Quote Originally Posted by kdrcraig View Post
They're all fantastic, I'd say my least favorite was A Storm of Swords, I didn't really dig the shift in perspective to other characters, pretty sure it was in that book. Still a good book but I missed hearing from my favorite characters for a whole book. I have trouble remembering what happened in which book, so much goes on and most of the books are so long that it gets tough to keep everything straight.
i'm in the same boat, my timeline for game of thrones is pretty much warped, i sort of mass digested all the books in one fell swoop, and am now in the holding pattern for something new. my sense of things - i remember the first book, then there is everything that comes after.

i miss alot of what i really liked about the first book, where all of those characters interacted - the starks, the lannisters, the almost baratheons, littlefinger etc - all of them would mix and match as the story progressed, then with ned's death that is shattered, and puts everyone on separate paths - and these are all left to twist, but never really intertwine again. jon to the wall, arya on her own path, sansa isolated in king's landing, rob to the war etc.

Sometimes I feel like he drags things out longer than he needs to, some of the battles and things you can see coming he takes forever to get around to. But I have to hand it to him for creating such a huge world with an incredible history and an insane amount of characters and keeping all that shit straight, it baffles me how detailed most of the shit in this series is.
yes. martin really needs some kind of outside editor, or someone else who can provide focus, the books are amazingly detailed, but there are all over the place. So many different events and most of them seemingly completely unimportant. case in point kal drogo his story was interesting to a point and he certainly had potential to be a major player had he been the one to lead his horsemen over the sea into westeros, but nope surprise he's dead! oh look baby dragons, too bad they won't be big enough for another 5-6 books...

Also, Tyrion is by far my favorite character. Jamie really becomes a lot less of a shithead as the books progress as well, I found myself rooting for him in the past couple books.
tyrion was always a scene stealing bastard. he's my fave as well. the kingslayer has grown on me too, i'm sure some of that is all the other "good guys" are dropping like flies and he's the least of the worst left standing.