Author Topic: A Game of Thrones (contains spoilers)  (Read 413081 times)

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Re: A Game of Thrones (contains spoilers)
« Reply #180 on: May 20, 2013, 01:22:02 PM »

Offline Evantime34

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The books just fall apart after the third novel, no longer enjoyable to read anymore. Much better for me to just read the wiki on what's happening because the words on the page become a massive chore even for me as an avid reader.

Quanity of words and characters goes up, quality of writing goes to nothing.
Have you read the fifth book? I didn't really enjoy the fourth book because it mostly focused on the character I wasn't interested in but I thought the fifth book was very good.
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Re: A Game of Thrones (contains spoilers)
« Reply #181 on: May 20, 2013, 01:25:06 PM »

Offline Fafnir

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The books just fall apart after the third novel, no longer enjoyable to read anymore. Much better for me to just read the wiki on what's happening because the words on the page become a massive chore even for me as an avid reader.

Quanity of words and characters goes up, quality of writing goes to nothing.
Have you read the fifth book? I didn't really enjoy the fourth book because it mostly focused on the character I wasn't interested in but I thought the fifth book was very good.
No I haven't because the quality decline started in the third and continued for the fourth.

No reason to spend my money on it, especially when I've seen authors have the same thing happen to them before (Robert Jordan being the most famous recent example)

I suppose I could borrow it as I certainly have many friends who own it but as a consquence of the lackluster last two books I read I've stopped caring.

Re: A Game of Thrones (contains spoilers)
« Reply #182 on: May 20, 2013, 01:27:25 PM »

Offline indeedproceed

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Last one-off potshot: Do you guys like 500 words describing the banners on a non-critical battlefield? 1,000 words describing the dresses at a ceremony of people you never meet and don't matter?

George RR Martin does. He likes it A LOT.


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Re: A Game of Thrones (contains spoilers)
« Reply #183 on: May 20, 2013, 01:29:30 PM »

Offline Evantime34

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The books just fall apart after the third novel, no longer enjoyable to read anymore. Much better for me to just read the wiki on what's happening because the words on the page become a massive chore even for me as an avid reader.

Quanity of words and characters goes up, quality of writing goes to nothing.
Have you read the fifth book? I didn't really enjoy the fourth book because it mostly focused on the character I wasn't interested in but I thought the fifth book was very good.
No I haven't because the quality decline started in the third and continued for the fourth.

No reason to spend my money on it, especially when I've seen authors have the same thing happen to them before (Robert Jordan being the most famous recent example)

I suppose I could borrow it as I certainly have many friends who own it but as a consquence of the lackluster last two books I read I've stopped caring.
I would advise you to give the fifth book a try, then again I read all of the Wheel of Time books (Robert Jordan)
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CB Draft: Memphis Grizz
Players: Klay Thompson, Jabari Parker, Aaron Gordon
Next 3 picks: 4.14, 4.15, 4.19

Re: A Game of Thrones (contains spoilers)
« Reply #184 on: May 20, 2013, 01:40:19 PM »

Offline indeedproceed

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The books just fall apart after the third novel, no longer enjoyable to read anymore. Much better for me to just read the wiki on what's happening because the words on the page become a massive chore even for me as an avid reader.

Quanity of words and characters goes up, quality of writing goes to nothing.
Have you read the fifth book? I didn't really enjoy the fourth book because it mostly focused on the character I wasn't interested in but I thought the fifth book was very good.
No I haven't because the quality decline started in the third and continued for the fourth.

No reason to spend my money on it, especially when I've seen authors have the same thing happen to them before (Robert Jordan being the most famous recent example)

I suppose I could borrow it as I certainly have many friends who own it but as a consquence of the lackluster last two books I read I've stopped caring.

The 5th book is better than the 4th book but the 3rd book as you say really falls apart.

But to bring it all home, the books are addicting. Maybe Fafnir can walk away, but I'm regulated to just telling everyone not to read them, and buying them the day they come out for myself.

"You've gotta respect a 15-percent 3-point shooter. A guy
like that is always lethal." - Evan 'The God' Turner

Re: A Game of Thrones (contains spoilers)
« Reply #185 on: May 20, 2013, 02:03:09 PM »

Offline fairweatherfan

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Game Of Thrones is the heart-breaking overtime loss by the underdog of books/TV shows.

