Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I just finished A Dance w/Dragons with a profound sense of disappointment. I kept reading this book hoping that after setting up the mail plot points, George RR would close out the book with monumental outburst of action, violence, battle and intriguing plot twists. But. Nothing. Ever. Happens. I loved Game of Thrones--the best fantasy book I've read since LOTR, and Clash of Kings held my rapt attention, especially with Tyrion's Machiavellian nature and the way he systematically outmaneuvered his sister and bent everyone to his will; and the series momentum, to large extent, was continued with Storm of Swords--though there were troubling sections in that book that led me to wonder what the author was thinking. (However, I thought the climatic duel between the Red Viper of Dorne and The Mountain was a tour de force--I keep re-reading that section hoping for a different outcome of the fight and always coming away disappointed. That's great story telling!) However, Feast & Dance should never have been written in their current form--or preferably not at all. Will somebody tell Tyrion where whores go? Yes, I get it--Jon Snow knows nothing. Jaime, did you know Cersei has been screwing Lancel & Osmund? One can cut 100 pages of text simply by removing all food references. If you remove all reminisces you could cut another 100 pages. Good lord! Did anybody edit this train wreck? Instead it's up to the reader to assess whether or not a paragraph is worthy of being read and then skipping to the next paragraph if the answer is "no" (which happens all too often--the vast majority of this book is mere "fill" the purpose of which is to extend the life of this series). George--what happened, man? Was it the money? Vanity? Who was responsible for deciding to turn this trilogy into a 7 book series? Are all the later books going to be 1000+ pages? Are you being paid by the word? Did you really think your fans would be interested in what Tyrion had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner while playing chess floating on a barge down some river to join Daenerys--day after boring & uneventful day? You might have pulled it off if they had joined forces in the end, but we were denied any resolution to this intriguing story line. Daenerys was one of my favorite character in the first three books; I loved it when she slowly changed from a frightened girl into a leader and conqueror in her own right; but in Dance she does NOTHING (unfortunately like all the other characters). The Daenerys in Storm crucified 163 Great Masters in Meereen when they sufficiently provoked her, yet she seems reluctant to do what is necessary to stop the Sons of the Harpy. Chapter after chapter and she does nothing. Lots of internal dialogue, reminisces, and angst, but she does NOTHING. At the end when she FINALLY rides Drogon, she still manages to do NOTHING. The beheading of the main protagonist in Game of Thrones was a brilliant stroke that riveted me and left me gasping to find out what happens next; but, George, you've gone to that well too many times--the shock value of killing off a main character has lost its power and now it looks like a desperate move to regain your magic. [spoiler alert!] Jon Snow was never one of my favorite characters, but why give him the Caesar treatment in a ludicrous plot twist that undercut the only interesting thing he was about do (march on Winterfell)? Or is he really dead? After all, Westeros is quickly turning into Zombieland. I know your stated reasons for killing off your characters, but you should know that because your penchant for mayhem This Reader now refuses to invest any emotional energy and identify with any of the characters for fear they'll be stabbed, shot, poisoned, or otherwise butchered at their wedding. I know there are no heroes in real life, but that's why I read fantasies--to escape real life for brief periods of time--not to have my heroes torn down and my nose rubbed in the nitty gritty detail of life in medieval times. And this brings me to another disturbing point: George--you're starting to creep me out with your sex scenes. From the start I was uncomfortable with girls being married off at twelve or thirteen, or whenever they "flower"; it's now getting dangerously close to kiddie porn and I think you should back away from writing any more sex scenes involving girls. You have to be an writer of exceptional power (think Nobokov's "Lolita") to pull off this delicate subject matter, and as good a writer as you are, you are not that good. I'm sorry for venting; I guess I'm really very upset that a series like Ice & Fire that started off with such promise should get derailed so badly. George--you could have been one of the greats, but you threw it all away for another sack of money. My advice: do a DO OVER. Go back and pretend book #4 & 5 never happened and pick up the story from the end of book #3, apologize to your fans for wasting their time & money, ask them to burn their copies of Feast & Dance, and then wrap up the series in another book or two (maximum of 500 pages each), and do it in the next year or two; no more 5-6 year gaps. If you cannot summon up the energy to get this series concluded, just release the main plot points in a Black Lightning format and let your fan base take over the series. You're burned out.