Man, I really really wanted to love that whole book series. The characterization was fantastic, the settings were detailed and rich, the story telling was great ...

But, sometime part-way through A Feast For Crows, I just couldn't stand reading it any more. The violence seemed too unnecessary; the destruction of characters that had been so carefully built had started to turn into an expectation -- "I wonder how he's going to later make this interesting new character suffer? Will he maim them? Murder them? Destroy them psychologically?" For me, in that volume, it somehow went from being a great story with difficult events to a really ugly story that just wasn't worth reading anymore. I no longer cared about the characters because, y'know, they were gonna die anyway. Or worse.

Now I'm starting to hear from people who are watching the HBO series but who never read the books, and they're talking about how they really love this character or that character, and every time inside I get this massive troll face on and think, "Heh ... just you wait and see what happens to that one."

I sold my copy of the set to a used bookstore. I hear there's another one out now, but I have very little desire, or curiosity, towards it.