Everytime you start to root for a character/think the over-arching plot is actually going somewhere, they die/it doesn't.

I'm actually a little bitter that GoT is so critically acclaimed and widely watched. Screw George RR Martin and his 'homeless Santa' beard.

I haven't read the books but my understanding is the big metatheme is deconstructing the common tropes of fantasy writing.  Hence all the badasses laid low in the most mundane ways, buildups to epic confrontations that fall apart or take an unexpected turn, and "good guys" who really are just a different shade of gray than the "villains". 

For what it is, I like it a lot.  The characters feel more like humans than one-note archetypes, and it's very hard to tell what's going to happen next, except for a few telegraphed events like Danaerys torching the slavers and the major characters I think are going to die very soon (not a book reader, but the signs are so clear to me that I don't want to name names).
The books are excellent.  You really should read them.  And I'd be curious who you think is going to die soon.  Private message who you think it is.  I won't tell you if you are right or not, I'm just curious.

PM sent sir.

I'd like to read the books, but the vibe I get about the series is that the good books will mostly be rehashes of what I've already seen, and then the newest ones are supposed to be kinda crappy and will (mostly) spoil the rest of the show to boot. 

Re: A Game of Thrones (contains spoilers)
« Reply #186 on: May 20, 2013, 02:05:11 PM »

Offline Moranis

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Game Of Thrones is the heart-breaking overtime loss by the underdog of books/TV shows.

Everytime you start to root for a character/think the over-arching plot is actually going somewhere, they die/it doesn't.

I'm actually a little bitter that GoT is so critically acclaimed and widely watched. Screw George RR Martin and his 'homeless Santa' beard.

I haven't read the books but my understanding is the big metatheme is deconstructing the common tropes of fantasy writing.  Hence all the badasses laid low in the most mundane ways, buildups to epic confrontations that fall apart or take an unexpected turn, and "good guys" who really are just a different shade of gray than the "villains". 

For what it is, I like it a lot.  The characters feel more like humans than one-note archetypes, and it's very hard to tell what's going to happen next, except for a few telegraphed events like Danaerys torching the slavers and the major characters I think are going to die very soon (not a book reader, but the signs are so clear to me that I don't want to name names).

The thing about GoT (or more aptly A Song Of Ice and Fire, the books..the TV show has Peter Dinklage and I can't get mad at him) is that the whole idea of the 'meta deconstruction' by killing off major characters spontaneously, or having large moments occur spontaneously (the death of ___ ____ at the end of the most recent book is a great example of this, or the death of ____ _________ by his ___ while he escapes after _____ _______) or the moral apathy of _____ _________'s actions the closer he gets to his eventual goal are great examples of flying in the face of traditional fantasy. It's absolutely a valid observation of the works.

But, because of that pattern, there is no central story. You start out the very first book with the white walkers. You start out the second book with the white walkers. White walkers happen sporadically throughout the rest of the books. Guess what we know about the white walkers after 4300 pages or, in my case, over 200 hours of audiobooks? Nothing! We know nothing, Jon Snow!

But meanwhile, all this other crap is going on that ultimately amounts to nothing more than B-stories when there isn't an A-story. And that's not all bad, it happens in a lot of series. Robert Jordan's life's work the Wheel Of Time series has that stuff happen fairly frequently.

But the nagging feeling you'll get if you read the books and, like me, tend to critique what you're reading as often as you enjoy reading it, all the 'meta' garbage is really just a facade to get you to read an elongated novelization of All My Children, with dragons and swords, and gratuitous sex scenes. Its guy-soaps (which is unfair to the women who also love these books..its fantasy-nerd-soaps)

It would be like if you were to write a series of books, with a strong male protagonist and multiple strong female protagonists. None of them are your barbie-doll types, they're intelligent, self-aware, and they all happen to be maddeningly in love with the male protagonist. Also, there is magic and blood and sex and stuff.

And people would say, 'wow! look at how deftly he shrugged the 'guy meets girl' paradigm, look how he defies the barbie doll female archtype!'

