A Storm of Swords

So I finished A Storm of Swords a couple weeks ago.  Yeah, about a week before leaving for Italy, I finally managed through the little I had left.

A lot happens; of the first three books in this series, the third is easily the best.  There are frustrating deaths and oh so rewarding deaths.  Several of each, in fact.  And I don't really remember a slow part in the entire book.  I was pretty engaged for all 1150 pages.

Still, that's a lot of reading and it took me a couple months. And now that I'm finished with it, I'm taking a break from the series for a while to get some other books in.  Yes, I suppose I like this series.  But I'm finding the t.v. show far more entertaining.

Martin, while a superb writer, with amazing details and gripping plot, lacks one word in his vocabulary: brevity.  The guy even talks in circles.  I've watched a couple interviews with him and while nothing he says is ever redundant or needlessly filling the space, he still could be far more brief.  The books suffer from this problem overall.

Each book has had actually two major plot points come to pass.  The first book was Robert's death.  That could have been the end of the first book.  Book two could have been Ned's death.  Book three could have been somewhere half way in to book two (I don't remember what major even happened in book two, Jon going over to the Wildlings, killing the Halfhand?) and then I don't even remember how book 2 ended  but whatever that was could be book 4, book 5 could have wrapped up with the RW, and then book Tyrion popping a crossbow bolt through Tywin's intenstins for the end of book six.

That might have made for easier reading.  At least, I feel as though I've read six books as opposed to just three.  Technically, and on average, 3000 pages worth of paperback content is six books, not three.  So there's that ...

Anyway, Song of Ice and Fire is going on the shelf for now.  Going to read a few other things before I get back to it.