Thrones

A Feast for Crows
A Dance with Dragons 
by George R R Martin
So I made it through the entire sequence so far. What a journey! Books four and five run parallel, covering the same time period from the viewpoint of different characters, until about halfway through book five, where time catches up with itself and moves forward once again. I'd sped through the first three books, but book four found me slowing down, skipping pages, and losing interest. Partly because it doesn't deal with the characters I am interested in, and partly because it is just so slow. But book five picks up in interest again, and moves things on at a (slightly) swifter pace. And then (Why George, why?) it leaves half of the characters on terrible cliffhangers and the reader thirsting to know what happens next. It will be interesting to see how the television series adapts these monsters, and whether Martin actually manages to get the next book out before time - in one way or another - catches up to him.