But you know its just a glorified harem.
I think a lot of the stuff going on may make a lot more sense once we find out how the series ends.  Things that maybe don't make sense now might later.  Then again they might not, but Martin has said he has known how the story was going to go from the start and his writing is just filling in the spaces.  He has taken very few detours or changes of direction in the overall story and scheme.  He just wrote a lot more than he thought which has extended the series.  It will be interesting to see how he does close out the series.
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Re: A Game of Thrones (contains spoilers)
« Reply #187 on: May 20, 2013, 02:08:28 PM »

Offline Moranis

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Game Of Thrones is the heart-breaking overtime loss by the underdog of books/TV shows.

Everytime you start to root for a character/think the over-arching plot is actually going somewhere, they die/it doesn't.

I'm actually a little bitter that GoT is so critically acclaimed and widely watched. Screw George RR Martin and his 'homeless Santa' beard.

I haven't read the books but my understanding is the big metatheme is deconstructing the common tropes of fantasy writing.  Hence all the badasses laid low in the most mundane ways, buildups to epic confrontations that fall apart or take an unexpected turn, and "good guys" who really are just a different shade of gray than the "villains". 

For what it is, I like it a lot.  The characters feel more like humans than one-note archetypes, and it's very hard to tell what's going to happen next, except for a few telegraphed events like Danaerys torching the slavers and the major characters I think are going to die very soon (not a book reader, but the signs are so clear to me that I don't want to name names).
The books are excellent.  You really should read them.  And I'd be curious who you think is going to die soon.  Private message who you think it is.  I won't tell you if you are right or not, I'm just curious.

PM sent sir.

I'd like to read the books, but the vibe I get about the series is that the good books will mostly be rehashes of what I've already seen, and then the newest ones are supposed to be kinda crappy and will (mostly) spoil the rest of the show to boot.
I actually didn't mind the 4th book, but it introduces a lot of new characters (and does so right at the start) and focuses a great deal on one of my least favorite characters so it was a pain to really get into.  Once into it though I felt it moved along quick enough and was easy enough to read.  The 5th book I found to be pretty good overall, but it ends before the two battles that were foreshadowed all book long happen, which was incredibly annoying.
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Re: A Game of Thrones (contains spoilers)
« Reply #188 on: May 20, 2013, 02:39:43 PM »

Offline Fafnir

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The books just fall apart after the third novel, no longer enjoyable to read anymore. Much better for me to just read the wiki on what's happening because the words on the page become a massive chore even for me as an avid reader.

Quanity of words and characters goes up, quality of writing goes to nothing.
Have you read the fifth book? I didn't really enjoy the fourth book because it mostly focused on the character I wasn't interested in but I thought the fifth book was very good.
No I haven't because the quality decline started in the third and continued for the fourth.

No reason to spend my money on it, especially when I've seen authors have the same thing happen to them before (Robert Jordan being the most famous recent example)

I suppose I could borrow it as I certainly have many friends who own it but as a consquence of the lackluster last two books I read I've stopped caring.
I would advise you to give the fifth book a try, then again I read all of the Wheel of Time books (Robert Jordan)
Yeah I stopped after 7, which is where Jordan ran out of good ideas and just started playing around in the world he clearly spent so much time creating.

By all the descriptions of of the 5th book and future books its the same with Martin. Writing/pacing/ is secondary compared to fully fleshing out the "world" that he's created.

Wikipedia plot summary's will give me the same enjoyment. I probably will sit down and watch the TV series at some point.

Re: A Game of Thrones (contains spoilers)
« Reply #189 on: May 20, 2013, 02:43:04 PM »

Offline Fafnir

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Game Of Thrones is the heart-breaking overtime loss by the underdog of books/TV shows.

Everytime you start to root for a character/think the over-arching plot is actually going somewhere, they die/it doesn't.

I'm actually a little bitter that GoT is so critically acclaimed and widely watched. Screw George RR Martin and his 'homeless Santa' beard.

I haven't read the books but my understanding is the big metatheme is deconstructing the common tropes of fantasy writing.  Hence all the badasses laid low in the most mundane ways, buildups to epic confrontations that fall apart or take an unexpected turn, and "good guys" who really are just a different shade of gray than the "villains". 

