Of late, I've been reading A Song of Ice and Fire (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Song-Ice-Fire-Volumes/dp/0007477155/) (the 5 volume set, though. I wasn't aware that there are more books till just now), and I'm just past halfway through the 3rd book (A Storm of Swords), and I have to vent/rant a little.
Now without giving too much away (I hate spoilers as much as the next person), I'm getting really tired of the author killing off the heroes in the book! I understand that this is a perfectly valid method of continuing the story line, and keeping the reader engaged in the process, but come on! the people I've come to love, respect and admire now lay dead at my feet, so to speak! Sure, there are others in the story who still qualify as "heroes", but it's not the same, and I now fear for their safety! It's beginning to feel like the bad guys are going to win, and that just plain sucks!
I came very, very close to chucking the whole lot of books (both read and unread) into the bin, but I'm far too invested in the series to give up, even though I know the story's going to break my heart over and over again before the tale is all told. I want to cry! :(
Ok, rant over. Sorry. The series is a fantastic read, and easily sucks you into the lives (and deaths, damn them!) of the people of Westeros. The descriptions in the story are descriptive, yet concise and compact, the emotional content is off the scale, and the characters are believable. The plot lines twist and turn more than a roller coaster designed by a maniac on LSD, and the chapters (each focusing on a different character in the story) nearly always end on a cliff-hanger! I'm angered, frustrated, shocked, and desperate to continue the story EVERY TIME I PUT THAT BLOODY BOOK DOWN!... But isn't that the way it's supposed to be?
I've not read the books but am an avid watcher of the series.
I get what you're saying about the characters but isn't that just his style. When you play a game of thrones; heads will roll.
5 volume set of 7 books. There are 2 more books planned, I believe, but that could mean 4. Nearly as good as a trilogy in 5 parts (or increasingly inaccurate trilogy).
I've never had HBO, so I've never seen the popular series, and now that I'm reading the books, I doubt that I'll want to. I don't know why, but when I've built a world based on a book (or series of them, in this case), my mind becomes somewhat closed to other interpretations or visions of the same place. It's sad, because this shortcoming prevents me from truly enjoying some really good movies. At least with J.K. Rowling's work, I saw the first movie before I read any of the books, so I had a nice visual framework on which to build. Still, though, by book 4 I was disappointed anew; not from a visual standpoint, but from the fact that they left SO MUCH OUT. :(
Could you imagine a movie based on Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time? Or Terry Goodkind's books??? Oh... My...