You may certainly recommend, but I’m annoyed with him.
As are we all, but that doesn’t stop us from enjoying his earlier work, before it became the bloated corpse we see today. You can even find it at the Library, so you won’t have to pay him anything for it.
Related question, for those who would read Winds. How many of the earlier books will you have to reread to remember what’s going on?
I feel like book 1 is pretty clear in my head, and I remember most of the important plotlines from 2. But things are getting hazy by 3, and I remember at best half of what happened in 4 and 5. So I’d probably start at 3 as a warm up before the long slog of 4 and 5.
I would maybe - maybe - re-read the last one before I read the next, so that I have things fresh in mind before I go on.
(And quite understandably, susan!)
I did a re-read not long ago, so probably wouldn’t do another once for Winds.
Perhaps I’d do a (relatively) quick refresher by reading the Chapter Summaries on the Wiki of Ice and Fire:
The problem here is that we can’t be sure that ADoS will be the last book. Based on past experience and on his public comments the odds are good that it and TWoW will end up being split up.
Tolly Mune may be my favorite puling character of his. I wore out the paperback of Tuf Voyaging, and have a hardcover and the Kindle version.
Won’t be in a hurry to read it but wouldn’t mind picking it up, either.
GRRM is good, he knows his craft. Like the rest of the world I thought books 4 and 5 were pretty bad (book 5 especially) but more in the big picture sense - the disappointment of realising he’d lost his way with it. Page by page they were largely OK (imho) because he’s a good writer.
It wasn’t like some other fantasy epics that go off the rails and you’re thinking man this is actually getting painful to read.
Yes, she’s great. Love her. And her very last scene with Tuf… whew! Fan that you clearly are, you should check out this illustrated edition, too: Item no longer available
I briefly corresponded with GRRM via email awhile back, as it happens, and he said he hopes to write more Tuf stories someday, but as with GOT, I’m not holding my breath.