For what it is, I like it a lot.  The characters feel more like humans than one-note archetypes, and it's very hard to tell what's going to happen next, except for a few telegraphed events like Danaerys torching the slavers and the major characters I think are going to die very soon (not a book reader, but the signs are so clear to me that I don't want to name names).

The thing about GoT (or more aptly A Song Of Ice and Fire, the books..the TV show has Peter Dinklage and I can't get mad at him) is that the whole idea of the 'meta deconstruction' by killing off major characters spontaneously, or having large moments occur spontaneously (the death of ___ ____ at the end of the most recent book is a great example of this, or the death of ____ _________ by his ___ while he escapes after _____ _______) or the moral apathy of _____ _________'s actions the closer he gets to his eventual goal are great examples of flying in the face of traditional fantasy. It's absolutely a valid observation of the works.

But, because of that pattern, there is no central story. You start out the very first book with the white walkers. You start out the second book with the white walkers. White walkers happen sporadically throughout the rest of the books. Guess what we know about the white walkers after 4300 pages or, in my case, over 200 hours of audiobooks? Nothing! We know nothing, Jon Snow!

But meanwhile, all this other crap is going on that ultimately amounts to nothing more than B-stories when there isn't an A-story. And that's not all bad, it happens in a lot of series. Robert Jordan's life's work the Wheel Of Time series has that stuff happen fairly frequently.

But the nagging feeling you'll get if you read the books and, like me, tend to critique what you're reading as often as you enjoy reading it, all the 'meta' garbage is really just a facade to get you to read an elongated novelization of All My Children, with dragons and swords, and gratuitous sex scenes. Its guy-soaps (which is unfair to the women who also love these books..its fantasy-nerd-soaps)

It would be like if you were to write a series of books, with a strong male protagonist and multiple strong female protagonists. None of them are your barbie-doll types, they're intelligent, self-aware, and they all happen to be maddeningly in love with the male protagonist. Also, there is magic and blood and sex and stuff.

And people would say, 'wow! look at how deftly he shrugged the 'guy meets girl' paradigm, look how he defies the barbie doll female archtype!'

But you know its just a glorified harem.
I think a lot of the stuff going on may make a lot more sense once we find out how the series ends.  Things that maybe don't make sense now might later.  Then again they might not, but Martin has said he has known how the story was going to go from the start and his writing is just filling in the spaces.  He has taken very few detours or changes of direction in the overall story and scheme.  He just wrote a lot more than he thought which has extended the series.  It will be interesting to see how he does close out the series.
I doubt it will make more sense, the broad "historical" arc probably will but that's all. No way to make the mess of themese/characters come together at this point, which is why so many suspect the mess is the point.

Coming up with a good premise and using up most your initial juice as a writer is what starts series like these. It natural to run out of gas quickly and for the quality to decline. I can finish series that remain readable, which given how most "big time" fantasy authors bloat their later books isn't what the writers want to do when they've won control via the success of the early books.

And clearly I'm in the minority of fantasy fans, people eat up the later books faster than the early ones usually.

Re: A Game of Thrones (contains spoilers)
« Reply #190 on: May 20, 2013, 02:44:10 PM »

Offline indeedproceed

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The books just fall apart after the third novel, no longer enjoyable to read anymore. Much better for me to just read the wiki on what's happening because the words on the page become a massive chore even for me as an avid reader.

Quanity of words and characters goes up, quality of writing goes to nothing.
Have you read the fifth book? I didn't really enjoy the fourth book because it mostly focused on the character I wasn't interested in but I thought the fifth book was very good.
No I haven't because the quality decline started in the third and continued for the fourth.

No reason to spend my money on it, especially when I've seen authors have the same thing happen to them before (Robert Jordan being the most famous recent example)

I suppose I could borrow it as I certainly have many friends who own it but as a consquence of the lackluster last two books I read I've stopped caring.
I would advise you to give the fifth book a try, then again I read all of the Wheel of Time books (Robert Jordan)
Yeah I stopped after 7, which is where Jordan ran out of good ideas and just started playing around in the world he clearly spent so much time creating.

