I've posted about the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series before... I just finished slogging through book 5, the most recent book to be published. In case you don't recall, this series is the basis for the HBO series, "A Game of Thrones."
Books 1 -3 were hard to put down. Book 4 was like starting over. Book 5 finally starts to build some story back up. The characters you love in books 1-3 are either dead or not mentioned in book 4. It's long and very, very slow. You get to hear about some of your favorites in book 5 again but they aren't doing much. Some are wandering across the narrow sea, some are captive, some are fretting over whom to marry, some are wandering around Westeros. Oh yeah, Arya still exists, what the hell has she been up to? It was very, very frustrating to reach the final page and realize that not much has happened.
The thing is... I really like it! The story lines move glacially which cause me to feel both frustration at the lack of action but also a connection to the characters. It's a rich, fully developed world that feels familiar. Need directions from King's Landing to Winterfell? I can do that. What are the preferred foods in Mereen, I could probably cool you some. Where does the best wine come from? The Arbor, of course.
I really hope the stories start to come back together in book 6. It hasn't been published yet and we'll likely have a couple years to fret over what it may or may not contain. I hope there is a payoff or at least resolution within the next 10 years. I'll read the future books as soon as they come out but I've already started to ask myself, "Why?" In for a penny, in for a pound.
Books 1 -3 were hard to put down. Book 4 was like starting over. Book 5 finally starts to build some story back up. The characters you love in books 1-3 are either dead or not mentioned in book 4. It's long and very, very slow. You get to hear about some of your favorites in book 5 again but they aren't doing much. Some are wandering across the narrow sea, some are captive, some are fretting over whom to marry, some are wandering around Westeros. Oh yeah, Arya still exists, what the hell has she been up to? It was very, very frustrating to reach the final page and realize that not much has happened.
The thing is... I really like it! The story lines move glacially which cause me to feel both frustration at the lack of action but also a connection to the characters. It's a rich, fully developed world that feels familiar. Need directions from King's Landing to Winterfell? I can do that. What are the preferred foods in Mereen, I could probably cool you some. Where does the best wine come from? The Arbor, of course.
I really hope the stories start to come back together in book 6. It hasn't been published yet and we'll likely have a couple years to fret over what it may or may not contain. I hope there is a payoff or at least resolution within the next 10 years. I'll read the future books as soon as they come out but I've already started to ask myself, "Why?" In for a penny, in for a pound.
No comments:
Post a Comment