Book #26

Ok, I'm done with the Lannisters, Starks, Tyrells, Baratheons, Tarlys, Conningtons, Mantells, Umbers, Karstarks, Boltons, Greyjoys, Targaryens, etc., etc., etc., at least for as long as it takes Mr. Martin to churn out volume 6. After 5,000 pages, the investment of time will not allow me to put the series away from contempt at its latest installment, but I feel sorely tempted to do so.

I feel like this book was all about filling out an obligation to do 8 volumes, because there's a lot of time spent by characters going around and around destinations or toward them and then back for hundreds of pages and few characters seem to get where they're going until near the end. Further complications are added to an already rather bloated epic, and those complications don't seem to add much to the story other than to delay gratification of existing story lines. One waits and waits through 880 pages for something to happen, and then too much happens at the end.

Or maybe I've just become exhausted by the series after reading it all in one fell swoop.