I am on vacation this week and just finished the latest Game of Thrones (GoT) Book (#5 Dance of Dragons). I started reading this series by George RR Martin after seeing the HBO trailers for their 2011 series GoT in 2010. I read the first few books before the series started (books 1-4). These I borrowed digital copies from the library, which doesn't have too much content, but it actually had these books. To borrow digital copies you have to wait for their copies to be available then download them within 3 days. These being popular the was a wait up to a week or more. Then you had the traditional 14 days borrowing period once downloaded to read the books before they expire on the reader. These books were at least 700-1000 pages, but I was so into them I got them done in as little as 5 days.
So the first book was excellent and I see why HBO picked it up. This isn't meant to be a comprehensive reiveiw of the series but sufficed to say it is a fantasy medieval with adult themes: sex, violence colorful language, the typical HBO series we know and love. The next book was good, leaving you hungry for more. But the 3rd and 4th started so many threads new characters and story lines, but didn't close enough. Many main threads stagnated and were passed over for new characters that you just didn't have much invested in thus leaving you empty. I wouldn't be spoiling anything to tell you some story's did get wrapped up and some main characters did too (wink wink), but the ratio to closing and opening was not positive. This leaves a web of threads needing to be trimmed. The author had been working on this 5th book for sometime and it was released in summer 2011 (after the HBO first run of book one was done) . He offered some explanation of the 4th to the 5th book ie the timing being long between books and the shift. The shift needs some explanation. In the 4th book some main story lines were just dropped; you just didn't hear from those characters. This was actually ok if you had heard enough or got enough from the ones he did voice. So I guess I should have taken a lesson from in the 4th book in which the storys you did have were left open, meaning the ones in book 5 would be left in limbo too. But in his explanation he spoke of weaving the storys together in time and practical function, so that gave me some hope that certain things would be moving the right direction and I would get more satisfaction. Well that didn't happen. The good news is it was still well written, but less of the details and sense of place that the other novels had, but still enjoyable. I guess about half way through I saw that things weren't closing, so that left me really turned off at that point. I held out hope I was wrong, but as the chapters moved in I saw my fears were realized. Although there was some twists, that we know and love in this series, but not enough to let me say this book was great. Now will I read book number 6 (and I guess 7, no way to wrap up all the loose ends in the next 1000 pages) yes I will. Not really an endorsement but a following through on my commitment. I am a newcomer to this series, getting all my fix in less than a year, how do the die hard fans that started with this series form the first book think? My commitment is much less, but again maybe I enjoy punishment.
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