A Song of Ice and Fire is unquestionably the most captivating epic fantasy series I have read. All I can say is that George R. R. Martin better finish this tale. Having seen a few pictures of him, he looks to be about one cheeseburger away from a heart attack.
As for the TV version, I find it ironic that it has been so successful. Martin started the series with the idea that it would span such a huge geography and the story would be so complex that it would never be economically feasible to transform it into a screen production. As big as he went, guess it needed to be bigger.
I have only seen a few episodes of the show, but liked them. They seem to hold very true to the books.