Finally finished!!!!!

Whew!  I did it!  I finally finished A DANCE WITH DRAGONS.  Wow.  This book took me forever to read.  It's not that I didn't like it; I really did.  It's simply that there is SOOOOO much....a ton of characters to remember....a ton of details to remember....a ton of pages to read....just simply so much to remember.  It's certainly not a book to pick up for a simple, quick, easy "summer" read.

When reading this book, the reader has to be focused completely for every moment of reading.  Because I've been so busy and overwhelmed this past year, that make it that much more difficult for me to stay focused and read.  But I've finally done it!  Now on to watch the series!!!!

It reminds me of The Lord of the Rings series as well as the Outlander series.  Both of those have the same types of issues that drive me absolutely crazy:

1.  Way too many characters.  there's no real way to keep up with everyone in the story because there are just SO many characters.  And just when I think that a certain character is minor and not worth paying attention to--so I don't read his/her portions carefully, I realize that said character IS important to the story and was only presented as a minor character to keep me off the scent, so to speak!

2.  Several--many--characters have too many names and/or variations of their names.  I mean, come on!  How many different ways can a narrator refer to the SAME person before the reader no longer cares?!  I'd say by the time I get to the second name, I'm DONE with that character.  I get that people (even characters in stories) can and do have their real names as well as nicknames, but once we get into having other names beyond a nickname, I can't stand it--it's just too much.  Gandalf, for example, is called different names depending on who or which group of peoples he's with.  Arya has so many names now, I don't care about her as much as I used to--and she's my second-favorite female character (2nd only to Dany--who also too many names).  Littlefinger has so many variations to his name and/or title, I have NO idea what I'd ever call him myself if I were to talk to about him--I HATE the name Littlefinger, just so you know.  there is an index at the back of many of the books, but it's so long and has so many names, I still find myself not sure who I'm reading about.

3.  And what about having several characters with names that are so similar it's difficult to tell who is who?!  Boromir.  Faramir.  I mean, come on!!!!  

4.  No real concept of the passage of time.  It appears that several months, if not several years, have passed, but yet there are other details that make it sound as if only a few hours have passed.  It sounds as if Kahl Drogo has been dead "a long time," as Dany says just before her second marriage, but based on the time span of the books, it sounds as if only a few short months have passed.  But obviously quite a long time has gone by because the dragons now not only no longer sit on her shoulders because they're big, but they're out flying around, eating people--including babies and children, and have to be chained up in the belly of a pyramid to keep them from causing more trouble/damage.  How'd we get to so much time passing when it seems as if only a few months have gone by?!  (With the Outlander series, as we move deeper and deeper into the series, only a year passes, yet so much happens, there's NO WAY that only a year has gone by.  To make things worse with that series, Claire and Jaime are in their mid to late forties at the start of the second book in the series when Claire finally goes back in time to spend the rest of her life with Jaime.  People didn't live THAT long four hundred years ago....)

5.  Toooooo much happening.  There is so much going on, I can't keep up with the different plot points.  Obviously, the whole series is about the fight for the Iron Throne, but all the sub-plots and sub-sub-plots and so on are just TOOOO much.  I can't even remember over half of what's going on with so many of them.

6.  It's clear that somehow or another, all the characters are connected, but because there are so many characters and so much happening and no clear passage of time, I can't figure out how they're connected.  They're all just a bunch of characters playing his/her own role without clear evidence how he/she fits in with the whole context.

7.  Martin is obviously working very hard to be sure that he keeps his audience guessing about what is going to happen next, especially who is going to die next.  But rather than surprise that so-and-so dies, I'm just wondering why Martin chose to kill that character at this particular point in time, but even more than that, I'm relieved that that makes one less character for me to worry about keeping up with.

8.  Even though a character dies, he/she plays a vital role in the story as a whole because the other characters keep bringing him or up or certain characters use the dead as their motivation for their actions.  

9.  It's violent.  I don't really like all the violence.  It's just not someting I enjoy.  I know I love action movies, but if you notice when I watch them, I typically turn away when there is violence on the screen.

10.  LOTS of sex.  Every time I turn a page, it seems like, characters are either having sex or talking about sex and using sexual language and/or sexual innuendo.  It gets old quickly.  

11.  I hate foul language and there's a lot of it--especially THAT word.  I don't want to see it or hear it.

12.  Each book is no less than 800 pages long, and that's a short guess on the length of the books.  It's one thing if one book here and there in a series runs long, but when each and every book runs that long, it's just TOOO MUCH.

I can't just quit reading the book or the series.  I've come too far to give up.  What's even more overwhelming is the fact that Martin plans on publishing two more books for the series, but the fact that he's still writing them and has NO idea when they'll be ready.....UGH!!!!