re: lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones

Without Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon there is no Star Wars.

The OP asked which was people's favorite, not which is the best.

Comparing ASoIaF to LotR is irrelevant, especially considering there is quite a lot of Marion Duron's Accursed Kings series influence in ASoIaF than LotR.

If you'll look at Martin's other works you find that he is a science fiction writer more than a fantasy writer. He has a whole universe known as The 1000 Worlds which spans millenniums where the earth of today is just a fragment of the past. It involves wars between a multitude of races across vast galaxies and worlds. There is even a theory that the planet that Westeros, Essos, and Southeros are on is a forgotten planet within The 1000 Worlds that was laid to waste due to "atomics" used in interplanetary strife. Now that planet has maintained its ignorance to social and technological progress to insure that it never makes the same mistakes that the races of the past made.

If anyone wants to take the above as a spoiler, feel free to RA, but I doubt that is truth.

Oh, and don't make me choose between the two OP. Tolkien, to me, is up there with Homer and Vergil. And reading the four main books plus The Silmarillion I would equate with... shite, I don't know. Words can't express it for me at this time. But as soon as I finished reading ASoIaF I started reading it again. I've never done that. I also have the companion book A World of Ice and Fire as well as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. So let me just love them like two paternal twins. Only one stayed in the womb for an extra forty years.