Am I the only SFF reader who isn’t head over heels in love with the work of George R. R. Martin?
After reading the glowing reviews (here and on other boards) of “A Song of Fire and Ice”, I made it a point to read “A Game of Thrones”. It’s a good read, I suppose, but I don’t need to finish the series - I really don’t care about those characters.
I expect someone here to tell me I have poor taste since GRRM is a god to some. There have been authors who I couldn’t get enough of after reading their work, like Tad Williams, Jack Vance and Dan Simmons.
Is there anyone else on the boards who isn’t part of the chorus singing praise of GRRM?
I’m not a hater - I just don’t understand the adoration.
I’m with you. I was actually about halfway through the third book (A Storm of Swords) when I realized I didn’t care about any of the characters, the Machiavellian political machinations, or even the baby dragons.
I thought perhaps it was just book fatigue, but I haven’t bothered picking them up again.
Mr. Martin is undoubtedly a very fine writer - his world and his characters just didn’t hit me in the sweet spot.
I’m in the club. I read the first two, forcing my way through the second. I just did not care enough about the surviving characters to attempt the third.
I read The Wolves of Memory on the advice of a friend, and wasn’t impressed.
I saw Nightflyers and hated it. I know it’s wrong to judge the SF novel by its movie, but I haven’t wanted to read the original to see what it was like. I had a similar reaction to the Outer Limits episode “Sandkings”, based on a Martin story. It seemed to make no sense.
I can see why if you have the ability to pick up all 4 books, and read them in a relatively short time span. Waiting 4 years between books can ease the repetition in the prose.
I really liked his first book. The second wasn’t quite as good. The third was very good again, but started to get bogged down. The 4th was trudging through mud.
I think I really liked it initially, because it wasn’t quite such a cookie-cutter fantasy. People that you liked died. People that you didn’t like succeeded. And over all the petty political squabbling there was this dark ominous cloud hanging.
But it was quite obvious that by the 3rd book, GRRM was trying to capitalize on the the parts that people liked initially, and way over used them.
It also has become quite obvious to me that GRRM, like so many other authors, is gradually turning the series into a serial. Gotta milk the cow for all its worth.
I’m the opposite. I used to read a lot of fantasy when I was a kid, but wrote the whole genre off as being basically a collection of increasingly repetitive Tolkien knockoffs once I got older. A friend convinced me to read Song of Ice and Fire though, and I really enjoyed it. At the least, it’s at least nothing like LOTR.
Maybe I’m too shallow or something but I don’t enjoy repeatedly getting invested in characters only to have them be brutally murdered or screwed. It wasn’t long before the only characters left were ones I despised.
After a few books I just stopped caring about the characters because I felt that as soon as I did GRRM would just screw them over some how. Then obviously when I didn’t care about the characters I became completely bored with the books.
I actually continued Song of Ice and Fire far longer than I should have just because people had recommended it so strongly.
I made it through the first book. I’ve been reading the second for months now (by reading I mean I started it and didn’t make it halfway before something else caught my eye and I didn’t go back).
I might go back later, just to find out what happens next, but I’m not that invested in it.
I read the Novella “The Sworn Sword” in a collection, and the writing just did not appeal to me, to the extent that I have interest in reading anything longer. I mean, I’ve nothing against realism, or darkness, or gritty (I love Miéville, for instance), but “plodding” doesn’t do it for me. And that was a short work, I can’t imagine I’d like a longer piece much.
For some reason (and I can’t put my finger on why) it reminded me of those Horseclan books, only without the incest themes.
I’m about 2/3 of the way through book 3, “A Storm of Swords” and so far have enjoyed the series. In partiular the details of the cultures, geographies, religions, histories, etc. My wife has read all 4 and is eagerly awaitng book 5 this fall.
I felt the same as the OP when I was reading Phillip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” Trilogy (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass). About 200 pages into “Spyglass” I realized I didn’t care about any of the characters or what happened to them.
I read the first two books, and enjoyed them well enough, but then I found out the series was going to be at least six books long, and I lost interest. I don’t mind lengthy series, if the books are relatively self-contained, but an endless series of books where nothing ever comes to a climax? Sorry. I need some degree of closure. I’m not inteested in another Robert Jordan.
I’m a big GRRM fan, athough I admit that the A Song of Ice and Fire books are enormous and can be overwhelming at times. I don’t always trouble to keep track of the secondary characters, I’ll admit. But I actually like that no character is safe - anyone might be killed, raped, mutilated or messed with, with no warning at all. Very realistic, given the times in which the books are set, and certainly keeps you on your toes.
CalMeacham, the novella “Sandkings” is far far far better than the Outer Limits episode. Please read it. Also, the short story “The Way of Cross and Dragon,” in the collection entitled Sandkings, is masterful - about a distant-future Catholic Church trying to stamp out alien heresies.
I agree with silenus that some of GRRM’s shorter works are also quite worthwhile. Fevre Dream is about vampires along the Mississippi before the Civil War; it’s excellent. Tuf Voyaging is a collection of interrelated short stories about ecology, absolute power, a gigantic derelict starship and psionic cats - quirky but a lot of fun. One of my favorite SF books ever, as a matter of fact! The Armageddon Rag, a mythic/supernatural rock-and-roll novel, underwhelmed me, although Dying of the Light, about a planet drifting away from its sun many years after an intergalactic exposition there, is a clever, almost wistful character study.
I like The Song of Ice and Fire. I like following the characters from childhood to adulthood. I also think there is closure, in the sense that plot threads are resolved. Too much SFF is ‘epic’ in scope, but glossed over in order to suit the short attention span audience. Everyone wants to make a Lord of the Rings, but Lord of the Rings really wasn’t all that epic. Middle-Earth was a small low population area.
