Waiting for Winds of Winter has become the new normal for A Song of Ice and Fire fans. The good news, however, is that George R. R. Martin has recommended plenty of other great fantasy books to fill that time. Martin is a famously voracious reader, and over the years, he has used his personal "NotABlog" blog to recommend everything from foundational classics to modern hits.

Through his recommendations, Martin has highlighted authors who helped shape the fantasy genre before Westeros existed, contemporaries with different kinds of fantastical worlds, and even books he read and immediately went out to purchase the sequels to. His recommendations aren't always surprisingly similar to A Song of Ice and Fire, but that's part of the fun: fantasy is a wide genre, and Martin has given readers a very good reason to pick up these books.

Some of these iconic episodes of fantasy shows are so good, fans wish they could experience them again for the first time.

The story of King Arthur has been told so many times that it's easy to forget just how strange, funny, and sometimes heartbreaking The Once and Future King can be. H. White's collection of stories follows Arthur from his childhood as the Wart through the rise of Camelot and the tragedy that eventually tears it apart, bringing Lancelot, Merlin, Guinevere, and other familiar pieces of Arthurian legend along with him. H. White also puts a lot of focus on what power is actually for and Arthur's attempts to replace "might makes right" with something better, which gives the story a surprisingly thoughtful center.

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