A Game of Crap

[jchrisobrien]

I spent the majority of yesterday drawn into A Game of Thorns, and then it happened.  Two of my favorite characters killed in one chapter (I later found that one of them wasn't killed, but they weren't mentioned for the rest of the book).  A Game of Thrones started out like a taut intrigue or thriller, and halfway through it became Requiem for a Dream:  "Let's have really horrible things happen over and over to all the characters you like.  Let's see them make major sacrifices in everything they do, and nothing go right for them anyway."  I started hoping more characters would die, just to put them out of their misery.  The last quarter of the book I just skimmed, I didn't care about the details or imagery, I just wanted to see how badly people got screwed over.

Today I checked wikidpedia to get some ideas of what is coming in the future:  more of the characters I liked die, more of the ones I hated lived, or screwed over the characters I liked more.  Some of them just get ignored and do random stupid things for the rest of the series. 

Thanks for all the crap, George.  Maybe I'll get around to finishing the series some decade, or I'll just read all the capsule reviews and get my anger out in one day, rather than wasting the next few weeks.

I hope Kushiel's Dart is a step up from this.

Comments

[spitcurl.livejournal.com]

Arya is a tough cookie. She lasts through all of the books. I'm upset now because the next book will skip her and many others' stories (just as book 4 skipped Jon, Dany, etc.), so the suspense is frustrating. At least you get to read all 4 books at whatever pace you choose! I had to wait, wait, wait...

I could handle the soap opera of Anita Blake, until she a) couldn't make up her mind a 5th or 6th time; and b) the mysteries kept getting more gruesome for no reason; and c) she never, ever invested in a better EDITOR. That made me nuts.

The last gaming I did was a co-DM for the email-based LHKrpg, and a few book and made up characters as PCs/NPCs. Belle Morte was my muse before I even knew there was a Bella Morte band. :) But its been a long time before I've been quite that geeky.