It's been so long since I read the last one that I can't even remember what's going on. And I can't be bothered to re-read the whole thing to prep for the next one.

George made me wait too long and I really no longer care. Eventually I'll bingewatch my way through the tv show, but I'm not sure I give a damn about the books.

Pacing in serialized fiction is tricky. There's the new model now where they put out an entire season's worth of episodes all at once, like A Series of Unfortunate Events or House of Cards. But I can't imagine series I loved like West Wing or Buffy working like that, the week of anticipating the next episode is part of the mystique.

When lighter stuff gets syndicated for tv, a new episode every day, it's perfect pacing for things like Robotech or, uhh, Baywatch.

Anyway I agree, GRRM took too long between books. And yes yes he's not our bitch, but so yeah, he lost the thread and wandered off to do other things, and we did the same. The HBO series is what I'm counting on for closure, either to goad Martin to finish, or far more likely Benioff and Weiss will do a version of the ending themselves.