I finished the first book, enjoyed it immensely, and am really liking the TV series as well.
I’ve started the second book. It seems pretty great as well.
But after finishing the first book, my reaction was “That was pretty awesome. But seven books? Really? Couldn’t this have been wrapped up in a trilogy? Maybe even a duology?”
And picking carefully through spoiler threads, I am finding comments that tend to confirm my fears. People say that in the fourth and fifth books, pretty much nothing happens. And people express dismay about this.
So the question is, should I just stop now and save myself the boredom later?
I’d find the books worth reading even if they don’t advance the plot if the books continue to be filled with moments that give me chills. What moments are these? Clever bits of dialog, wrenching revelations, things like that. Like for example, I could probably read an entire book about Tyrion in which nothing really happens so long as I get to see Tyrion doing a great job of being Tyrion.
What do you think? Stop now? At least til the last two come out so I can find out if people think it was all worth it in the end? Or are the books probably worth reading through given what I’ve said above?
The first three books are pretty dang good – it’s not until the fourth book that the quality drops off, and the fourth and fifth books take place more or less concurrently and suffer from similar problems. I basically skimmed the fourth book and haven’t had the will to read more than a chapter of the fifth book, but I’m still really glad I read the first three. There are enough great scenes, moments, characters, and lines of dialogue consistently throughout the first three books that make all of them worth reading.
Oh, thank god. I’ve been avoiding spoiler threads like crazy, so I didn’t know if I was alone in having this experience. I started watching the miniseries, thought it was pretty cool, so started the series. Sailed through the first three, and then I hit Feast for Crows. I’ve been working on it for about three weeks now, and I’m barely halfway through. I’m a fast reader–should have finished it two weeks ago. But I’ve just been forcing myself to get through it so I can get on to the next book.
Now maybe I won’t bother…I’ll just read the summaries on wikipedia or something…
My opinion is basically this. Martin is a pretty good writer and the first book is rather standard fantasy with a few of those chill-giving moments thrown in to spice things up. The second book is quite a bit more violent. By the third book, he’s simply using the extreme violence and sadism systematically and repetitively, and somebody is getting brutally hacked to pieces in almost every chapter. The fourth book is worse still. I’m not going to read the fifth book but I’d bet it’s more of the same.
So … if you really like reading about people being forced to eat their own severed body parts, keep going. But if not, you should probably quit now.
I’m reading book four right now. I don’t care about violence. It’s that the chapters are each about characters I don’t give a shit about. It’s like a bad Game of Thrones spinoff. A Feast for Crows is very much The Cleveland Show of this series.
I fully expect that the creative forces for the HBO show will not dedicate an entire season to a show that doesn’t feature the characters that are their biggest draws.
Say, did you know that Tyrion is a dwarf? And that he waddles when he walks? And that he has trouble with stairs and such?
Like PeskiPiski, I enjoyed the HBO series and started reading the books. I’m nearly finished with Clash Of Kings. I’m enjoying the books, too. I like the Tyrion character. But Martin does go on a bit – repeatedly – about his deformity.
Martin does that with a lot of the characters – I’m pretty sure every single chapter that has featured Brienne has been sure to include narration or dialogue stressing how terribly, terribly ugly she is, I don’t know, in case we’ve forgotten or something?
I slogged a bit through AFFC but enjoyed the rest and I’m glad I did because so far (75% through) I really love A Dance With Dragons. Most of the good characters are back although one character’s return so far is very questionable and not explained as well as I would like. I always have liked the Daenyres chapters, which ADWD has lots of, and I know some people don’t care much for her so your enjoyment of book five might hing on that.
I didn’t care much for the Davos chapters in the previous books but he’s growing on me, and his plot in ADWD sheds light on characters/situations that left me a little muddled before.
I’m not one that minds the violence, I’d expect a kingdom carved up in war with zombies on the borders to be a pretty brutal place.
Well, since everyone is bashing A Fest for Crows, I’ll do my best to defend it. I completely disagree that you could just skip it. It’s not like the plot just stalled. Yes, there are new POVs from characters you might not care about at the moment, but at least you can see where it’s heading. I mean, there appears to be an end in sight and all these characters will tie into the overall plot.
Since the OP is just now starting, I think he’ll enjoy all the books. The new reader can quickly transition from ASOS to AFFC to ADWD without waiting to find out what happened to ol’ so-and-so, last seen at a cliffhanger 2 books and 10 years ago.
Feast for Crows was the first time in the series when I wanted to smack Martin upside the head.
His writing is normally pretty good, but the first chapter or two, holy %^&*(…If I hear and/or read the phrase ‘fearsomely strong cider’ one more time I’m going to shoot the speaker/book with a a rifle, I swear it. He must have used the phrase at least once a page <or so it seemed>; it was like he’d used the phrase once, liked it, used it as a bookmark of sorts to be filled in with other synonyms later, and then just didn’t bother to go back and tidy it up. ARGH!!
Indeed, the exact phrase is found 5 times in the prologue alone and then once more in the middle of the book. Yes, I just counted. There are other phrases that pop up a bit frequently throughout the entire series.
I like Arya, but I hate that her fucking “prayer” is always and constantly recited verbatim. How’s about writing, “she said her names” or something. Christ.
