Heading back home today, and almost finished with the almost 1,000 page-long A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five by the "American Tolkien" George R.R. Martin.I told you before that I could never stomach Tolkien, but absolutely devour this guy's writing and that in my eyes Tolkien is the British G.R.R. Martin. Part of his genius is how his made-up world and characters are so human while being fantastical... and how he traps you into rooting for a character which he then kills -- because in the "real world" of savagery where they live, they would be killed.