Jase

As much as absolutely loved the first three books of Martin's A Song of Ice And Fire series, this one along with A Feast For Crows felt like a lot of filler. Originally, by Martin's own admission, he planned to have a gap of years after the third book and then to jump back in, but in tracing out the events that would occur during the gap so that he knew where all the characters would be at the start of his new story cycle, he got excited about the stories and decided to write them rather than have them skipped. The beginning of the series, A Game of Thrones, doesn't begin at the beginning. Much has happened in the land of Westeros, and part of the brilliance of the first three books is how they weave in details of the wars and events that came before without bogging down the story. You get the information you need, you understand that those tales you aren't being told are exciting and important, but you are in this story here which is also exciting. AFFC and ADWD contain elements of that, flashing back to days before AGOT, and those turn out to be the best parts of the books. The rest of it feels like moving chess pieces around a board with the occasional taking of a pawn and little else.

Despite the lackluster experience with these two books, I'll continue reading the series, but I can't help but feel that Martin should have stuck to his original plan, skipped some time and picked up the story again when all the players we in place again.