Martin's work has always wallowed in depression and darkness, but his storytelling ability always kept me turning the pages. With "A Dance of Dragons" he has finally jumped the shark. Here the story bogs down in a surfeit of obscure names and places and endless minutiae while maintaining the usual level of degradation and perversion. I'm beginning to realize that there won't be a satisfying (let alone "happy") ending to this series. Why wade through thousands more pages of this mind-numbing Bataan death march when you know it will simply involve more innocents being raped, tortured, and murdered in nasty ways? Why continue to read about characters you hate after all the characters you might actually care about have been whacked? Sorry, but my masochism has its limits. Life is too short. Screw you George. I'm done.
Martin's work has always wallowed in depression and darkness, but his storytelling ability always kept me turning the pages. With "A Dance of Dragons" he has finally jumped the shark. Here the story bogs down in a surfeit of obscure names and places and endless minutiae while maintaining the usual level of degradation and perversion. I'm beginning to realize that there won't be a satisfying (let alone "happy") ending to this series. Why wade through thousands more pages of this mind-numbing Bataan death march when you know it will simply involve more innocents being raped, tortured, and murdered in nasty ways? Why continue to read about characters you hate after all the characters you might actually care about have been whacked? Sorry, but my masochism has its limits. Life is too short. Screw you George. I'm done.