Books I Loathed discussion

Man, I dislike this series something awful! Characters have weird names, too many characters to keep track of, and the plot goes on and on and on...

I'm only halfway through the first so maybe I wouldn't know, but the likes of Jon, Robb, Bran(don) and Catelyn aren't weird names and others may be harder to pronounce but they aren't hard to keep track off if you take it in. The first book alone is around 700+ pages so the plot is supposed to go on and on and on, otherwise there would be no point in writing it as a series.

Like I said, I haven't finished it but it seems petty to dislike a book for reasons it's marketed as an epic fantasy series in the first place.

I didn't love AGOT, but I did like it. I had trouble keeping track of who is who, but like figuring out what's going on at a large family gathering as the newest daughter-in-law, you can figure it out.

And there's a handy who's who guide in the back.

By the time you get to A Dance with Dragons you'll have it all figured out.

The Lord of the Rings was an epic series, but I had no problem following the stories. Ditto for the late Anne McCaffrey Dragonrider series. I liked the beginning of the book but it got more and more bloated and I just finally gave up. I wanted to like the book, because everybody seems to absolutely love it but I just can't. Parts of it are very good. The part where the daughters direwolf is killed made me sniffle, 'deed it did.

Trust me, I do not slavishly love this series. None of the books will ever make it into my person top 10, 25 or even 100. I don't think I've rated any of them higher than three stars. (apparently I did give five stars to A Storm of Swords, but I can't for the life of me remember why)

But I do agree, they take more effort than the average novel.

I'd have to agree with you, I couldn't stand this book. And honestly im all for epic fantasy books that have never ending plots. Im currently reading the Wheel of Time series and each book is 800+ and with 11 books in the series currently. And that series has more characters than a Song of Ice and Fire!

I was halfway through the book when I really wanted it to end. Most of the characters specifically the smaller ones drove me nuts or were uninteresting, it got so boring I felt that Martin threw in unnecessary descriptions of gratuitous sex to spice it up a bit. The last pages specifically cemented in my mind that I will never read the rest of the series.

Ok so I gave this book a try because my friend raved about it. I didn't even get passed the first chapter. I skimmed around a bit after reading a few pages of chapter one and found the first chapter about Daenerys Targaryen. So I read this chapter and I absolutely loved it. So instead of reading the whole book, I just read the chapters about her. I loved her story and her ending with the dragons. I was sad when her husband died. I've been wanting to get a hold of the other books to see if she's in any of the other but I just haven't been really diligent about it. Plus my friend told me that a book came out with all her chapters in it. I'll have to look around and I'll just read that book if it exists.

I haven't seen the show but I'm sure that I would love it. I love movies and shows that have to do with kings and the middle ages and whatnot

Hated this series - could only make it through 2 books.

I picked up the series because friends were raving and I forced myself to finish like the first five books. the world was dope but the characters mostly remained one dimensional, plus anytime I did sorta like someone, they'd end up dead. overall I thought it rather poor pacing and dialogue and didn't really get why all the fuss. but to be fair, I don't typically read fantasy fiction. at least, not for adults. I rather like some fantasy fiction for kids. it does make a decent series to watch because he spends so much time building the world, but it's not particularly well written, much of the dialogue is stilted, and there's only minimal character development. It's in such cases that one usually ends up reading for plot. that doesn't really work for this series because it just isn't plot driven at a fast pace. I mean, obviously the author has about a generation or two of storyline to get through, but he's also clearly playing a long game. what with every other character dead by like the third book, it's just too much investment for too little return.

Read the first 200 pages - threw it away.

Ymarteeny wrote: "Hated this series - could only make it through 2 books."

That's like 1800 pages of epic fantasy. You can't have hated it that much, haha. :-)

I'm so glad this thread is here. I read first book when it first came out many years ago, because I like the genre.
I thought 'what a waste of time...this is disgusting and is made for people who think rape, paedophilia, sense-less torture, murder, and abuse are cool and fun. Reading this made me feel like I was being covered in shit and I don't get why anyone would want to have this experience.'
...and then many years later it blows up and apparently many people enjoy rape, paedophilia, torture, and murder, enough to not only read it, but also watch it on tv.
Bleh.