Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
I'm sure it's one thing for those who can read them straight through, at their own pace.
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This was me. Or I, for the pedants.
A friend had been pushing me to read the books for years, and I’d got the first one free from Fictionwise. When the fifth book was finally about to come out, I figured it was time, and read them straight through, as you said, finishing up the fourth just as the fifth hit my library.
I’ll say it up front, and no surprise to people who might know my tastes, that this is not my kind of thing at all. However, I was riveted through the first three books. The invention! The upending of expectations! But then.... the fourth book and my realization that only the secondary characters made the cut. Compounded by the colossal tedium. It had been possible, in earlier books, to go from Winterfell to King’s Landing without experiencing every. single. step. But momentum and the carrot of Tyrion got me to read book five and after that, it didn’t matter when book six came out. I was done. Five was ridiculous; it was blindingly obvious that Martin had no plan, which was why he continued to open up the story as discontinuities abounded. Never did I finish a book with a greater sense of , “Good riddance.”