Like the show, but an "AK-47 sniper rifle" is not a game changer. It's not like semi-auto sniper rifles don't already exist and the AK platform ain't magical.

People really need to read that novel. The Coens did a good job with it and Bridges' Rooster was excellent. The John Wayne fixation does no favors to the survival of the genre.

George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire is really more of an alt-world historical novel than a mythic romance. His tale accurately reflects the kind of intrigue, betrayal and brutality that were common in the power struggles of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Robert the Bruce murdered a rival in a church, etc. The examples are legion.

Martin might be faulted for letting the tale get out of hand — multiple 900-word tomes tend to piss me off myself — but he is a strong writer (very strong on dialogue) and Leo's consistent digs at him are misplaced. It smacks of straw man argument. Martin is not working the same field as Tolkien, swords and armor aside.