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[el dogo]

Part four in the behemoth A Song of Ice and Fire series. It took four or five years to write, and Martin still had to split it in two halves because of the amount of ground he needed to cover. (Part five, A Dance With Dragons, is supposed to be out in late 2007. I'm skeptical.)

This is kind of the awkward middle child of the series. Not that it's disappointing, not at all. It just kind of lacks the shocking, jaw-dropping moments of the earlier books. And as the middle part of a (projected) seven book series, I realize it kind of has to be less cataclysmic. Middle parts are hard, in his afterword, Martin succinctly described writing Crows as "a bitch." Still, I feel kind of bummed-out and selfish, since all of my favorite characters are off-screen until the next book comes out. I know Martin has reasons for splitting up the story this way, but really now, all of my favorite characters are on hold?

It's certainly not like the drama has stopped. A major character graduates from merely sinister to full-blown monsterhood. A new menace that won't be seen as such arises. And the seeds of a truly disturbing alliance may have been sown.

I still think this series is on a pace to be one of the true classics of popular fiction of any sort, let alone of the sword and sorcery genre. What frustrations I have are due to the long, long time this series will take to unfold. I'm actually fairly scared Martin is going to die before he finishes it. He's not exactly a spring chicken.