser. The TV version is a lot of fun, too. The lead character, Ned Stark, was just beheaded tonight, and it only gets worse from here.