Re-guilt

[skywalker_child]

So, in preparation for A Dance with Dragons, I re-read the first four books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series.  It'd been a long time since the last book and, frankly, I didn't remember a lot of the details I knew would probably be important.  So, since May/June, my literary world has been consumed by George RR Martin, while other books collect

Comments

[aregan]

I'm not sure if one can ever catch up on things, but I would like to point out that DANCE was a huge disappointment for me. Woe, alas, despair.

Hmm...

[anathema523]

Amanda -

Why a disappointment? I haven't read the books yet (and am considering waiting til they are all out to avoid frustration!) but I was talking to a friend at work who disliked "Feast of Crows" but is loving Dragons. He says it's b/c Dragons deals with characters he's interested in, but Crows dealt with characters he didn't much care for...

Re: Hmm...

[aregan]

I absolutely agree about the character split; all the shiny people are in DANCE. Which alone made it a much better book, I think. But what I really loved so much about the first three books (and you should absolutely read them at some point; they're brilliant) was how tight the plot was; every chapter mattered, and every chapter moved the story forward. GRRM started to lose that a bit at the end of STORM (not enough to matter, mind; it's still one of my favorite books in the history of the world), and then, for me at least, lost it entirely in FEAST. Part of it, I think, was that previously minor characters became POV characters, several of whom were nowhere nearly interesting enough to merit this advancement, and also because GRRM really started to get bogged down in random detail. He didn't do that in the first three--he gave just enough vivid description to build up the bones of the scene in your mind, and then let you add the meat and muscle; in FEAST, he started describing things (frequently unessential things; honestly, the

[skywalker_child]

I wasn't disappointed with Dragons; I just spent a lot of time going "WTF? WTF?" because Martin doesn't play by the rules. Not in a bad way...just that he doesn't do what I expect him to.