Tower of the Hand, a fan-created reference tool for the soon-to-be five-book series, tries to catalog every last character, location and event in the epic saga. The site offers reference guides for each book, as well as for the handful of short stories that Martin has written. Each guide contains a table of contents, an index detailing where the main characters appear in the book and extensive chapter summaries.

Those looking for more bite-size portions of content can check out the reader guides, which provide a quick way for fans to remember the important plot points in the series.

Frequently asked question lists are available for each book, delving into such mysteries as "Who is Jon Snow's mother?" and "Who killed Jon Arryn?" as well as other spoiler-laden questions. There are numerous articles on the history and geography of Martin's world, and an extensive character database with hundreds of entries.

The "compendiums" section presents the sort of lists that die-hard fans live for, including house standards and mottos (with illustrations), a table of character ages and timelines of Robert's Rebellion and the War of the Five Kings.

The Tower of the Hand homepage sees a steady stream of Song of Ice and Fire news, with updates about when the next novel might be released and mentions of the series in the news or on the Internet. There are also frequent posts offering theories or insights into the fate of the characters in the books, each of which is capable of spawning hundreds of comments from the site's active fan community.