It is no wonder it took Martin so long to finish this book. He seems to have lost track of his vision. It sprawls outward and not forward, and not in a great-secondary-plot-threads kind of way. Westeros is almost an afterthought while we hang around in other parts of the world doing virtually nothing. To the man who wrote the first three books in this series, this should be an embarrassment, but I don't think it is. I think here he is reveling in his admittedly elegant prose, and apparently there was no editor saying, "Uh, George, this book isn't very good." Maybe there was, actually, and the editor finally gave up realizing that this is the best he or she was going to get. This book is not important. It is at best a stopgap, at worst an absolute failure. And when at the end yet another of the few characters left with any honor inexplicably goes down under a hail of steel, I threw the book in the trash. Never again will I be so ignorant as to think that just because an artist has done great things before that he will continue to do so. I have been guilty of it many times, but this book taught me the lesson sure. It's my fault for buying it sight unseen, but his fault for writing it. I have no idea what HBO will do when they run out of books and he hasn't finished the next one yet. The series is now going to be seven books. Can we shoot for $nine? Please no. Neither he nor I are likely to live that long. "The tale grows in the telling?" In this book, the tale is slain by the teller with soporific writing. I don't care how the whole thing turns out if I have to go wading like that again. I hate to say it, but the dream may be over, folks.

Martin gave us three great books in a row. That's all we can ask really. It's an amazing accomplishment. Very few writers have done it. It's the nature of great art. It has proven almost impossible to sustain.
It is no wonder it took Martin so long to finish this book. He seems to have lost track of his vision. It sprawls outward and not forward, and not in a great-secondary-plot-threads kind of way. Westeros is almost an afterthought while we hang around in other parts of the world doing virtually nothing. To the man who wrote the first three books in this series, this should be an embarrassment, but I don't think it is. I think here he is reveling in his admittedly elegant prose, and apparently there was no editor saying, "Uh, George, this book isn't very good. " Maybe there was, actually, and the editor finally gave up realizing that this is the best he or she was going to get. This book is not important. It is at best a stopgap, at worst an absolute failure. And when at the end yet another of the few characters left with any honor inexplicably goes down under a hail of steel, I threw the book in the trash. Never again will I be so ignorant as to think that just because an artist has done great things before that he will continue to do so. I have been guilty of it many times, but this book taught me the lesson sure. It's my fault for buying it sight unseen, but his fault for writing it. I have no idea what HBO will do when they run out of books and he hasn't finished the next one yet. The series is now going to be seven books. Can we shoot for $nine? Please no. Neither he nor I are likely to live that long. "The tale grows in the telling? " In this book, the tale is slain by the teller with soporific writing. I don't care how the whole thing turns out if I have to go wading like that again. I hate to say it, but the dream may be over, folks. Martin gave us three great books in a row. That's all we can ask really. It's an amazing accomplishment. Very few writers have done it. It's the nature of great art. It has proven almost impossible to sustain.