Maybe if e-lending takes off, people could go to a coffee shop and read the shop’s own selection of e-books while they were within range of the wifi. There’s something almost charming about the owners of a small business choosing books that will attract customers…maybe it’d be enough to distinguish one Starbucks from another.

Brienne, Jaime, Cersei, Arya, Sansa, Sam, Lady Stoneheart, etc., are all the last people standing after the end of their respective conflicts. Plot-wise, Feast for Crows is assembling the chess pieces for the next act in the series. In terms of character — bad things are happening, because people are desperate, starving and alone.

The thing Martin said he meant to do when he set out to write these books was to show what war (and life) was really like in medieval times — the tropes of high fantasy are really turned on their head in the series.

We never saw the fallout from war in Tolkien’s books, or just about any fantasy series I can think of. But with A Song of Ice and Fire, I really appreciate that we have gotten to see it. Yeah, the Lannisters won the war, but what did they win? I think it’s worth exploring, despite how depressing it may be.

Is it misery porn? Well, it’s not as bleak as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which is pretty much full blown misery porn (but it has a point, too). It is, I think, thematically consistent with what’s come before. And there are bright points in the story — the end of Sam’s journey, Jaime’s continued development as a man seeking redemption, Sansa’s continued schooling in the game of thrones. Brienne’s arc is the bleakest, Cersei’s, as well, but I honestly think Cersei deserves what happens to her.

I’ll withhold judgement on the way the series is going until I finish Dance with Dragons and get the entire story that was originally intended for Feast for Crows.

Thanks for writing!