I gave up on the song of ice and fire series of books. The periodic deaths of major characters finally got to me. Through out the first book, I identified myself with the Ned Stark character and off went his head. Over the next two books, I followed the Rob Stark, Catelyn Stark and Tyrion Lannister storylines with interest and both the Starks are dead at the end of book 3. The minor characters literally drop down like flies. I found no other character good enough to read the rest of the series and make me suffer through all the inevitable deaths.
But I liked a few things about the books. The first book showed the world from point of view of a few characters. As the books progressed, addition of new points of view made me walk in villains shoes so to speak. It made me look at the previous events in a different light. All the rumour and half truths floating in the world created a game where I can try to figure out what is happening to the other characters before their point of view is shown. All the manoeuvring at the royal court was interesting as well.
There are a few things I did not like. The series felt too much like real life. The underlying philosophy seemed to be "Life is unfair. This is not a place for the meek and the good". Given the medieval setting, I tried to deal with that. My big gripe is that there does not seem to be a central plot point. It feels like a daily soap that can go on forever. There are a lot of storylines and they just keep diverging. There is no Gandalf like character who has a handle on things and can force a conclusion to the series. Any character who has a chance to grow into the leader gets killed quickly. I definitely did not get the big picture at the end of three books. Going by the summary of the next two books on wikipedia, it will be a challenge to satisfactorily conclude the series in 7 books. I will pick up the series again only after the series has concluded. The risk of being suckered is too high now.