By all the descriptions of of the 5th book and future books its the same with Martin. Writing/pacing/ is secondary compared to fully fleshing out the "world" that he's created.

Wikipedia plot summary's will give me the same enjoyment. I probably will sit down and watch the TV series at some point.

Wheel of Time stalls in the middle, but finishes strong. And by strong, I mean books 10-14. Perrin Aybara, he gon' get ya.

"You've gotta respect a 15-percent 3-point shooter. A guy
like that is always lethal." - Evan 'The God' Turner

Re: A Game of Thrones (contains spoilers)
« Reply #191 on: May 20, 2013, 03:14:10 PM »

Offline Moranis

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Game Of Thrones is the heart-breaking overtime loss by the underdog of books/TV shows.

Everytime you start to root for a character/think the over-arching plot is actually going somewhere, they die/it doesn't.

I'm actually a little bitter that GoT is so critically acclaimed and widely watched. Screw George RR Martin and his 'homeless Santa' beard.

I haven't read the books but my understanding is the big metatheme is deconstructing the common tropes of fantasy writing.  Hence all the badasses laid low in the most mundane ways, buildups to epic confrontations that fall apart or take an unexpected turn, and "good guys" who really are just a different shade of gray than the "villains". 

For what it is, I like it a lot.  The characters feel more like humans than one-note archetypes, and it's very hard to tell what's going to happen next, except for a few telegraphed events like Danaerys torching the slavers and the major characters I think are going to die very soon (not a book reader, but the signs are so clear to me that I don't want to name names).

The thing about GoT (or more aptly A Song Of Ice and Fire, the books..the TV show has Peter Dinklage and I can't get mad at him) is that the whole idea of the 'meta deconstruction' by killing off major characters spontaneously, or having large moments occur spontaneously (the death of ___ ____ at the end of the most recent book is a great example of this, or the death of ____ _________ by his ___ while he escapes after _____ _______) or the moral apathy of _____ _________'s actions the closer he gets to his eventual goal are great examples of flying in the face of traditional fantasy. It's absolutely a valid observation of the works.

But, because of that pattern, there is no central story. You start out the very first book with the white walkers. You start out the second book with the white walkers. White walkers happen sporadically throughout the rest of the books. Guess what we know about the white walkers after 4300 pages or, in my case, over 200 hours of audiobooks? Nothing! We know nothing, Jon Snow!

But meanwhile, all this other crap is going on that ultimately amounts to nothing more than B-stories when there isn't an A-story. And that's not all bad, it happens in a lot of series. Robert Jordan's life's work the Wheel Of Time series has that stuff happen fairly frequently.

But the nagging feeling you'll get if you read the books and, like me, tend to critique what you're reading as often as you enjoy reading it, all the 'meta' garbage is really just a facade to get you to read an elongated novelization of All My Children, with dragons and swords, and gratuitous sex scenes. Its guy-soaps (which is unfair to the women who also love these books..its fantasy-nerd-soaps)

It would be like if you were to write a series of books, with a strong male protagonist and multiple strong female protagonists. None of them are your barbie-doll types, they're intelligent, self-aware, and they all happen to be maddeningly in love with the male protagonist. Also, there is magic and blood and sex and stuff.

And people would say, 'wow! look at how deftly he shrugged the 'guy meets girl' paradigm, look how he defies the barbie doll female archtype!'

But you know its just a glorified harem.
I think a lot of the stuff going on may make a lot more sense once we find out how the series ends.  Things that maybe don't make sense now might later.  Then again they might not, but Martin has said he has known how the story was going to go from the start and his writing is just filling in the spaces.  He has taken very few detours or changes of direction in the overall story and scheme.  He just wrote a lot more than he thought which has extended the series.  It will be interesting to see how he does close out the series.
I doubt it will make more sense, the broad "historical" arc probably will but that's all. No way to make the mess of themese/characters come together at this point, which is why so many suspect the mess is the point.

Coming up with a good premise and using up most your initial juice as a writer is what starts series like these. It natural to run out of gas quickly and for the quality to decline. I can finish series that remain readable, which given how most "big time" fantasy authors bloat their later books isn't what the writers want to do when they've won control via the success of the early books.

