What series are we reading next?

After we read and discuss Kindred by Octavia Butler (check the previous post for more information), we're going to start a new book series! Here are the choices I have come up with. We are going to start reading the chosen series mid to end April. The nominees are...

A Song of Ice and Fire (1-3) by George R.R. Martin

A Song of Ice and Fire depicts a violent world dominated by political realism. What little supernatural power exists is confined to the margins of the known world. Moral ambiguity pervades the books and their stories continually raise questions concerning loyalty, pride, human sexuality, piety, and the morality of violence.

The story unfolds through a rotating set of subjective points of view, the success or survival of any one of which is never assured. Each chapter is told from a limited third-person perspective, drawn from a group of characters that grows from nine in the first novel to 31 by the fifth. (source)

Wheel of Time (1-3) by Robert Jordan

Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time is a story that takes place both in our past and our future. In his fantasy world, only women can use the One Power safely. Any man who wields will inevitably go insane and wreak havoc in the world.

As the books begin, the Dark One, the embodiment of pure evil, is breaking free from his prison. The overall plot is about a man who learns that he is the reincarnation of the world's messiah and is once again destined to save the world from the Dark One -- but possibly destroy it in the process. This saga is not only his story, but the story of an entire world's struggle to deal with war and change, destruction and hope. (source)

The Poppy War Trilogy by R.F. Kuang

The book follows Fang Runin, a peasant girl who is accepted to Sinegard Academy. She discovers a mysterious power and trains to become a shaman to the vengeful god, the Phoenix. When war breaks out between her home country of Nikan and the Federation of Mugen, Rin must quickly become a hardened soldier. The book deals with themes such as the price of war and the loss of humanity. (source)

The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin

This is the way the world ends. Again.

Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze -- the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years -- collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She'll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter. (source)