Loved the first book in the series. Second book was entertaining but starting to wander. Third book finished because you just knew this had to be going somewhere. Fourth book was rediculout. Got Book Five (this one) because having invested so much energy into the series just hated to admit defeat. Alas. This whole series should be compressed into at most 2 volumes. Everything after the first 2 is just an exercise in Martin seeing how many silly unrelated plot twists can be squeezed onto the printed page to fill up space to sell more books.

It's disapointing because some/lots/all of the stuff left hanging from the frist 2 books could be nicely brought together to make a nice epic. But no.

Read the first 2 books and pretend it's the end. Oh, and you can't start anywhere but the beginning.
Loved the first book in the series. Second book was entertaining but starting to wander. Third book finished because you just knew this had to be going somewhere. Fourth book was rediculout. Got Book Five (this one) because having invested so much energy into the series just hated to admit defeat. Alas. This whole series should be compressed into at most 2 volumes. Everything after the first 2 is just an exercise in Martin seeing how many silly unrelated plot twists can be squeezed onto the printed page to fill up space to sell more books. It's disapointing because some/lots/all of the stuff left hanging from the frist 2 books could be nicely brought together to make a nice epic. But no. Read the first 2 books and pretend it's the end. Oh, and you can't start anywhere but the beginning.