And clearly I'm in the minority of fantasy fans, people eat up the later books faster than the early ones usually.
I don't know.  I can kind of see where he is going and what could happen and how he would tie everything together.  I also find the criticism of the books a bit much.  I don't think he describes things with all this great detail.  I do think there are probably too many characters and his jumping around from character to character with no real regard to time has gotten old as have a couple of story lines.  I just don't see this on and on describing of background, meals, etc. as having all that much merit.   
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Re: A Game of Thrones (contains spoilers)
« Reply #192 on: May 20, 2013, 03:20:15 PM »

Offline Evantime34

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The books just fall apart after the third novel, no longer enjoyable to read anymore. Much better for me to just read the wiki on what's happening because the words on the page become a massive chore even for me as an avid reader.

Quanity of words and characters goes up, quality of writing goes to nothing.
Have you read the fifth book? I didn't really enjoy the fourth book because it mostly focused on the character I wasn't interested in but I thought the fifth book was very good.
No I haven't because the quality decline started in the third and continued for the fourth.

No reason to spend my money on it, especially when I've seen authors have the same thing happen to them before (Robert Jordan being the most famous recent example)

I suppose I could borrow it as I certainly have many friends who own it but as a consquence of the lackluster last two books I read I've stopped caring.
I would advise you to give the fifth book a try, then again I read all of the Wheel of Time books (Robert Jordan)
Yeah I stopped after 7, which is where Jordan ran out of good ideas and just started playing around in the world he clearly spent so much time creating.

By all the descriptions of of the 5th book and future books its the same with Martin. Writing/pacing/ is secondary compared to fully fleshing out the "world" that he's created.

Wikipedia plot summary's will give me the same enjoyment. I probably will sit down and watch the TV series at some point.
For me having read the books and knowing what is going to happen has made the show less enjoyable that it is for those who come in with a blank slate.

If you decide to continue your hold out it could make watching the show that much better.

Since you and IP seem to be well versed in fantasy do you have any recommendations for me in this genre? Post them or send me a pm if you have the time. It would be greatly appreciated.
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Re: A Game of Thrones (contains spoilers)
« Reply #193 on: May 20, 2013, 03:21:12 PM »

Offline Fafnir

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Too many characters, no care for time or narrative flow, and too much that seemse similar to exposition best left for RPG sourcebooks.

That's my criticism of his later books. Writing is super-hard I can't do it, but like a lot of authors he had two and some change good books in him and then lost it for me.

A few great (or just your personal favorites) characters may rescue the series for others, not for me though.

Re: A Game of Thrones (contains spoilers)
« Reply #194 on: May 20, 2013, 03:23:19 PM »

Offline Fafnir

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The books just fall apart after the third novel, no longer enjoyable to read anymore. Much better for me to just read the wiki on what's happening because the words on the page become a massive chore even for me as an avid reader.

Quanity of words and characters goes up, quality of writing goes to nothing.
Have you read the fifth book? I didn't really enjoy the fourth book because it mostly focused on the character I wasn't interested in but I thought the fifth book was very good.
No I haven't because the quality decline started in the third and continued for the fourth.

No reason to spend my money on it, especially when I've seen authors have the same thing happen to them before (Robert Jordan being the most famous recent example)

I suppose I could borrow it as I certainly have many friends who own it but as a consquence of the lackluster last two books I read I've stopped caring.
I would advise you to give the fifth book a try, then again I read all of the Wheel of Time books (Robert Jordan)
Yeah I stopped after 7, which is where Jordan ran out of good ideas and just started playing around in the world he clearly spent so much time creating.

By all the descriptions of of the 5th book and future books its the same with Martin. Writing/pacing/ is secondary compared to fully fleshing out the "world" that he's created.

Wikipedia plot summary's will give me the same enjoyment. I probably will sit down and watch the TV series at some point.
For me having read the books and knowing what is going to happen has made the show less enjoyable that it is for those who come in with a blank slate.

If you decide to continue your hold out it could make watching the show that much better.

Since you and IP seem to be well versed in fantasy do you have any recommendations for me in this genre? Post them or send me a pm if you have the time. It would be greatly appreciated.
I'll take a look at my bookshelves and jot down a list later tonight.